If you have to show your source code in a web browser, the simplest way is to use the html <PRE> tags and customize the tag's style with CSS. However, PREs don't always print well and sometimes you just want to make your code indent nicely using the universally acceptatble non-breaking space tags.
This little applet takes the manual copy&pasting out of such conversions.
You press the "Get Source" button to load a *.vb file, then press the "Webify" button and in a second you're told that the converted text is on your clipboard ready to be pasted into any html texteditor.
...and here's how it looks in the browser...
The code is very simple. Just create a new WinForms project and on the form add three buttons (butGetSource, butWebify and butClose) and a textbox (txtWebCoder). To make things nice, set the textbox to anchor all sides and to show both scrollbars.
Now switch to codeview and paste in the following event routines:
Private Sub butWebify_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, _
ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles butWebify.Click
Dim sb As New System.Text.StringBuilder
Dim s As String = txtWebCoder.Text
Dim iEnd, iFoundAt As Integer
iFoundAt = InStr(iEnd + 1, s, vbCr)
Do
sb.Append(AddPadChars(s.Substring(iEnd, iFoundAt - iEnd)))
iEnd = iFoundAt + 1
iFoundAt = InStr(iEnd + 1, s, vbCr)
Loop Until iFoundAt = 0
Clipboard.SetDataObject(sb.ToString)
MsgBox("Webified string is now on the clipboard")
End Sub
Private Function AddPadChars(ByVal Value As String) As String
Dim i As Integer
Value = Value.TrimEnd
Value = Value.Replace("<", "<")
Value = Value.Replace(">", ">")
'note the spaces before and aftger the following ampersand
'so that the previous replaces don't get doubled-up
Value = Value.Replace(" & ", " & ")
If Value.Length = 0 Then Return "<br>" & vbCrLf
Dim sb As New System.Text.StringBuilder("<br>")
For i = 0 To Value.Length
If Value.Substring(i, 1) = " " Then
sb.Append(" ")
Else
Exit For
End If
Next
sb.Append(Value.Substring(i, Value.Length - i))
'tack on a crlf just to make it pretty in the text editor
Return sb.ToString & vbCrLf
End Function
Private Sub butGetSource_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, _
ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles butGetSource.Click
Dim oFileOpen As New OpenFileDialog
With oFileOpen
.Filter = "VB source files|*.vb"
If .ShowDialog = DialogResult.OK Then
LoadTextBox(.FileName)
End If
End With
End Sub
Private Sub LoadTextBox(ByVal fileName As String)
Dim fs As IO.File
Dim sr As IO.StreamReader
Try
sr = fs.OpenText(fileName)
txtWebCoder.Text = sr.ReadToEnd
Catch ex As Exception
msgbox(ex.ToString)
Finally
If Not sr Is Nothing Then
sr.Close()
sr = Nothing
End If
End Try
End Sub
Private Sub butClose_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, _
ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles butClose.Click
Me.Close()
End Sub
If your target browser supports <DIV> tags and styles then you can use those to set a specific back color or font to the code block by just wrapping the stringbuilder result with inline style code, such as:
<div style="background-color=D3D3D3; font-family=Times; font-size=10pt">
We'll let you enhance the code for quickly cleaning for PRE tags. All you need to do is replace the brackets and ampersands and wrap the code in <PRE>s. Either set the PRE style in an external sheet or use something like this inline style code:
<pre style="overflow: auto !important; overflow: scroll; width:80%;
padding: 1em; margin: 1em; margin-left: 40px;color:Blue;
background-color:LightYellow; clear: both;" >
<PRE> tags and CSS are the best way to put code into web pages, they make copying your code simple for your readers and automatically provide scrollbars if the code goes too wide or long for the dedicated space, but sometimes PRE isn't an option. Falling back on traditional non-breaking spaces will nicely format your code for display in all browsers and this little applet will take the grunt work out of adding all those tags manually.
Hope it helps!
Robert Smith
Kirkland, WA
added to smithvoice february 2005