Goodbye Syntax Highlighter

Say goodbye to plugins like SyntaxHighlighter Evolved and hello to highlight.js. With this plugin, you can seamlessly transition from one to another.

Author:Damien White (Visoft, Inc.) (profile at wordpress.org)
WordPress version required:3.1
WordPress version tested:3.5.1
Plugin version:0.1.2
Added to WordPress repository:14-08-2012
Last updated:11-02-2013
Warning! This plugin has not been updated in over 2 years. It may no longer be maintained or supported and may have compatibility issues when used with more recent versions of WordPress.
Rating, %:100
Rated by:1
Plugin URI:https://github.com/visoft/goodbye-syntax-high...
Total downloads:3 502
Active installs:10+
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For years I've used Alex Gorbatchev's SyntaxHighlighter. It has served me well over the years. When I moved to WordPress I tried various plugins based on the library, such SyntaxHighlighter Evolved.

I've decided to start blogging using Markdown. Making this move I needed to find a way to highlight various bits of source code in an easy way. There are many nice libraries that make this a snap, such as google-code-prettify or highlight.js. In the end I decided to go with highlight.js, for the simple reason that it is automatic, working flawlessly with Markdown's code syntax output.

Great, but my existing source code examples use SyntaxHighlighter's style for code blocks (using <pre class="brush: ruby;" />, for example). I could have converted things in a few ways:

  • Change the database
  • Write a JS script to convert the <pre /> structure to <pre><code /></pre>
  • Write a JS script to call highlight.js' highlightBlock method
  • Write a WP plugin and reformat things easily Ding Ding Ding

So there you have it. This WordPress plugin will go through and process your SyntaxHighlighter style blocks into ones that highlight.js works with out-of-the-box. It will also add the language that you have specified with the brush class and add it as a class on the <code /> element (following the HTML5 recommendation). Nothing is changed in the DB, so if you decide to go back to SyntaxHighlighter, you can without any issues.

GeSHi

This plugin now supports conversion of GeSHi style code blocks! Now you can move from plugins such as WP-Syntax and WP-GeSHi-Highlight to highlight.js.

GeSHi uses the syntax that is close to SyntaxHighlighter, except instead of putting the language in the class attribute, it uses the lang attribute. Similar to the SyntaxHighligher conversion, it will go through and process your GeSHi style blocks into ones that highlight.js works with out-of-the-box. It will also add the language that you have specified with the lang attribute and add it as a class on the <code /> element.


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