Introducing open debate engine shortcodes

Introducing open debate engine shortcodes
By Greg Schnippel, February 14, 2015

We have updated the Open Debate Engine system to add 'shortcodes' for simplified linkage and embedding of each of the core objects in this debate. Shortcodes are a common convention in publishing software that allows users to insert text or other objects with a few inline commands. The four shortcodes now live are:

  • Embed: Embed an object inline

    USAGE: [EMBED=<Object ID>]
     
  • Footnote: Insert an embeded hover reference to a news article or citation

    USAGE: [FOOTNOTE=<Object ID>]Footnote #[/FOOTNOTE]
     
  • Link: Insert a hover link to a particular object (ex. news article or argument)

    USAGE: [LINK=<Object ID>]YOUR TEXT HERE[/LINK]
     
  • Definition:  Insert a hover link to define a term in text.

    [DEFINITION=Keyword]YOUR TEXT HERE[/DEFINITION]

You may have already seen some of these in action already on our evidence quotes. While entering quotes, we have tried to cross-reference existing citations that the quotes are relying on if they already exist in the system using the [FOOTNOTE] shortcode. For example, this quote references a couple of citations already indexed (hover over the bold blue footnotes)

[EMBED=699]

To use a shortcode, you need to know either the object ID or the keyword you want to refer to. The object ID can be found in the URL of the item you want to refer to. For example, if I wanted to embed this citation:

http://unclosdebate.org/citation/1954/testimony-andrew-holland-united-states-arctic-nation-opportunities-high-north-december

I would need to use the EMBED shortcode with the object ID '1954' from the URL which would give us:

[EMBED=1954]

Of course this is less than ideal way to reference these objects and no one wants to keep track of dozens of object IDs so we are also working on simplified lookup tools and ways to drag and drop these entries from your bookmarks. At the moment, we haven't opened up any of these features except for our editors but will be releasing these shortly with the new case builder tools. In the meantime, we will continue to work through the existing objects and use these shortcodes to add as many links as available.

For more information and many more examples on these shortcodes, see our new guide in the documentation.