Write Pretty Code snippets in your Blog with SyntaxHighlighter WP plugin [Blogging Tips]

Do you regularly write blog posts in WordPress, that contains huge number of code snippets? If yes, read on and I will show you how to make them pretty and usable with the SyntaxHighlighter plugin.

Step 1 : Download the SyntaxHighlighter WP Plugin

SyntaxHighlighter is an open-source syntax highlighter written using JavaScript. You can view the detailed information on the tool and download the source code, from the SyntaxHighlighter Google Code page.

If you are a WordPress user, then you are lucky to have a plug-in for this JavaScript tool.

Navigate to the SyntaxHighlighter Plug-in home and download it on your computer.

Step 2 : Install the SyntaxHighligher WP Plug-in

You will have to follow the regular WP Plug-in installation process. Copy all the contents of the ZIP file and upload it to the wp-content/plugins folder, on your WordPress Installation.

Step 3 : Activate the Plug-in

Once the upload is complete, you need to activate the plug-in. To do this, Navigate to the Plugins page from your WP Dashboard and click on Activate. Make sure that you get the success message for activation

Step 4 : Start writing Code Snippets in your posts

Now, when you write code snippets in your blog posts, make sure to wrap them as:

[sourcecode language='css']

your code here

[/sourcecode]

“language” attribute is important and you can use one of the following alias values, depending on your code language.

Language	Alias “language” code to be used
C++	cpp, c, c++
C#	c#, c-sharp, csharp
CSS	css
Delphi	delphi, pascal
Java	java
JavaScript	js, jscript, javascript
PHP	php
Python	py, python
Ruby	rb, ruby, rails, ror
SQL	sql
VB	vb, vb.net
XML/HTML	xml, html, xhtml, xslt

Step 5 : Sample Code Snippet

Following is a sample code snippet in Ruby and how it displays up using the SyntaxHighlighter Plug-in:

#GreetMe
class GreetMe
  def initialize(name)
    @name = name
  end

  def sayhello
    puts "Hello #{@name}.  How are you?"
  end
end

Formatted with SyntaxHighlighter:

[sourcecode language='java']

#GreetMe

class GreetMe
  def initialize(name)
    @name = name
  end

  def sayhello
    puts “Hello #{@name}. How are you?”
  end
end

[/sourcecode]

Enjoy sharing your code through your WordPress Blog!

Note: If sometimes the syntax highlighter doesn’t work after performing all the installation steps, make sure your theme’s footer has `` somewhere in it, otherwise the JavaScript highlighting files won’t be loaded.

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