Being that this is a website that’s all about WordPress, it’s kind of essential to be able to display code on my site, to help my readers see snippets of code that they will need to make the modifications I’m writing about.
Until a couple of weeks ago, I was using Syntax Highlighter Evolved to display code on my site. However, I had a couple of small issues with it and decided to go in search of the alternatives, being that I’d been using it for a couple of years without looking at what new plugins had arrived on the scene.
One plugin I came across is called Crayon Syntax Highlighter, so I thought I’d try it out. I was mightily impressed. It’s faster than Syntax Highlighter Evolved, it’s in active development and it’s much more user friendly, for both the writer and the reader.
It also has a much wider array of configuration options, to really fine tune the appearance and operation of the plugin.
An added benefit for me was that it recognises the same shortcodes as Syntax Highlighter Evolved, so all of my old markup was instantly recognised by Crayon Syntax Highlighter.
From what I can tell, it has all the features that Syntax Highlighter Evolved has, plus a whole lot more. If you need help figuring out how to use its features, like adding titles, highlighting lines, specifying the code language and specifying appearance options on a snippet by snippet basis, there’s a huge help write-up on the Help drop-down on the plugin’s configuration page.
I’m so glad I found this plugin and made the switch. If you’re running Syntax Highlighter Evolved, I seriously suggest checking it out.
April 9, 2012 at 7:49 am
Hi, Crayon Syntax Highlighter works with WordPress older version too? If yes, please tell me I don’t want to risk my site by installing it.
April 10, 2012 at 8:02 am
It should do. You should check the plugin page for the “Requires version” field to see what the developer has retro-supported the plugin to. My guess is yes, but more to the point, you should update WordPress. Keeping old versions is not wise.
May 15, 2012 at 4:26 pm
You may want to checkout the wp-highlight.js[1] plugin. Way simple to use. It wraps the highlight.js script[2]. See it in action here[3].
[1] http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-highlightjs/
[2] http://softwaremaniacs.org/soft/highlight/en/
[3] http://www.codenoevil.com/seek-and-ye-shall-find-or-why-i-wrote-an-adobe-photoshop-lightroom-spotlight-importer/
May 17, 2012 at 9:45 am
Oooh, I like that. And it already uses the existing syntax ([code][/code]) that I already use. Thanks for the recommendation.
November 28, 2012 at 9:02 pm
Syntax Highlighter Evolved was driving me nuts. If I switched between visual and html my code would get all sorts of ‘pre’ and ‘comment’ tags added in. There doesn’t seem to be a fix in sight.
Thanks for the Crayon recommendation. Just made the switch.
I can now switch between visual and html without correcting my code every time! I also like the “paste code here” box instead of having to type out the shortcode.