psystreams-autolinker
v1.4.3
Published
Utility to automatically link the URLs, email addresses, phone numbers, hashtags, and mentions (Twitter, Instagram) in a given block of text/HTML
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Autolinker.js
Because I had so much trouble finding a good auto-linking implementation out in the wild, I decided to roll my own. It seemed that everything I found out there was either an implementation that didn't cover every case, or was just limited in one way or another.
So, this utility attempts to handle everything. It:
- Autolinks URLs, whether or not they start with the protocol (i.e. 'http://'). In other words, it will automatically link the text "google.com", as well as "http://google.com".
- Will properly handle URLs with special characters
- Will properly handle URLs with query parameters or a named anchor (i.e. hash)
- Will autolink email addresses.
- Will autolink phone numbers.
- Will autolink mentions (Twitter, Instagram).
- Will autolink hashtags.
- Will properly handle HTML input. The utility will not change the
href
attribute inside anchor (<a>) tags (or any other tag/attribute), and will not accidentally wrap the inner text of an anchor tag with a new one (which would cause doubly-nested anchor tags).
Hope that this utility helps you as well!
Full API Docs: http://gregjacobs.github.io/Autolinker.js/api/ Live Example: http://gregjacobs.github.io/Autolinker.js/examples/live-example/
v1.0 released. Breaking Changes from 0.x -> 1.x
twitter
option removed, replaced withmention
(which accepts 'twitter' and 'instagram' values)- Matching mentions (previously the
twitter
option) now defaults to being turned off. Previously, Twitter handle matching was on by default. replaceFn
option now called with just one argument: theMatch
object (previously was called with two arguments:autolinker
andmatch
)- (Used inside the
replaceFn
)TwitterMatch
replaced withMentionMatch
, andMentionMatch.getType()
now returns'mention'
instead of'twitter'
- (Used inside the
replaceFn
)TwitterMatch.getTwitterHandle()
->MentionMatch.getMention()
Installation
Download
Simply clone or download the zip of the project, and link to either
dist/Autolinker.js
or dist/Autolinker.min.js
with a script tag:
<script src="path/to/Autolinker.min.js"></script>
Using with the Bower package manager:
Command line:
bower install Autolinker.js --save
Using with Node.js via npm:
Command Line:
npm install autolinker --save
JavaScript:
var Autolinker = require( 'autolinker' );
// note: npm wants an all-lowercase package name, but the utility is a class and
// should be aliased with a capital letter
Usage
Using the static link() method:
var linkedText = Autolinker.link( textToAutolink[, options] );
Using as a class:
var autolinker = new Autolinker( [ options ] );
var linkedText = autolinker.link( textToAutoLink );
Note: if using the same options to autolink multiple pieces of html/text, it is slightly more efficient to create a single Autolinker instance, and run the link() method repeatedly (i.e. use the "class" form above).
Example:
var linkedText = Autolinker.link( "Check out google.com", { className: "myLink" } );
// Produces: "Check out <a class="myLink myLink-url" href="http://google.com" target="_blank">google.com</a>"
Options
These are the options which may be specified for linking. These are specified by providing an Object as the second parameter to Autolinker.link(). These include:
newWindow : Boolean
true
to have the links should open in a new window when clicked,false
otherwise. Defaults totrue
.urls : Boolean/Object
true
to have URLs auto-linked,false
to skip auto-linking of URLs. Defaults totrue
.This option also accepts an Object form with 3 properties to allow for more customization of what exactly gets linked. All default to
true
:- schemeMatches (Boolean):
true
to match URLs found prefixed with a scheme, i.e.http://google.com
, orother+scheme://google.com
,false
to prevent these types of matches. - wwwMatches (Boolean):
true
to match urls found prefixed with'www.'
, i.e.www.google.com
.false
to prevent these types of matches. Note that if the URL had a prefixed scheme, andschemeMatches
is true, it will still be linked. - tldMatches:
true
to match URLs with known top level domains (.com, .net, etc.) that are not prefixed with a scheme or'www.'
. Ex:google.com
,asdf.org/?page=1
, etc.false
to prevent these types of matches.
Example usage:
urls: { schemeMatches: true, wwwMatches: true, tldMatches: false }
- schemeMatches (Boolean):
email : Boolean
true
to have email addresses auto-linked,false
to skip auto-linking of email addresses. Defaults totrue
.phone : Boolean
true
to have phone numbers auto-linked,false
to skip auto-linking of phone numbers. Defaults totrue
.mention : String A string for the service name to have mentions (@username) auto-linked to. Supported values at this time are 'twitter', and 'instagram'. Pass
false
to skip auto-linking of mentions. Defaults tofalse
.hashtag : Boolean/String A string for the service name to have hashtags auto-linked to. Supported values at this time are 'twitter', 'facebook' and 'instagram'. Pass
false
to skip auto-linking of hashtags. Defaults tofalse
.stripPrefix : Boolean
true
to have the'http://'
(or'https://'
) and/or the'www.'
stripped from the beginning of displayed links,false
otherwise. Defaults totrue
.This option also accepts an Object form with 2 properties to allow for more customization of what exactly is prevented from being displayed. Both default to
true
:- scheme (Boolean):
true
to prevent the scheme part of a URL match from being displayed to the user. Example:'http://google.com'
will be displayed as'google.com'
.false
to not strip the scheme. NOTE: Only an'http://'
or'https://'
scheme will be removed, so as not to remove a potentially dangerous scheme (such as'file://'
or'javascript:'
). - www (Boolean):
true
to prevent the'www.'
part of a URL match from being displayed to the user. Ex:'www.google.com'
will be displayed as'google.com'
.false
to not strip the'www'
.
- scheme (Boolean):
stripTrailingSlash : Boolean
true
to remove the trailing slash from URL matches,false
to keep the trailing slash. Example whentrue
:http://google.com/
will be displayed ashttp://google.com
. Defaults totrue
.truncate : Number/Object A number for how many characters long URLs/emails/Twitter handles/Twitter hashtags should be truncated to inside the text of a link. If the match is over the number of characters, it will be truncated to this length by replacing the end of the string with a two period ellipsis ('..').
Example: a url like 'http://www.yahoo.com/some/long/path/to/a/file' truncated to 25 characters may look like this: 'yahoo.com/some/long/pat..'
In the object form, both
length
andlocation
may be specified to perform truncation. Available options forlocation
are: 'end' (default), 'middle', or 'smart'. Example usage:truncate: { length: 32, location: 'middle' }
The 'smart' truncation option is for URLs where the algorithm attempts to strip out unnecessary parts of the URL (such as the 'www.', then URL scheme, hash, etc.) before trying to find a good point to insert the ellipsis if it is still too long. For details, see source code of: TruncateSmart
className : String A CSS class name to add to the generated anchor tags. This class will be added to all links, as well as this class plus "url"/"email"/"phone"/"hashtag"/"mention"/"twitter"/"instagram" suffixes for styling url/email/phone/hashtag/mention links differently.
For example, if this config is provided as "myLink", then:
- URL links will have the CSS classes: "myLink myLink-url"
- Email links will have the CSS classes: "myLink myLink-email"
- Phone links will have the CSS classes: "myLink myLink-phone"
- Twitter mention links will have the CSS classes: "myLink myLink-mention myLink-twitter"
- Instagram mention links will have the CSS classes: "myLink myLink-mention myLink-instagram"
- Hashtag links will have the CSS classes: "myLink myLink-hashtag"
replaceFn : Function A function to use to programmatically make replacements of matches in the input string, one at a time. See the section Custom Replacement Function for more details.
For example, if you wanted to disable links from opening in new windows, you could do:
var linkedText = Autolinker.link( "Check out google.com", { newWindow: false } );
// Produces: "Check out <a href="http://google.com">google.com</a>"
And if you wanted to truncate the length of URLs (while also not opening in a new window), you could do:
var linkedText = Autolinker.link( "http://www.yahoo.com/some/long/path/to/a/file", { truncate: 25, newWindow: false } );
// Produces: "<a href="http://www.yahoo.com/some/long/path/to/a/file">yahoo.com/some/long/pat..</a>"
More Examples
One could update an entire DOM element that has unlinked text to auto-link them as such:
var myTextEl = document.getElementById( 'text' );
myTextEl.innerHTML = Autolinker.link( myTextEl.innerHTML );
Using the same pre-configured Autolinker instance in multiple locations of a codebase (usually by dependency injection):
var autolinker = new Autolinker( { newWindow: false, truncate: 25 } );
//...
autolinker.link( "Check out http://www.yahoo.com/some/long/path/to/a/file" );
// Produces: "Check out <a href="http://www.yahoo.com/some/long/path/to/a/file">yahoo.com/some/long/pat..</a>"
//...
autolinker.link( "Go to www.google.com" );
// Produces: "Go to <a href="http://www.google.com">google.com</a>"
Custom Replacement Function
A custom replacement function (replaceFn) may be provided to replace url/email/phone/mention/hashtag matches on an individual basis, based on the return from this function.
Full example, for purposes of documenting the API:
var input = "..."; // string with URLs, Email Addresses, Mentions (Twitter, Instagram), and Hashtags
var linkedText = Autolinker.link( input, {
replaceFn : function( match ) {
console.log( "href = ", match.getAnchorHref() );
console.log( "text = ", match.getAnchorText() );
switch( match.getType() ) {
case 'url' :
console.log( "url: ", match.getUrl() );
return true; // let Autolinker perform its normal anchor tag replacement
case 'email' :
var email = match.getEmail();
console.log( "email: ", email );
if( email === "[email protected]" ) {
return false; // don't auto-link this particular email address; leave as-is
} else {
return; // no return value will have Autolinker perform its normal anchor tag replacement (same as returning `true`)
}
case 'phone' :
console.log( "Phone Number: ", match.getNumber() );
return '<a href="http://newplace.to.link.phone.numbers.to/">' + match.getNumber() + '</a>';
case 'mention' :
console.log( "Mention: ", match.getMention() );
console.log( "Mention Service Name: ", match.getServiceName() );
return '<a href="http://newplace.to.link.mention.handles.to/">' + match.getMention() + '</a>';
case 'hashtag' :
console.log( "Hashtag: ", match.getHashtag() );
return '<a href="http://newplace.to.link.hashtag.handles.to/">' + match.getHashtag() + '</a>';
}
}
} );
Modifying the default generated anchor tag
var input = "..."; // string with URLs, Email Addresses, Mentions (Twitter, Instagram), and Hashtags
var linkedText = Autolinker.link( input, {
replaceFn : function( match ) {
console.log( "href = ", match.getAnchorHref() );
console.log( "text = ", match.getAnchorText() );
var tag = match.buildTag(); // returns an `Autolinker.HtmlTag` instance for an <a> tag
tag.setAttr( 'rel', 'nofollow' ); // adds a 'rel' attribute
tag.addClass( 'external-link' ); // adds a CSS class
tag.setInnerHtml( 'Click here!' ); // sets the inner html for the anchor tag
return tag;
}
} );
The replaceFn
is provided one argument:
- An Autolinker.match.Match object which details the match that is to be replaced.
A replacement of the match is made based on the return value of the function. The following return values may be provided:
- No return value (
undefined
), ortrue
(Boolean): Delegate back to Autolinker to replace the match as it normally would. false
(Boolean): Do not replace the current match at all - leave as-is.- Any String: If a string is returned from the function, the string will be used directly as the replacement HTML for the match.
- An Autolinker.HtmlTag instance, which can be used to build/modify an HTML tag before writing out its HTML text.
Full API Docs
The full API docs for Autolinker may be referenced at: http://gregjacobs.github.io/Autolinker.js/api/
Live Example
http://gregjacobs.github.io/Autolinker.js/examples/live-example/
Contributing
Pull requests definitely welcome.
- Make sure to add tests to cover your new functionality/bugfix.
- Run the
gulp test
command to build/test (or alternatively, open thetests/index.html
file to run the tests). - When committing, please omit checking in the files in the
dist/
folder after building/testing. These are only committed to the repository for users downloading Autolinker via Bower. I will build these files and assign them a version number when merging your PR. - Please use tabs for indents! Tabs are better for everybody (individuals can set their editors to different tab sizes based on their visual preferences).
Changelog
See Releases