herb miller

There is a plugin called shortcake, available from GitHub, which has been touted as an easier way to create shortcodes.

Overview

The shortcake UI plugin provides a user interface for interacting with shortcodes. In some respects it’s similar to the oik shortcode generation logic, which has been in the oik base plugin since v0.3 ( Feb 2011 ). But the main difference is the way it behaves when you’re using the Visual editor. It attempts to expand the shortcodes and display a preview. I’ve been working with the plugin to see how and when to integrate oik based shortcodes with the shortcake UI. On the whole the results have been promising. But I have quite a few requirements, which I’ll need to raise, and possibly help develop, before I’m satisfied with the solution.

Requirements

This is a summary of the requirements I intend to raise against shortcake. I’m going to publish this post now, then change each list item to a link when I’ve raised the issue.

1. Display shortcode help and name on Insert Post Element Issue:120
2. Support more options than dashicons for “images” Issue:121
3. Treat default values differently from placeholder Issue:122 – CLOSED – invalid; my programming error.
4. Single or multiple post selection list Issue:123
5. Deferred loading of shortcode list, syntax and selection lists Issue:124
6. Don’t process nested content Issue:126
7. No preview for some codes Issue:127
8. Support positional (unnamed) parameters Issue:128
9. Enclosed shortcodes Issue:129
10. Extended select – alternate parameter values Issue:130
11. TinyMCE button / Quicktag rather than Add Media Issue:131
12. Ability to mark parameters as required Issue:132
13. Support parameter name aliases Issue:133
14. Support plugin extensions to the shortcode parameters Issue:134
15. Support parameters which may also be ‘content’ Issue:135
16. Control sort sequence of shortcodes Issue:136
17. Filter / search mechanism for shortcodes Issue:137
18. Incorporate “catalog” functionality, similar to the oik shortcode server Issue:138
19. Examples – can’t be bothered to raise this one.

See also

My prototype work is available for download from oik-plugins and Github

• oik v2.5-alpha.0130 or higher is required for integration with shortcake
• bbboing – demonstrates a textarea field

I’m still working on support for other shortcodes

• oik-sc-help – more help for shortcodes
• diy-oik – Do It Yourself shortcodes

Reference

• oik-plugins.com/shortcode_example/bw_codes-ordered-shortcode-name – Using the [bw_code bw_codes] shortcode to display all the currently active shortcodes
• Shortcake – the new shortcode UI plugin
• The original shortcode UI example