Software Developer Blogging

  • I’m a software developer (C#, ASP.NET, WPF) and I’d like to write about things I’ve learned, to share with others. Since I already have a WordPress blog for some other writing I do, I thought I might start a new WordPress blog for this.

    But I was dismayed by the information on
    https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Writing_Code_in_Your_Posts

    It makes it look like embedding source code, especially HTML, CSS, or XML is a royal pain! The impression I get is that I have to hand-edit the HTML of my blog content, not only when I create the post, but also if I edit my post later.

    How bad is it in practice? Should I consider a non-blog, or non-Wordpress blog alternative if I expect to embed lots of source code in my blog entries?

    Thanks in advance for comments and opinions.

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

  • Here’s what I’d recommend:

    https://www.ads-software.com/extend/plugins/wp-syntax/

    Thanks for the tip! I’d run into the same problem and was planning to come up with a home-brew solution. This plug-in looks really promising. And much nicer than anything I’d have time to do.

    Thread Starter plnelson

    (@plnelson)

    Here’s what I’d recommend:

    https://www.ads-software.com/extend/plugins/wp-syntax/

    But am I correct in interpreting that we’d still have to hand-edit the HTML of our blog postings? (to add <pre> ... </pre> ) I can’t believe in 2009 we don’t have a WYSIWYG blog tool – hand-editing HTML is so last century! (“Sherman, set the Wayback Machine for 1993 and while you’re at it, put “Achy Breaky Heart” on the 8-track . . . “)

    Also, does it survive across edits Publish – Edit – Publish – Edit ?

    But am I correct in interpreting that we’d still have to hand-edit the HTML of our blog postings?

    All you have to do is wrap your code in the appropriate pre tags with this plugin:

    <pre lang="PHP" ><?php get_footer(); ?></pre>

    Also, does it survive across edits Publish – Edit – Publish – Edit ?

    Yes, if you don’t use the non-code-friendly visual editor. Switching back and forth between the visual and html editors will mangle your code because these editors do things very differently. The visual editor is meant for non-coders, beginners, and others who just don’t ever want to mess with any code.

    Thread Starter plnelson

    (@plnelson)

    All you have to do is wrap your code in the appropriate pre tags with this plugin:

    <pre lang=”PHP” ><?php get_footer(); ?>

    What plug in? get_footer()’s not a plug in.

    There seem to be several plug ins out there that claim to handle
    <pre> and singlequotes correctly. What’s the best one?

    The visual editor is meant for non-coders, beginners, and others who just don’t ever want to mess with any code.

    You’re saying the ENTIRE blog entry has to be done in HTML, not just the parts I want to display as HTML?! WYSIWYG editors are NOT just for non-coders – they are for writers who want to see what the reader will see before publishing it. Besides being a software engineer I’m also a writer and good writing requires seeing how something lays on the page before publishing it to the world.

    Is all blogging software this primitive or is this something unique to WordPress?

    “this plugin” refers to https://www.ads-software.com/extend/plugins/wp-syntax/ in previous post.

    Having been immersed in another CMS technology before coming to WordPress, I have come to believe that the Visual Editor problem is not really a “WordPress thing”, but a general problem with Open Source server-side Visual Editors in general.

    Before giving up and declaring defeat, I looked at several popular Visual Editors and they all seem to have a small vocabulary of HTML. And an HTML mode. Dare to code any HTML not in their small vocabulary and they’ll strip it out, sometimes immediately, sometimes the next time you switch to Visual mode.

    I ended up with building my own infrastructure where I store raw HTML (or PHP code) in custom fields, and insert it wherever I want by coding {{customfieldname}} in the Visual Editor.

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)
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