Tips for software engineer: Using SyntaxHighlighter on BLOGGER

Tips for software engineer: Using SyntaxHighlighter on BLOGGER: "Using SyntaxHighlighter on BLOGGER "

SyntaxHighlighter is a free syntax highlighter written in JavaScript.

It can insert colored code snippets on a web page using client-side javascript only. It is ideal tool for users of BLOGGER because we do not have server side resource to parse and highlight the code. And we are lazy, we do not want to write a lot of CSS to just post a code snippet. :-).

However it takes a little twisting to make it work properly.

Below are the steps to setup:
1. Download and find a place to host the library files for SyntaxHighlighter. A free choice is, of course, Google Page Creator;
2. Login to BLOGGER, go to: 'Settings > Template > Edit HTML', make the following changes (credit goes to yehyeh's blog):

<link href='http://[YOUR HOST]/SyntaxHighlighter.css' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'/>
<script src='http://[YOUR HOST]/shCore.js' type='text/javascript'/>

<script src='http://[YOUR HOST]/shBrushCpp.js' type='text/javascript'/>
<script src='http://[YOUR HOST]/shBrushCSharp.js' type='text/javascript'/>
<script src='http://[YOUR HOST]/shBrushCss.js' type='text/javascript'/>
<script src='http://[YOUR HOST]/shBrushJava.js' type='text/javascript'/>
<script src='http://[YOUR HOST]/shBrushJScript.js' type='text/javascript'/>
<script src='http://[YOUR HOST]/shBrushSql.js' type='text/javascript'/>
<script src='http://[YOUR HOST]/shBrushXml.js' type='text/javascript'/>

<script class='javascript'>
//<![CDATA[
function FindTagsByName(container, name, Tag)
{
 var elements = document.getElementsByTagName(Tag);
 for (var i = 0; i < elements.length; i++)
 {
     if (elements[i].getAttribute('name') == name)
     {
         container.push(elements[i]);
     }
 }
}

window.onload = function() {
var elements = [];
FindTagsByName(elements, 'code', 'pre');
FindTagsByName(elements, 'code', 'textarea');

for(var i=0; i < elements.length; i++) {
if(elements[i].nodeName.toUpperCase() == 'TEXTAREA') {
var childNode = elements[i].childNodes[0];
var newNode = document.createTextNode(childNode.nodeValue.replace(/<br\s*\/?>/gi,'\n'));
elements[i].replaceChild(newNode, childNode);

}
else if(elements[i].nodeName.toUpperCase() == 'PRE') {
brs = elements[i].getElementsByTagName('br');
for(var j = 0, brLength = brs.length; j < brLength; j++) {
var newNode = document.createTextNode('\n');
elements[i].replaceChild(newNode, brs[0]);
}
}
}
//clipboard does not work well, no line breaks
// dp.SyntaxHighlighter.ClipboardSwf =
//'http://[YOUR HOST]/clipboard.swf';
dp.SyntaxHighlighter.HighlightAll('code');
}
//]]>
</script>

3. Now you can post code snippet on BLOGGER using either 'pre' or 'textarea' tag.

Notice:
1. The solution above is found here: http://yehhou.blogspot.com/2007/06/blogger-dpsyntaxhighlighter.html. That blog was written in Chinese. I made some minor changes and posted here. The reason for the Javascript code to remove <br/> tags is because BLOGGER has a setting to automatically add <br/> where there is line break. It is very convenient feature for blog posters, but somehow syntax highlighter will display the <br/> tag in plain text;
2. Clipboard for the SyntaxHighlither does not work well here. It tends to give you the text without line breaks, so I commented out the Javascript that setup the clipboard function;
3. When posting HTML code, remember to replace < with &lt;, and replace > with &gt;;
Next:
Now you've got beautiful code in your blog, next step might be some nice charts for your blog. You will find a way to embed a chart with one line HTML code here: Embedding Chart in Web Pages Made Easy
And, here is a post to show you how to Embed Silverlight video on Blogger:Embed Silverlight Streaming in Blogger
Update 11/11/2008
There are a few questions and comments regarding script hosting. .NET Dev posted an interesting idea here:
http://urenjoy.blogspot.com/2008/10/publish-source-code-in-blogger.html

Basically, he setup the links directly to the trunk location of SyntaxHighlighter project.