Category: News

Shortcode Mapper Plugin Feature: WP Job Manager by Automattic

A month had passed since we’ve released the newest feature of Page Builder Sandwich – the Shortcode Mapper. We’ve integrated more than 100 plugins (144 plugins to be exact) regardless of the number of shortcodes they have. It was a tedious task but we did it!

In order to let you know more about it, we’ve started featuring the plugins fully integrated with Page Builder Sandwich. First stop: WP Job Manager by Automattic.

WP Job Manager at a glance

Basically WP Job Manager serves as the plugin for you to generate money – either you have a client who needs a job board function for their website or you simply found yourself needing more people in your growing company.

What makes this plugin a very good-buy would be that your possible employees are not restricted to using their laptops. WP Job Manager has a mobile support feature that makes revenue flow. It is also easy to use with a search and filter interface. Along with it is the job and company information, which means no need to search the validity of the company. In one job search, everything is provided.

If you need jobs filled in, WP Job Manager makes accepting applications an easy thing.

Page Builder Sandwich Makes Using WP Job Manager Easier

You don’t have to squint your eyes and squeeze out info from anything to connect the page builder and the plugin. Here are 3 things why these two are compatible with each other:

Overview of how Page Builder Sandwich and WP Job Manager work together

Insert job shortcodes faster

PBS Shortcode Mapper detected 6 shortcodes used in the plugin, and we’ve integrated them all. Each shortcode has different arguments which allow you to display a job search form, or specifics of a job placement. Each shortcode’s details are available in their site’s shortcode reference. Now you won’t have to check the docs on how to tweak these shortcodes, all the shortcodes and their attributes are presented in PBS complete with descriptions.

Available shortcodes from WP Job Manager

Jobs Shortcode Attributes

It works with any theme

Using Page Builder Sandwich as your page builder editor, by default, does not destroy the theme that you’ve chosen to use. Plus to ensure total website optimization, we’ve created the PBS Shortcode Mapper. Same principle goes with the WP Job Manager! Astoundify, one of the themes developers in ThemeForest, supports the said plugin in their Listify – WordPress Directory Theme. For more themes with WP Job Manager fully integrated, look into their official list.

Manage jobs in the frontend

Lessening the effort of switching between frontend and backend plus refreshing the page to see the changes made is the thing that we are against. With PBS, you can edit the jobs you picked without checking the backend, you will also be able to edit the plugin’s settings while editing your page. Without PBS, users will have to exert more effort, and it requires too much time that could be allotted for developing other WordPress projects. This feature of WP Job Manager is the one we like the most!

Final thoughts

Being built by the same company who created WordPress.com, this plugin has already the advantage of being on the spotlight. But it also bears a lot of expectation, from WordPress developers to loyal WordPress enthusiasts. So far, it met everyone’s needs – as far as light-weight job-board functionality speaking. WordPress developers liked the plugin so much that they even made extensions to enhance the utility of the plugin.

More plugins would be featured in the coming weeks! If you have suggestions who and what we should write next, leave a comment below.

See you soon!

September 20, 2016
Where Things Get a Little Technical: How We Made Our Version of Shortcode Mapping Happen
On the previous article, we’ve discussed the basics of shortcode mapping and how you can get access to its sweet benefits. We’ve decided to split the article featuring the Page Builder Sandwich version of Shortcode Mapping, as the following write-up may get a little more technical.

Below are more in-depth descriptions of the inner workings of our shortcode mapping feature, and how we got it to work.

An Automated Process

In order to decide which plugins to include in the shortcode mapper, we built an automated script that will gather the top plugins in the WordPress plugin directory based on the following criteria:
- Within the 1,000 popular, top-rated and updated plugins,With at least 4,000 active installs,
- With at least 4,000 active installs,
- With at least 20 ratings, and;
- With at least a 3-star average rating
We run this query daily against the WordPress plugin directory. These filters ensure that we get a list of good quality plugins that a lot of people use. During the time this was written, this criteria resulted in 800 plugins. That’s a lot. Like, a lot.

Some of the most popular plugins detected for shortcode mapping.

We then run a series of automated checks on each plugin’s source code to find out whether it contains any shortcodes, and then we try and find all of those shortcodes, including all their attributes. Crunching the data, this resulted in over 2,000 shortcodes. Double woah. Detected shortcodes are then inputted into the shortcode mapping database for manual inspection.

By the end of this process, we would end up with a huge list of plugins, and what their possible shortcodes are. It’s now a matter of cleaning this data up to make sure everything’s correct.

A Manual Process

This is probably the hardest part of the whole mapping system. Plugin code comes in different forms and sizes, not all shortcodes are automatically detected by our scripts. Even though the WordPress Codex says to use the function `shortcode_atts` to filter a shortcode’s attributes, this is only a recommendation and not everyone does it. There is also no sure-fire way to check the innards of a shortcode when a plugin is installed.

To so make sure that we get all the shortcodes and their attributes right, we created a front end area dedicated to editing shortcodes and attributes and is built using AngularJS and Bootstrap.

Bootstrap & AngularJS interface for fixing up all the mapped shortcodes.

We’ll have to manually go through each and every plugin and check their shortcode documentation and make sure that all the data we have is correct.

Even though this is painstakingly tedious, there are some bright sides to having an automated process:
- According to our early stats, only around 1 in every 2 plugins have shortcodes.
- Half of the detected shortcodes have no attributes (but a portion of this may be false positives)
- By getting only good quality plugins, most likely they have shortcode documentation
When all of a plugin’s shortcodes have been checked, only then will the server start distributing the shortcode mappings of that plugin to the users.

A Rest API Call

The last piece of the puzzle is the plugin itself. The concept here is simple: find out what plugins are active, what theme the site is using and what shortcodes are available, then ask the shortcode mapping database whether it has mappings. For this we created a custom WP REST API endpoint that all clients ping to get their latest shortcode mappings.

The Future: Crowdsourcing

Manually checking each plugin requires a lot of time and effort. Once the shortcode mapping platform is stable, we plan on opening up shortcode mapping to everyone. This means that everyone can help out in adding shortcodes.

You might be thinking, “why would I help map out shortcodes? What’s in it for me?” Well, a few things come into mind on why people would want to help out:
1. If you have created a plugin, and we haven’t caught it yet because of the criteria above, (and it’s in the WordPress plugin directory) then you can add the mappings yourself. Your plugin would become fully supported by PBS!
2. Since we’ll only be dealing with those in the WordPress plugin directory in the automated process, premium plugin & theme authors won’t become included. So if you have one, then you can also your shortcode mappings for those.
3. And for the non-plugin creators, we can reward those who help. To make shortcode mapping an enticing endeavor, we can reward happy helpers with a personal license, or an upgrade to a premium license of PBS!
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The shortcode mapping functionality will be out for our customers tentatively on August 12 August 15 August 16, 2016. Not all shortcodes will be mapped by this time (our estimate is maybe 100 plugins), but mapping will be continuously done and customers will get them as soon as new ones roll out.

Sign up to our newsletter to get news on shortcode mapping, when we’ll release it, and when we open shortcode mapping to the public!
August 8, 2016
Shortcode Mapping: How PBS Will Support 800+ Plugins & 2,000+ Shortcodes
When I started getting further into software development and WordPress, I noticed that not a lot of page builders I come across with have that “page builder standard” I was looking for: fast, easy, convenient.

Page Builder Sandwich, then, was created with the goal of having a builder meet these same standards.

I wanted- and still want it– to be the best page builder out there, and the best way I could accomplish that, I figured, was to add in features in a way in which page building becomes helpful and accessible to everyone –developers and noobs alike.

I’d like to note though, that I didn’t simply create PBS with the intent of merely bombarding it with features just for the sake of it.

I want to add in features that people would want to work with; features that hopefully, would make the experience of page building feel a little bit more like magic.

These past few weeks, the PBS team has added in a map element, and a tabs element as well.

Now, it’d come off as a pretty easy and plain routine for us to stick to adding in a new element every couple of days.

But I think it’d be better if we take it to the next level; to take a bigger leap, do something more drastic, something drizzled with a little more awesomesauce.

And so we came up with an idea: “How about we start supporting 800+ plugins along with their 2000+ shortcodes?!?!”

I know what you’re thinking: “How the heck can you support that much shortcodes? Is that even possible?”

Well, the simple answer is yes. Yes it is.

And we’ve managed to achieve this feat through shortcode mapping.

What is Shortcode Mapping?

Shortcode mapping makes building shortcodes more friendly.

Put more simply, shortcode mapping is like letting Page Builder Sandwich memorize all the shortcodes available on your site: their names, descriptions, their attributes, and what each of these attributes do.

The benefits of a system like this are quite hefty:

1.) Since PBS already knows what your shortcodes are, you get to spend less time going through the documentation of each plugin you use, and check how to use their shortcodes.

2. ) In other words: Say goodbye to the grueling task of manually typing in your shortcodes!

3.) With shortcode mapping, you can also say goodbye to manually checking post type ID’s. How? PBS can give you a list of all your contact forms through a drop-down list, so instead of looking for ID’s while on admin mode, you can pick from the list we made instead.

4.) You’ll get to use dropdowns, colorpickers, image uploaders, and even number sliders when adjusting shortcode attributes.

5.) Overall faster page building time!

Shortcode mapping isn’t new though, and a bunch of page builders already have them. What makes ours different, though?

How Shortcode Mapping Works in Other Page Builders

Each person/site does their own shortcode mapping.

Other page builders have a dedicated admin page for shortcode mapping. You go inside your admin page, and then their admin page. You put in your shortcode, edit a number of text fields, then hit save. Finally, when you go to your page builder editor, the shortcode is now there in element list.

In this scenario, the burden of shortcode mapping is then left to you, the user. If you want all your shortcodes mapped completely with all the attributes (and with the pretty colorpickers and other stuff), you’ll have to make sure to input every single detail of each and every shortcode.

What’s more, all your mappings only reside on your site. So when the times comes that you need to work on another site, you’ll have to copy your mappings all over again. Additionally, if and when you install a new plugin that has shortcodes, then you’re going to have to map those too.

How Shortcode Mapping Works in Page Builder Sandwich

Shortcode mappings are shared across all users.

Unlike the norm, shortcode mapping in Page Builder Sandwich is done on a global scale. The most used and popular plugins are gathered first, and all their shortcode mappings are created and updated in a central area. These will then spread out to all users depending on what they have installed. In other words, PBS studies and reviews all the shortcodes you have, including your activated plugins. Afterwards, it gives you the mapping of basically everything you need.

This gives us a lot of sweet benefits:
1. Maximum coverage. Since we’ll be mapping out the shortcodes of the popular plugins, PBS will be able to support a majority of the shortcodes available on your site.
2. Constant and frequent additions, updates and corrections. And since it’s in a central area, changes can be made quickly, and can be disseminated to all users.
3. It basically works like magic. Let’s say you just installed a new plugin. Then you activate it, all mappings for its shortcodes will automatically get sent to you right away.
4. Gone are the days when you have to personally map shortcodes yourself. PBS will do that for you.
5. Your site remains lean and fast, and will only contain shortcode mappings that are relevant to you.
6. Plugin zip size remains small. Even though PBS supports thousands of shortcodes, the plugin file size is still small. Your site and your backups remain small too!
In case you’re interested in reading into how we made all of this possible, we actually have a second part to this article in which things might start sounding a little more technical (if that’s your drift).

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You can also opt to sign up to our mailing list, which will automatically notify you when we officially release this feature, (you can get future updates from us too, if you want). The shortcode mapping functionality will be out for our customers tentatively on August 12 August 15 2016. Not all shortcodes will be mapped by this time (our estimate is maybe 100 plugins), but mapping will be continuously done and customers will get them as soon as new ones roll out.

So sign up to our newsletter to get news on shortcode mapping, when we’ll release it, and when we open shortcode mapping to the public! Until then, we hope you enjoy this new feature of ours, and that you have fun exploring it!
August 8, 2016
Easily Add Email Newsletter Signup Forms

Adding an email newsletter sign up form to your site is a great way to grow your website’s following and to keep your website visitors interested in your site or product. And now you can easily add and customize newsletter sign up forms directly in your designs.

New in Page Builder Sandwich is the Newsletter Element (check the short gif above). Now you can add a newsletter sign up form for your MailChimp, AWeber or MailPoet newsletter lists directly into your designs.

Normally, you’d have to install another plugin, then maybe add a shortcode somewhere, or you’ll have to go through a popup and fill out some fields, or maybe you’ll have to set up a widget for your newsletter sign up form to work. Now, all the complexities of adding newsletter signup forms are gone. Just add the Newsletter Element on your page, add your list API keys and it should work right away.

You can further customize your sign up form by simply clicking on either the email field – where you can change it’s colors, size, border and plenty more, or the button – then add icons, change your button’s size, or even make it show up only when your visitor begins typing in their email address. You can fully customize the looks to suit your design. Do you want the field to change colors when the user is typing? You can easily do that with a color picker. Need a minimalist design and the field is just a border, no problem!

One cool thing is that the newsletter element doesn’t disrupt your user’s flow within your site. Once they subscribe, the page won’t refresh and the signup form will just get replaced with a “thank you” message. This message and it’s colors are customizable as well.

As with the rest of Page Builder Sandwich, you can place your brand new newsletter signup form where ever you like, just drag it inside your rows or in another location.

Are Mailing Lists Important?

The short answer is yes. You know how if you have a Twitter account, other Twitter users can literally “follow” you and they’ll see your Tweets, a mailing list is how your visitors can follow your site through email.

Don’t Have a Mailing List Yet?

If you don’t have a mailing list yet, now is a good time to get started. Getting a newsletter service like MailChimp or AWeber is good since they do the heavy lifting of managing your subscribers and blasting an email to your subscribers easily. They also have newsletter builders that will let you create a newsletter campaign easily. The good thing is they have free plans, so you won’t need to shell out cash in order to try it out.

If you’re more of a I-like-to-handle-it-myself guy or gal, then you might consider using MailPoet. It’s downloadable free from wordpress.org and they have a paid model as well. With MailPoet, you’ll be able to see your subscribers within your dashboard and you can also send out emails from there. It’s easy to use as well and just takes literally less than 5 minutes to fully set up in your site (Yes, I’ve tried).

Learn More About Page Builder Sandwich

March 1, 2016