Shortcode for the shortcode? Any mobile styling suggestions?

  • Resolved davenys

    (@davenys)


    10 years, 10 months ago

    Hi,
    So first of all I am a very amateur coder, my full time job with this company is as a security engineer. I could really use some forum type opinions and ideas, in addition to some technical issues explained.

    1. So currently (for now, I’ve changed it a few dozen times, THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR THE FLEXIBLE, AWESOME TOOL!!!!) I have the in content menu working the way I want, but I may change exactly the way I want it to work… and it’s on I think 12 pages now and I barely started to build the site.

    My point is that every time I update the menu on the widgets page, then I need to copy and past that into 12 pages in admin area of wordpress.

    Am I missing something? It seems I could create menu1, have that shortcode in those 12 pages, then just update menu1.

    Currently I make changes to the shortcode using assist, then copy/paste the shortcode into the 12 or so pages to update their menu. A lot of work I’d like to avoid.

    2. Again – being an amateur I created some (struggled through creating is a better way to put it) custom CSS to get the menu to look – sort of – the way I like. Is there some menu styling plug in that this plug in works with? I like the hierarchy, and it would be nice to have a mobile friendly option, as well as desktop and tablet viewing options.

    I can email or private message a link to the site. I can’t post the sandbox link publicly until it’s fully published due to vendor agreements.

    Thank you in advance – and again thanks for this Kickin, Rockin, Excellent Tool! (I’m going to donate a few bucks BTW.)

    – Dave

    https://wordpress.org/plugins/custom-menu-wizard/

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)
  • Plugin Author wizzud

    (@wizzud)

    10 years, 10 months ago

    Sounds like what you’re after is a new shortcode attribute, something like
    [cmwizard widget=N/]
    where N is the identifier of an existing widget instance (active or inactive).
    I’ll look into it.

    Meanwhile, have you considered an alternative to putting the CMW shortcode into your content? My immediate thought would be to investigate the possibility of putting in a shortcode that loads the widget itself. This may mean putting the CMW widget (on its own) into an ad-hoc widget area, which an in-content shortcode can then pull in … if you see what I mean.
    I’ll have a look around tomorrow…

    Thread Starter davenys

    (@davenys)

    10 years, 10 months ago

    Sounds like what you’re after is a new shortcode attribute, something like
    [cmwizard widget=N/]
    where N is the identifier of an existing widget instance (active or inactive).
    I’ll look into it.

    Exactly. I think that would do the trick – technically the other settings would make changes on a deeper admin side – so web developers only need to make menu changes on the widgets page.

    Meanwhile, have you considered an alternative to putting the CMW shortcode into your content? My immediate thought would be to investigate the possibility of putting in a shortcode that loads the widget itself. This may mean putting the CMW widget (on its own) into an ad-hoc widget area, which an in-content shortcode can then pull in … if you see what I mean.

    If this is a solution I can use now – then fantastic. But I’m unsure how to make a widget and/or widget area. I’m positive I can figure it out but this would probably add days to my build – I’m doing this alone and prefer not to learn this skill I’ll not likely use again.

    Currently I have CMW in the ‘null’ widget area. I’m not sure if it needs to be there but it didn’t seem logical anywhere else.
    Can I just put instances of CMW in a few different existing widget areas that I’m not using and call up those widget areas?

    I’m learning WP also, and there is SO SO much to learn that it’s hard to know which skills I should learn and which skills are better to pay for a low cost plug-in.

    You didn’t address the styling question… maybe this is an opportunity for you to make a premium paid version with additional features? I’d pay. 🙂

    Thanks again!
    – Dave

    Plugin Author wizzud

    (@wizzud)

    10 years, 10 months ago

    After a quick look round through WordPress plugins, here are a couple of plugins that might be of interest (there are undoubtedly others as well)…

    Widget Shortcode
    This provides a shortcode that pulls in any widget instance. The shortcode to use – in place of the CMW shortcode – is given at the bottom of every widget.

    Stag Custom Sidebars
    This allows you to create custom sidebar(s), into which you can place any widget. Then a shortcode – given at the top of the custom sidebar – will pull that entire sidebar into your content.

    Both work (for me, using instances of CMW) on my WP v4.2.2 installation. The Stag one obviously outputs a bit more HTML than the 1st one, because it pulls in the entire sidebar rather than just a widget, so you get an extra layer of wrapping, but either will probably do the job for you. If forced to state a preference I would possibly plump for the sidebar one – it gives me (as admin) a definite place to put my CMW widget, and the fact that it’s in a sidebar of its own acts as reminder of what I’m doing with it. But functionally (for you), the difference between the 2 is negligible.

    And as I said, these are just 2 that I happened to find by searching the plugin repository.

    Regarding CSS for CMW : I sorry but I don’t provide any styling, and I’ve tried to explain why in other posts : basically everybody would want something slightly different because everyone is using different themes. And even within a theme, people will want separate instances to look slightly different depending on where they’re placed or what they are outputting, etc, etc. It’s an impossible and thankless task to try to provide any sort of styling, so I follow the mantra of “it’s the theme’s job to style, not mine”. I provide enough configuration parameters to enable as much CSS customisation as might be desired, and I will try to help with specific problems if possible, but that’s about as far as I will go.

    Thread Starter davenys

    (@davenys)

    10 years, 10 months ago

    And… on that note… I bought you a cold brew! Check your Paypal!

    These tools not only help with your menu – they are going to save me TONS of time with the site build… simply great, all of these tools should really be part of WP Core IMHO.

    It’s people like you that make people like me look like a genius.

    🙂

    Thanks!
    – Dave

    Plugin Author wizzud

    (@wizzud)

    10 years, 10 months ago

    Thanks, it’s much appreciated!
    I will be making an update to CMW soon – once I’ve sorted out the documentation – which will include the ability discussed above, ie. for a shortcode to pull in a configured widget instance using just the widget id. Meantime, I hope one of those plugins (or similar) helped you out.
    Regards.

    Thread Starter davenys

    (@davenys)

    10 years, 10 months ago

    Hi Wizzud,

    I found a live working menu that is exactly what I am hoping to achieve here:
    https://studio.envato.com/explore/infographic-design

    I have a similar output currently using:

    [cmwizard menu=39 title=”What We Do:” branch=current allow_all_root=1 depth=4 depth_rel_current=1 ancestors=-2 ancestor_siblings=-2 exclude_level=”1″ title_from=”current” title_linked=1 siblings=1 container_id=”mycontainer_id” container_class=”mycontainer_class” menu_class=”mymenu_class”/]

    (I’ve replaced some identifiers for anonymity.)

    Is what I have the same, and the rest just styling?

    Thanks,

    – David

    Plugin Author wizzud

    (@wizzud)

    10 years, 10 months ago

    I’m going to assume that we’re talking about the categories menu at the top of the left sidebar (on the quoted site).

    (a) they appear to show all root items
    (b) only the sub-menu of the “current” branch appears to be present
    (c) they have classes indicating the “current” path
    (d) they only appear to have 2 levels of menu

    Those could be covered by…
    [cmwizard menu=NN branch=current start_at="1" include_level="1"/]
    …and a bit of CSS could provide the emboldening, indentation, and horizontal divider (but it depends on your menu structure!).
    Your other settings are partly to do with HTML format (ids. classes, etc), and partly to do (presumably) with the actual structure of your custom menu (menu id 39) – about which I know nothing. I can only guess that your equivalent (of their categories menu) has a level (or more) above it that you don’t want output.

    Basically, I can’t definitively say “Yes, it’s the same”, but I can say that the final “look” will be down to the styling you apply, yes.
    I’m sorry if that comes across as not very helpful, but CMW’s “assist” is the best way to check the resultant items of any configuration.

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

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