Use name or id but NOT the title folks

As per step 7 on the front page: To find the id of your chosen widget you can either

1)
enter some garbage in the shortcode [do_widget wtf] and the plugin will offer you a try debug (if you are admin and logged in that is)
Click on the “try debug”

2) else add ?do_widget_debug=1 to the url of the page where the [do_widget] shortcode is

either way you should see a list of stuff. It will say something like the widgets in “widgets for shortcode” are:
xxx-n
xxxxxx-n
xxx-xxxxx-n

and it will list the ids of your widget – the n’s are numbers that distinguish multiple instanaces of the same widget. xxx’s are the abbreviated names of the widgets.

as per screenshot 5
https://s.w.org/plugins/amr-shortcode-any-widget/screenshot-5.png?r=884849

Those are the ids you should use. They look like this:

meta-3
tag-cloud-2

Hello Anmari,

Thanks for coding this plugin. I’ve gotten it to work for me, and I hope I can put it to good use. It is very clever, and I spent some time looking for something like this.

However, I found the instructions for getting the plugin ID to be confusing.

You wrote:
1) enter some garbage in the shortcode [do_widget wtf] and the plugin will offer you a try debug (if you are admin and logged in that is)
Click on the “try debug”

In a word, “No.” There was no offer to debug and no “try debug” button.

Elsewhere, you suggested hovering over a widget in the widget area to get the ID. That works no better than the suggestion listed above.

You also wrote:

2) else add ?do_widget_debug=1 to the url of the page where the [do_widget] shortcode is [–]
either way you should see a list of stuff

That did work, but it’s really clunky.

You also wrote this:

Lots of effort went into writing up detailed instructions both on the main wordpress page and in the settings page. Please read them before posting a support question – it would be more respectful of peoples time

I’m sure you did put in a lot of time into this. I also put in a lot of time trying to figure out how to use this plugin. After much frustration, I did.

I googled “wordpress assigned ID,” and browsed through your site(s). Then, I happened upon the above message. When I read those words, it felt yucky to me. Not everyone who has trouble understanding your documentation is a blithering idiot.

Maybe you could find some way of making the ID’s more evident by incorporating a bit of your debug code in a future version of this plugin.

<p>Regards,</p>

Alan OldStudent
The unexamined life is not worth living—Socrates
Gracias a la vida, que me ha dado tanto—Violeta Parra

Did you try following these steps: https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/amr-shortcode-any-widget/installation/ ?

I don’t really know how to make it any simpler to get going. Feel free to contribute some better user documentation now that you have ‘figured it out’.

yes the debug output is clunky – it is debug stuff, not instructions.

No not everyone is a blithering idiot – I never said they were – you did.

I simply asked that they read what’s available before posting a question. A lot of people do not try to help themselves, but think it is quicker to write a post and expect a quick free bit of consulting from a free plugin provider and expect that developer to spend even more of their time reading their question and advising them about their particular situation. Or they have very little idea of what they are doing in the first place.

This is by far the best (and most useful) plugin ever. It works perfectly once you figure it out, and the ‘debug’ method detailed above also works perfectly. Thank you, thank you! I’ll post a link to the site I’m designing once it’s done and live. Seriously, this plugin saved me so, so much work.