Widget HTML Display Problem

Question

Hi I have created a plugin that places a Google Translator into a text widget in Wordpress. I have setup shortcode to do this - and the shortcode seems to be outputting the correct HTML, except that the HTML is not showing up INSIDE of the text widget as it should.

Here is my plugin code: http://pastebin.com/BMbnEqAW

Here is the page: http://www.richmindonline.com/test/

When I do a "View Page Source" from Firefox - I am noticing that the translator code is appearing BEFORE the text widget. So even though my shortcode is located inside of the text widget, the code shows up just above the text widget itself and is not wrapped inside of id="text-widget".

There are not stray div tags that I can find either. Are there any common problems with using javascript or shortcodes in a text widget that I should account for in my plugin?

Answer 1

That's a common mistake, Shortcodes should return values and not echo.

Remember, the Codex is your Friend ;)

Shortcode_API#Output

Output
The return value of a shortcode handler function is inserted into the post content output in place of the shortcode macro. Remember to use return and not echo - anything that is echoed will be output to the browser, but it won't appear in the correct place on the page.