SyntaxHighlighter 3 Make Life Easier

What's new in 3.0?

SyntaxHighlighter 3.0 has quite a few new tricks up its sleeve. There are a number of new features that are worth mentioning here.

Dynamic Brush Loading

SyntaxHighlighter comes with almost 30 brushes out of the box. One of the most requested feature has been the ability to dynamically load them without having to load them all on the same page.

Version 3 addresses this problem with with the new autoloader script. Setting autoloader up is as simple as adding shAutoloader.js file to your page and telling autoloader where your brushes are. In fact, this site is using the autoloader. Have a look at the example below:

<script src="shCore.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script src="shAutoloader.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
 
<script type="text/javascript">
SyntaxHighlighter.autoloader(
  'js jscript javascript  /js/shBrushJScript.js',
  'applescript            /js/shBrushAppleScript.js'
);
 
SyntaxHighlighter.all();
</script>

Now any code blocks which use js, jscript, javascript and applescript brushes will trigger dynamic loading of the appropriate JavaScript file. Please have a look at the manual for more details.

No Flash Copy To Clipboard

Since the first version back in 2004, SyntaxHighlighter has always used Flash to provide copy to clipboard functionality. At first it was Flash 8, then it was Flash 9 and now 10. It's never been a crowd pleaser and a lot of requests over the years demanded Flash to be removed.

Well, it's finally happening -- no more Flash. I think I've came up with user interface to copy code to clipboard which is a lot more intuitive and almost too easy.

If you double click anywhere on the code, the entire code view is replaces with a pre-selected view from which users can copy with a simple Ctrl/Cmd-C. Clicking anywhere else returns the view to the original state.

Code Selection

Another popular request has been ability to select the code without line numbers. This is also now part of the SyntaxHighlighter as it allows you to select the code with your mouse and then copy and paste it without straight into your code without any additional effort.