GeSHi 1.0.7.12 Released

23/07/2006
Another stable monthly update has just been released, this one containing a few bug fixes to various languages (namely MySQL, PHP and XML).

Development this month has been relatively quiet - I've been most busy at work - but I've also been working on a Moodle filter using GeSHi (after my attendence at MoodleMoot NZ '06). There hasn't been much development in the 1.1.X series, but hopefully I can get back on to that before too long. There's just one sticky problem to solve with regard to escape characters for strings and then hopefully 1.1.2 will be nearly complete :)

The other change that happened this month was the server change - this site and geshi.org are now on shiny new hardware :). A big thank you to
Richard Clark, longtime sufferer of my coding ignorance - without your hosting GeSHi would never have got this far :) :)

Server upgraded

20/07/2006
It seems that the server upgrade has been successful, this site now runs on a much better machine :)

The demo form will probably be faster as will the form at geshi.org.

The next release of GeSHi will be on the 22nd of this month, at the moment it contains a few minor fixes and a couple of new languages.

Server Outage

18/07/2006
Hi all,

The server that this website (and geshi.org) is hosted on will be going down at approximately 8AM GMT this Wednesday so it can be transferred to new hardware. Hopefully there should be no issues with the transfer and the site will be up and running again on a nice shiny new box with a lot more grunt :)

I should still be able to receive e-mail through this time. The IP address of the new box will change so there may be DNS issues for a little while.

Fileanchor using GeSHi

04/07/2006
Fileanchor has been using GeSHi for a while now to provide syntax highlighting of uploaded files. As long as you register (for free), you can upload all sorts of files (including images), and have them syntax highlighted if they're program source files. A very cool use of GeSHi!

WikkaWiki bundles GeSHi

02/07/2006
Another piece of software bundling GeSHi these days is WikkaWiki. Dario Taraborelli wrote in to say that since version 1.1.6.0 GeSHi has been integrated and in the newly released 1.1.6.2 it's integrated even further, with code in the highlighted blocks being able to be downloaded on the fly, and GeSHi upgraded to 1.0.7.10.

GeSHi 1.1.2alpha2 Released

27/06/2006
The second alpha of 1.1.2 has just been released. This release has fixed a few bugs in the PHP and C code parsers, and adds basic support for SQL.

Work will continue on PHP, C and SQL support over the next few weeks. I'm going on holiday in July, so there might be some time then to do a decent block of work.

GeSHi 1.0.7.11 Released

21/06/2006
A shiny new monthly update has just been released. There isn't much change in this release - smalltalk support has been added and a couple of minor highlighting changes have been made to other languages, but other than that there's nothing special :).

The main things that are happening are behind the scene - I have branched 1.0.7 and made it a "stable" branch, and I will work on head towards releasing a 1.0.8, which will be like a "compatibility update" that takes you from 1.0.7 to 1.2 when it will be released. Basically you will be able to upgrade from 1.0.7 to 1.0.8 without any fuss, and then you can change how you use 1.0.8 to the new way in your own time, then when 1.2 comes out you will be able to upgrade again without any problems.

Meanwhile in 1.1.X development I've begun work on SQL support, which should be in 1.1.2 when released. Alphas should continue to roll out the door regularly :)

GeSHi 1.1.2alpha1 Released

18/06/2006
The first alpha of 1.1.2 has just been released. New features in this release include much improved support for PHP highlighting - constants, function names and calls, and PHPDoc highlighting have all been either added or improved. Also there is support in the C language for highlighting correctly even when backslash-newlines occur in the source. There are a couple of minor improvements to other languages as well.

I plan to add SQL highlighting support to this iteration of development as well as the other things planned. I imagine that there will be at least 5 alphas, but I'm getting into the routine of releasing one a week now so things should progress quickly :).

The next stable version of GeSHi is due out in 5 days time. There's not much change at this point except for one or two more languages.

GeSHi 1.1.1 Released

11/06/2006
The next step on the road to a stable 1.2.0 release is now complete, with the release of GeSHi version 1.1.1. This version is a quantum leap forward in the accuracy and customisability of highlighting, with major new features since 1.1.0 including:

* Support for multiple output formats, e.g. PDF, ODT etc (only HTML is supported now but there's nothing stopping you adding support for other formats yourself).
* Huge memory usage reductions
* Support for "code parsers" - which allows a function to get access to the parsed source and modify it befor it is rendered, leading to insanely more complicated highlighting being possible (anyone using the new Java/C support especially will see this!)
* Support for themes for output - for example, the source could be themed like your favourite IDE. Currently there's a default theme, a theme that matches the output of PHP's highlight_file output and basic support for Borland IDE styles. I expect that many more will be added as they're really easy to write - for example vim/emacs themes, Eclipse and more.
* Language file format change, to make it much easier to write languages with minimal duplication e.g. of keyword lists. The format change makes loading languages tons faster also.

Of course, as well as all of that there's been myriads of bug fixes and overall a speed increase, as well as language support improving for most languages and new support added for Java, VHDL and C.

Now again active development will resume heading towards a 1.1.2 release. 1.1.2 will include yet more improvements to highlighting, although no new major end-user features are planned. Basically it will be a release that hopefully brings highlighting support to the level it will be at in 1.2.0.

Future releases after that will concentrate on things like caching, performance, bug fixing and the like until 1.1.5. After that the focus will move to reimplementing the old API, moving languages to the new format, writing new themes and renderers and all the other details that will make 1.2.0 just so much better than 1.0.X :). Usability will definately take an upward turn after 1.1.5 :)

And the best part is, I don't think it will take too long to go through each of the 1.1.2 - 1.1.5 releases. They're broken into similar sized blocks and I'm having a good run of time available at the moment (see the recent spate of releases). Let's hope it continues!

GeSHi 1.1.1beta1 Released

03/06/2006
I've just released the first (and hopefully only) beta of version 1.1.1 of GeSHi. This release contains a couple of small bugfixes over the last alpha.

If nothing bad is found over the next week I'll release 1.1.1 "stable" next week and then development will continue on 1.1.2.