Question

Okay, so you can add shortcodes to WP template files like:

<?php echo do_shortcode('[my_awesome_shortcode]'); ?>

but what if the shortcode is intended to wrap around content like this:

[my_awesome_shortcode]
Hey, this is the content within the awesome shortcode.
[/my_awesome_shortcode]

I’m a bit unsure how to put that into a template file.

Answer 1

According to http://codex.wordpress.org/Shortcode_API#Enclosing_vs_self-closing_shortcodes

adding $content = null to the shortcut function should do the trick:

function my_awesome_shortcode_func( $atts, $content = null ) {
   return '<awesomeness>' . $content . '</awesomeness>';
}

add_shortcode( 'my_awesome_shortcode', 'my_awesome_shortcode_func' );

so that:

[my_awesome_shortcode]
Hey, this is the content within the awesome shortcode.
[/my_awesome_shortcode]

would result in:

<awesomeness>Hey, this is the content within the awesome shortcode.</awesomeness>