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:
- 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!
- 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.
- 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.
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