Markup: Syntax Highlighting

1 minute read

Syntax highlighting is a feature that displays source code, in different colors and fonts according to the category of terms. This feature facilitates writing in a structured language such as a programming language or a markup language as both structures and syntax errors are visually distinct. Highlighting does not affect the meaning of the text itself; it is intended only for human readers.1

GFM Code Blocks

GitHub Flavored Markdown fenced code blocks are supported. To modify styling and highlight colors edit /_sass/syntax.scss.

#container {
  float: left;
  margin: 0 -240px 0 0;
  width: 100%;
}
.highlight {
  margin: 0;
  padding: 1em;
  font-family: $monospace;
  font-size: $type-size-7;
  line-height: 1.8;
}
<nav class="pagination" role="navigation">
  {% if page.previous %}
    <a href="{{ site.url }}{{ page.previous.url }}" class="btn" title="{{ page.previous.title }}">Previous article</a>
  {% endif %}
  {% if page.next %}
    <a href="{{ site.url }}{{ page.next.url }}" class="btn" title="{{ page.next.title }}">Next article</a>
  {% endif %}
</nav><!-- /.pagination -->
module Jekyll
  class TagIndex < Page
    def initialize(site, base, dir, tag)
      @site = site
      @base = base
      @dir = dir
      @name = 'index.html'
      self.process(@name)
      self.read_yaml(File.join(base, '_layouts'), 'tag_index.html')
      self.data['tag'] = tag
      tag_title_prefix = site.config['tag_title_prefix'] || 'Tagged: '
      tag_title_suffix = site.config['tag_title_suffix'] || '&#8211;'
      self.data['title'] = "#{tag_title_prefix}#{tag}"
      self.data['description'] = "An archive of posts tagged #{tag}."
    end
  end
end

Code Blocks in Lists

Indentation matters. Be sure the indent of the code block aligns with the first non-space character after the list item marker (e.g., 1.). Usually this will mean indenting 3 spaces instead of 4.

  1. Do step 1.
  2. Now do this:

    def print_hi(name)
      puts "Hi, #{name}"
    end
    print_hi('Tom')
    #=> prints 'Hi, Tom' to STDOUT.
    
  3. Now you can do this.

Jekyll Highlight Tag

An example of a code blocking using Jekyll’s {% highlight %} tag.

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// 'gulp html' -- does nothing
// 'gulp html --prod' -- minifies and gzips HTML files for production
gulp.task('html', () => {
  return gulp.src(paths.siteFolderName + paths.htmlPattern)
    .pipe(when(argv.prod, htmlmin({
      removeComments: true,
      collapseWhitespace: true,
      collapseBooleanAttributes: false,
      removeAttributeQuotes: false,
      removeRedundantAttributes: false,
      minifyJS: true,
      minifyCSS: true
    })))
    .pipe(when(argv.prod, size({title: 'optimized HTML'})))
    .pipe(when(argv.prod, gulp.dest(paths.siteFolderName)))
    .pipe(when(argv.prod, gzip({append: true})))
    .pipe(when(argv.prod, size({
      title: 'gzipped HTML',
      gzip: true
    })))
    .pipe(when(argv.prod, gulp.dest(paths.siteFolderName)))
});
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Module[{},
  Sqrt[2]
  4
]

GitHub Gist Embed

An example of a Gist embed below.

Comments

Michael Rose

Here’s a test comment with a Markdown code block:

h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 {
  margin: 2em 0 0.5em;
  line-height: 1.2;
  font-family: $header-font-family;
  font-weight: bold;
}
MV10

I’m planning to switch to your theme soon. Is it possible to impose some kind of maximum-height constraint to fenced code blocks? If I’m posting 200 lines of code, I’d rather have something like 20 or 30 lines visible with a scrollbar…

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