Understanding the "Show Debug Output" option

The Show Debug Output option is an advanced setting in the GravityView Elementor widget that displays the equivalent GravityView shortcode directly inside the Elementor editor.

This feature helps you see how your widget settings translate into shortcode parameters. It’s useful for troubleshooting and testing.

When to use this option

Enable Show Debug Output when you want to:

• View the generated shortcode for the current View configuration
• Confirm shortcode parameters to help debug display issues
• Copy the shortcode to use in another location, such as a shortcode block, theme file, or page template
• Compare widget settings with shortcode attributes for testing and debugging

What appears when enabled

When Show Debug Output is enabled, the Elementor preview area displays the complete GravityView shortcode for the current widget.

Example:

[gravityview id=“14” sort_columns=“0” sort_direction=“DESC” sort_field=“1” sort_field_2=“id” no_entries_form_description=“0” no_entries_form_title=“0” lightbox=“0”]

Each shortcode parameter represents a View setting from the Content tab — such as the View ID, sorting options, or no entries behavior.

The output is read-only and does not appear on the live site. It’s purely for preview and debugging purposes.

Best practices

• Use this option only while editing or troubleshooting a page
• Disable it before publishing to keep your editor interface clean

Troubleshooting notes

• The shortcode preview only appears inside the Elementor editor — not on the front end
• The feature has no effect on site performance or display