Shortcodes to Enhance Functionality

Suffusion comes armed with a good set of very useful short codes. You can use these in your posts or widgets to display dynamic content as required.

What is a Short Code?

A short code is a macro code introduced in WordPress 2.5. When inserted into regular content, the short code executes a piece of associated PHP code that prints out specific output. The most common example of short codes is the “gallery” short code provided by WordPress out of the box.

The following is the list of short codes provided within Suffusion:

Short code: [[suffusion-categories]]
Brief Description: Used to print a list of categories.
Parameters and Usage: This takes most if not all parameters of the WP call for wp_list_categories().
Use Case: If you want to display the list of categories from within a post. Since you can use most options of wp_list_categories, this is as powerful as running a query in the back-end.
Short code: [[suffusion-the-year]]
Brief Description: Prints the current year.
Parameters and Usage: This doesn’t take any parameters. Simply invoking [[suffusion-the-year]] prints the current year. This is generated by the short code: [suffusion-the-year].
Use Case: If you want the current year to be shown in the copyright.
Short code: [[suffusion-site-link]]
Brief Description: Prints the link to your site.
Parameters and Usage: This doesn’t take any parameters. Simply invoking [[suffusion-site-link]] prints the title of your site and links it to your site. This is generated by the short code: [suffusion-site-link].
Use Case: If you want to print the title of your site with a URL linking to it.
Short code: [[suffusion-the-author]]
Brief Description: Used to print information about the author of a post.
Parameters and Usage: This takes one parameter, display. Depending on the value of display certain information is printed about the author of a post. The display parameter could have any of the following values:
- author – Displays the display name of the author of the post
- modified-author – Displays the display name of the author who modified the post
- description – Displays the biographical information set in the author’s profile
- login – Displays the login name of the author of the post
- first-name – Displays the first name of the author of the post
- last-name – Displays the last name of the author of the post
- nickname – Displays the nickname of the author of the post
- id – Displays the id of the author of the post
- url – Displays the URL of the author of the post. This is only the URL, hence it needs to be suitably combined with the name of the author for a meaningful display
- email – Displays the email of the author of the post
- link – Displays the name of the author of the post, linking to the author’s URL
- aim – Displays the AIM details of the author of the post. For this to work the AIM account details should be set in the user profile section of the author.
- yim – Displays the Yahoo details of the author of the post. For this to work the Yahoo account details should be set in the user profile section of the author.
- posts – Displays the number of posts written by the author of the post.
- posts-url – Displays the URL for all posts by the author. Since this is only a URL, it might need to be combined with some more meaningful text for a better display.
- twitter – Displays the link to the Twitter URL of the author of the post. Requires you to set up Twitter as a user contact method from Blog Features → User Profiles
- facebook – Displays the link to the Facebook URL of the author of the post. Requires you to set up Facebook as a user contact method from Blog Features → User Profiles
- technorati – Displays the link to the Technorati URL of the author of the post. Requires you to set up Technorati as a user contact method from Blog Features → User Profiles
- linkedin – Displays the link to the LinkedIn URL of the author of the post. Requires you to set up LinkedIn as a user contact method from Blog Features → User Profiles
- flickr – Displays the link to the Flickr URL of the author of the post. Requires you to set up Flickr as a user contact method from Blog Features → User Profiles
- delicious – Displays the link to the Del.icio.us URL of the author of the post. Requires you to set up Del.icio.us as a user contact method from Blog Features → User Profiles
- digg – Displays the link to the Digg URL of the author of the post. Requires you to set up Digg as a user contact method from Blog Features → User Profiles
- stumbleupon – Displays the link to the StumbleUpon URL of the author of the post. Requires you to set up StumbleUpon as a user contact method from Blog Features → User Profiles
- reddit – Displays the link to the Reddit URL of the author of the post. Requires you to set up Reddit as a user contact method from Blog Features → User Profiles
The following invocation of the short code:
```
[[suffusion-the-author display='author']] has written <a href='[[suffusion-the-author display='posts-url']]'> [[suffusion-the-author display='posts']] posts</a>. 
He can be followed on <a href='[[suffusion-the-author display='twitter']]'>Twitter</a>.
```
produces:

[suffusion-the-author display=’author’] has written [suffusion-the-author display=’posts’] posts. He can be followed on Twitter.

Use Case: If you want to insert author-specific information at the bottom of a post, like the number of articles, a brief description etc.
Short code: [[suffusion-the-post]]
Brief Description: Used to print information about a post, like the id, title and permalink.
Parameters and Usage: This takes one parameter, display. Depending on the value of display a certain piece of information is displayed. The following invocation:
```
This post has an id [[suffusion-the-post display='id']]. Its permalink is [[suffusion-the-post display='permalink']] and the title is [[suffusion-the-post display='title']].
```
produces:

This post has an id [suffusion-the-post display=’id’]. Its permalink is [suffusion-the-post display=’permalink’] and the title is [suffusion-the-post display=’title’].

Use Case: If you want to insert post-specific information at the bottom of a post.
Short code: [[suffusion-login-url]]
Brief Description: Prints the login URL for the site.
Parameters and Usage: This takes no parameters.
Use Case: If you don’t want the Meta widget, but want to show a login URL
Short code: [[suffusion-logout-url]]
Brief Description: Prints the logout URL for the site.
Parameters and Usage: This takes no parameters.
Use Case: If you don’t want the Meta widget, but want to show a logout URL
Short code: [[suffusion-loginout]]
Brief Description: Prints the URL to login if logged out or logout if logged in.
Parameters and Usage: This takes no parameters.
Use Case: If you don’t want the Meta widget, but want to show a URL to logout if a user is logged in and vice versa.
Short code: [[suffusion-register]]
Brief Description: Prints the URL to register as a member of the site.
Parameters and Usage: This takes no parameters.
Use Case: If you don’t want the Meta widget, but want to show a registration URL
Short code: [[suffusion-adsense]]
Brief Description: Prints AdSense code based on specified parameters.
Parameters and Usage: This takes four parameters: client, slot, width and height. It inserts the corresponding ad when invoked. I don’t have an AdSense account, so I cannot demonstrate this, though.
Use Case: If you want to insert an advertisement in the body of a post.
Short code: [[suffusion-tag-cloud]]
Brief Description: Prints a tag cloud.
Parameters and Usage: This takes three parameters: smallest, largest and number, respectively indicating the smallest font size (default 8), the largest font size (default 22) and the number of tags to display (default 45).
Use Case: If you are not satisfied with the default “Tag Cloud” widget and would like more control over how many tags to display and in what sizes. You could use this in a text widget too, to simulate the tag-cloud widget.
Short code: [[suffusion-widgets]]
Brief Description: Prints an ad hoc widget area, based on specified parameters.
Parameters and Usage: To use this short code you first have to go to Appearance → Widgets, then fill in the widgets you want in the widget areas titled Ad Hoc Widgets 1, Ad Hoc Widgets 2, … Ad Hoc Widgets 5. You don’t need to put widgets in all of them – just put them in the ones you want to use. The short code takes 3 parameters – id, container and container_class. You could invoke the short code thus:
```
[[suffusion-widgets id='2' container_class='custom-class']]
```
This prints the widget area for Ad Hoc Widgets 2 and assigns the widget area a class called ‘custom-class’. If you pass the container parameter with a value 'false' then the widgets are not put in any container (and the container_class parameter is ignored).
Use Case: If you want to display some widgets from within a post.
Short code: [audio]
Brief Description: Lets you embed an audio player linking to a file.
Parameters and Usage: To use this short code just pass the URL of the MP3 file that you want to embed. You could invoke the short code thus:
```
[audio http://wpcom.files.wordpress.com/2007/01/mattmullenweg-interview.mp3]
```
The player is shown as follows:
Short code: [[suffusion-multic] and [suffusion-column]
Brief Description: This was introduced in version 3.6.0 to support multi-column layouts. These short codes are dependent on each other.
Parameters and Usage: The [[suffusion-multic] short code takes no parameters and is used as a container indicating that you have a multi-column layout within. The [suffusion-column] short code takes the parameter width, which could have values 1, 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 2/3, 3/4, 100, 050, 033, 025, 066 and 075, indicating what fraction of the width is to be taken up by a column. The default is 1. This is how you can use the short code:
```
[[suffusion-multic]
  [suffusion-column width='1/2']A column with 1/2 the total width [/suffusion-column]
  [suffusion-column width='1/4']A column with 1/4 the total width[/suffusion-column]
  [suffusion-column width='1/4']Another column with 1/4 the total width[/suffusion-column]
[/suffusion-multic]]
```
This is how the above looks:

[suffusion-multic] [suffusion-column width=’1/2′]A column with 1/2 the total width[/suffusion-column] [suffusion-column width=’1/4′]A column with 1/4 the total width[/suffusion-column] [suffusion-column width=’1/4′]Another column with 1/4 the total width[/suffusion-column] [/suffusion-multic]
Mind you, WP has a nasty habit of inserting <p> tags at line breaks, so you might have to be careful about stripping out new lines from the above code before using it.

This list will be expanded as more short codes are added to Suffusion.