In my post about moving into Octopress, I mused about how difficult it might be to make a jsFiddle plugin. Turns out, it wasn’t that hard.

I’ve created a simple jsFiddle plugin for Octopress. It allows one to easily embed a jsFiddle into their page. The syntax is pretty simple. For all of these examples, I’ll be using a fiddle of mine that demonstrates the properties of Dojo promises.

Fiddle URL: http://jsfiddle.net/brianarn/ccWP7/

Fortunately, the username isn’t actually required in the URL when using the jsFiddle iframe embed code. I’m referring to the portion identified as ccWP7 in my URL as the fiddle shortcode. There may be a better name for that, but if there is, I have no idea what it is.

Anyhow, let’s talk about how it works.

General syntax:

The general syntax for usage is pretty straightforward.

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{% jsfiddle shorttag [tabs] [skin] [height] [width] %}

In the case of any of the latter options, the word ‘default’ will ensure that the plugin fills in the default values as defined by jsFiddle at the time of this plugin’s authoring. The defaults are as follows:

• tabs: js,resources,html,css,result
• skin: light
• height: 300px
• width: 100%

Examples

Basic Example

As the most basic use case, an example of a simple embed.

Syntax:

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{% jsfiddle ccWP7 %}

Result:

Adjusting Tabs

It’s possible to easily adjust the display order of the tabs. In this case, I’m moving the result to be the first item shown.

Syntax:

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{% jsfiddle ccWP7 result,js,html,css %}

Result

Presentation: Skin

We can easily adjust the skin. Right now, it looks like light and presentation are really the only supported options, but if jsFiddle announces new options, you can start using them immediately.

Syntax:

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{% jsfiddle ccWP7 default presentation %}

Result:

Presentation: Height/width

We can also fairly easily adjust the height and width. In this case, I’ll make it a notably taller fiddle, so that everything can be read more easily (given that my fiddle has some write-up in the HTML with some notable output).

Syntax:

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{% jsfiddle ccWP7 default default 600px %}

Result:

Multiple Options at once

For each prior example, I’ve been changing just one piece, but nothing prevents me from adjusting multiple at once. For example, perhaps I want something really large for a presentation I’m giving, and I want my Results tab first.

Syntax:

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{% jsfiddle ccWP7 result,js,html,css presentation 800px %}

Result:

Summary

If you haven’t been using it, jsFiddle really is a pretty fantastic service. I’ve been trying to use it when I want to put up something simple and quick. I love GitHub as well, and gists are neat and all, but there’s something special about jsFiddle. This plugin should make it a lot easier to simply embed a fiddle (not that copy/pasting the iframe was hard).

I’ve submitted a pull request to the main Octopress repo, but if you want to grab a copy before it gets accepted (if it gets accepted), you can find it in my GitHub fork of it here. Here’s hoping you find some use for it!