Use of do_shortcode instead of the_content

I believe the author was warning against using apply_filters in situations where a plugin might add code to the content and you would not want that code in the location you are applying the filters.

If you want to use wpautop and do_shortcode instead, you would create a shortcode to enclose the parts of the text that you want to show in the widget and format what it returns with wpautop. Then the owners of the site would just need to remember to enclose the text with the shortcode.

I have not tested this, but if your shortcode is ‘[widget-text]` a filter function like this should work:

function widget_text_func($atts,$content='') {
   return wpautop($content);
}
add_filter('widget_text','widget_text_func');

Thanks vtxyzzy for getting back to me.

I have never used shortcodes before, so please bear with me.

Because I wasn’t sure about creating a shortcode or where to put the function I took an example from the wordpress codex and copied the following into my functions.php file as a trial:

function foobar_func( $atts ){
return “foo and bar”;
}
add_shortcode( ‘foobar’, ‘foobar_func’ );

function bartag_func( $atts ) {
extract( shortcode_atts( array(
‘foo’ => ‘something’,
‘bar’ => ‘something else’,
), $atts ) );

return “foo = {$foo}”;
}
add_shortcode( ‘bartag’, ‘bartag_func’ );

I expected that when I inserted [foobar] and [bartag] into my code that I would get back something other than [foobar] and [bartag] – but that is all that showed on the page!

Is the functions.php file the place to put the code and, if so, what else should I have inserted for this to return something other than the name of the shortcode please?

Thank you so much

The functions.php file is the correct place to put the code for the functions.

Where did you put the [foobar] tag? Shortcodes should normally go in the text of a Page or Post.

I just put it in the source code for this page:

https://www.capacar.org.au/word/?page_id=180

As you can see it isn’t doing what one would expect. I just put in [foobar]. Is that correct?

Thanks again.

in HTML view?

I originally put it in using the Source tab in CKEditor. I have just gone in and re-entered it using the HTML view, just in case, but it has made no difference.