only shortcode text displayed on sidebar widget

Glad to help, which version of the plugin are you using?

Thank you for your quick reply. Simple Blog Stats Version 20171103
Any known conflicts with your plugin and:
> Stats Counter
> Slimstat Analytics
> Post Views Counter
> Official StatCounter Plugin

That is the latest version. So yes if you are running other plugins, you can do some basic troubleshooting to see if there any conflicts. There should be none, no issues have been reported so far with any of those plugins.

Also maybe useful, there are three locations where you can test/check your post stats:

– Using the shortcode, [sbs_posts]
– Via the SBS Dashboard Widget
– Via the plugin settings page

So your post count should be the same (and correct) in all of those places.

As a test, I deactivated the plugins that I thought might have some conflict with SBS:
> Stats Counter
> Slimstat Analytics
> Post Views Counter
> Official StatCounter Plugin
Problem persisted.
Viewing the information on the SBS settings, everything appeared to be correct.
Using the shortcode: <span class=”sbs-count-posts”>[sbs_posts]</span>
and entering the shortcode both in a text and a Custom HTML widget it fails to solve the [sbs_posts] text only issue.
Fail to see any SBS Dashboard Widget either in the available widgets in Dashboard> Appearance> Widgets or in Dashboard.

Question: If I reset SBS to default, I assume it will delete my current data, however, will it appear again afterwards ??

• This reply was modified 7 years, 4 months ago by abzu2.

Tried restoring to default/saved settings/ deactivated/ activated. Problem persists. ??

Weird. I have uninstalled SBS and re-installed it. Logged out of my site after uninstalling and reinstalled after logging back in. Just in case. Problem still persists.
I have used SBS for some time without any problem on a Child theme of Elucidate. Therefore doubt that it could be a theme related issue. ??

• This reply was modified 7 years, 4 months ago by abzu2.

Think I figured this out. By default, WordPress does not execute shortcodes in widget areas. You can easily enable shortcodes in widgets by adding one line to your current theme’s functions.php file:

add_filter('widget_text', 'do_shortcode', 10);

Just paste anywhere (like at the bottom of the file) in functions.php and you should be good to go.

Thank you for your kind suggestion. Being a HTML ignoramus I would appreciate if you could tell me EXACTLY where I should insert the suggested line in my functions.php file.

At the top I have:

<?php 

function elucidate_byline() {
	printf( __( 'Posted by', 'elucidate' ) . ' ' . '<span class="author vcard"><a href="%1$s">%2$s</a></span>',
		esc_url( get_author_posts_url( get_the_author_meta( 'ID' ) ) ),
		esc_html( get_the_author() )
	);
}

if ( ! function_exists( 'elucidate_setup' ) ) :
/**
 * Sets up theme defaults and registers support for various WordPress features.
 *
 * Note that this function is hooked into the after_setup_theme hook, which runs
 * before the init hook. The init hook is too late for some features, such as indicating
 * support post thumbnails.
 */
function elucidate_setup() {

	/**

At the bottom:

/**
	 * Enable support for Post Formats
	 */
	add_theme_support( 'post-formats', array( 'aside', 'image', 'quote' ) );

	/**
	 * Setup the WordPress core custom background feature.
	 */
	add_theme_support( 'custom-background', apply_filters( 'elucidate_custom_background_args', array(
		'default-color' => 'ffffff',
		'default-image' => '',
	) ) );
}
endif; // elucidate_setup
add_action( 'after_setup_theme', 'elucidate_setup' );

Like I said before, just paste the line at the bottom of the file. So you can:

1. Open the file
2. Scroll all the way down to the end of the file
3. Add a couple of new lines
4. Paste the code on the last new line

So in your specific functions.php file, you should have this as the last three lines:

add_action( 'after_setup_theme', 'elucidate_setup' );

add_filter('widget_text', 'do_shortcode', 10);

You could even add a comment, so you know why you added it, for example the last four lines would look like this:

add_action( 'after_setup_theme', 'elucidate_setup' );

// enable shortcodes in widgets
add_filter('widget_text', 'do_shortcode', 10);

Thank you for your kind reply. The suggested addition to the functions.php file solved the issue.

Awesome, glad it worked.