markdown-it-prism-backticks

MarkdownIt plugin for highlighting inline code snippets using Prism.

Quickstart

Installation

Using npm:

npm install markdown-it-prism-backticks

Prism is a peer dependency of this plugin and must also be installed:

npm install prismjs

Usage

Import it wherever you configure MarkdownIt and then use it as you would any other MarkdownIt plugin:

import MarkdownIt from "markdown-it";
import markdownItPrismBackticks from "markdown-it-prism-backticks";

...

new MarkdownIt().use(markdownItPrismBackticks)

Important! You may also need to import Prism itself. If you are using the markdown-it-prism plugin as well then you do not. If you are already importing Prism then you do not. If neither situation applies then you do need to import Prism:

import "prismjs"; // Ensure the Prism global object is defined.
import MarkdownIt from "markdown-it";
import markdownItPrismBackticks from "markdown-it-prism-backticks";

Now you can add a language annotation to any inline backticks content that you want highlighted by Prism:

An example assembly instruction is `LDA #$22`{lang=asm6502}.

The result is as expected:

(The exact visual appearance will depend on the Prism theme that you are using.)

The rules for the language annotation are simple:

• No whitespace between the closing backtick and the opening curly brace.
• No whitespace in the language annotation.

See stevejay/middleengine-website for an example of a repository that uses this plugin.

Usage with other MarkdownIt plugins

This plugin can be used in conjunction with the markdown-it-prism plugin. The latter highlights fenced code blocks while this plugin highlights inline backtick content.

This plugin plays well with the markdown-it-attrs plugin. Any content in curly braces that does not match the {lang=some-lang} format is ignored by this plugin, and you can add extra curly brace content for markdown-it-attrs after the language setting:

This is fine: `LDA #$22`{.someClass}.

This is also fine: `LDA #$22`{lang=asm6502}{.someClass}.

Acknowledgements

The basic approach to parsing inline backticks comes from the default parser in the MarkdownIt repository.

The structure of this repository comes from the markdown-it-prism project.