PHPBB3-13919 - Syntax highlighting in [code]

[JoshyPHP]

3.1 provides syntax highlighting for PHP (and only PHP) via highlight_string(), using the BBCode [code=php].

3.2 has no syntax highlighting in code blocks for any language. My recommendation is to use a JavaScript highlighter such as highlight.js or SyntaxHighlighter. My preference goes to highlight.js because it automatically detects the language of the source and it also requires one script tag to be installed. Both are available on various CDNs.

I don't know whether 3.2 should provide syntax highlighting at all. As far as I'm concerned, I wrote an extension for it to see how hard it would be to implement. All it takes is a script block in overall_footer to dynamically load highligher.js whererever needed. It costs 490 bytes per page. Unminified code here.

[MattF]

No more php highlighting

Code: Select all

if (!$auth->acl_get('a_'))
{
	trigger_error('NO_ADMIN');
}

Also tabs look too long IMO (should be 4 chars, looks like 8)

[JoshyPHP]

The default CSS needs some touchups. On non-IE you can change the size of tabs to 4.

[Dragosvr92]

RIP, php syntax.
https://tracker.phpbb.com/browse/PHPBB3-13919

[aleha]

I have struggled a bit myself with code highlight. Since 3.0.12, I have written an (ugly) custom solution that uses the idea here to call pygments and produce html output for code bbcode, using language detection.
This was very easy to incorporate also in 3.1.x, because the only thing you do is change a line in includes/bbcode.php to redirect the control to an external php script.

Unfortunately, GeSHi is the only php syntax highlight library that I know of and looks sort of abandoned or stalled.

Back in the time of 3.0.12 highlightjs didn't support as much languages as now and language detection didn't work that well compared to pygments. Plus, one can cache the pygments html output.
I am not sure if and how caching be done with js. Maybe by calling NodeJS locally on server? While this may work in the same manner as executing a python script or command, updating JS files within an extension is a few clicks away instead of asking the admin to upgrade your pygments installation.

Since autodetecting a language doesn't always play well, ideally in phpBB a system like github's could be used.
That is, a filtered dropdown with supported languages for optional code highlight. Probably an extension is more fitting for this.

[JoshyPHP]

I am not sure if and how caching be done with js.

That wouldn't be necessary. A big code block only takes something like 150 ms to be highlighted, and most of that is spent initializing the library.

Since autodetecting a language doesn't always play well, ideally in phpBB a system like github's could be used.

Do you mean replacing the Code button with a dropdown?

[aleha]

Yes, something like that. Maybe replace it with a custom split dropdown that has a filter.

[MattF]

Code: Select all

[code=php]
[code=html]
[code=js]

Normal bbcode usage such as those are sufficient.

[Oyabun1]

Syntax highlighting is an often requested feature.

Maybe highlight.js could be set up to use automatic highlighting unless a class is specified in the BBCode, such as, [code=html]. That would allow correcting it if the wrong class was automatically selected.

[CarpCharacin]

Why not use GeSHi? http://qbnz.com/highlighter/