I would like to build a page at microlens.net that documents how I built my photo gallery.  I would like to show each of my templates in a manner similar to what pMachine does.  Using this template library page as an example, how can I best convert the template code within the box into machine readable code?  Would this be the purpose of Paul Burdick’s “HTML Strip” plug-in?  Or, is there another method that’s suggested?

Thanks for your help.

You lost me a bit.  You just want to show the template code in a textarea?  And do it via a post?  Or have it dynamically generated via a template?

I’m just wanting to show template code within a text area of that template.  I would like to set up one page similar to how the pMachine site shows their templates.  I’m wondering if there’s a way within EE to convert things like < (less than), > (greater than), ” (quote), etc. so that they look like their symbols in the template.  I’ve tried the “code” tag but that doesn’t seem to work.

Can you give me an example of what you’re doing now?  The code?

I’m not really doing anything now - just wondering about how I can do it.  After thinking about it I think it could be dynamically generated via a template as you first suggested.

For example, in the pMachine template library choose any template.  There are links for “view”, “source”, and “download”.  Click on the “source” link.  The tags/code for the index, comments, CSS, etc. will appear in text boxes.  The textbox allows you to copy the template code directly from the pMachine site to yours.  That is the functionality that I would like to build into one of my pages. 

Again at the “source” page, in Internet Explorer click on View - Source.  Some of the EE code has been converted to it’s ASCII equivilent characters.  I’ve also noticed that when I’m in the EE control panel -> template section -> that I can choose any of my templates, click View - Source, and that template contains certain characters that have been converted to their ASCII equivilent characters.  Because the templates allow you to continually make changes, I think it can probably be done dynamically.

In a nutshell, I’m wondering if there’s a plug-in that automatically converts certain characters to their ASCII equivilents.  I wasn’t totally understanding Pauls “HTML Strip” plug-in but was wondering if that was what it is for.  Or, is there some other suggested method.

I guess I could always replace the characters with their ASCII equivilents by copying the code into MS Word and using Find-Replace.  However, it looks like EE is automatically doing it within the program.  I just wondering how and if I can apply it to my page.

Thanks again for your help.

I’m not dead sure you need to convert anything- not if the goal is just to show exactly what’s in a template.  I did this:

Stuck it in a template- results in this- which is in the ballpark of what you want- correct?  The query module jammed up a bit with it- that’s why I went with php.

Anyway- depending on what you’re going for, something like this approach would be pretty easy.

Nice tip!

Hm- except the embeds are being parsed- and not even switching the brackets out for entities fixes it.  Nor does parse order.  Hm- I wonder if doing it as a plugin would matter.  I’ll dink with it a bit and see.

Heh- it was the textarea html in one of the forms that kept throwing things off- but replacing the >‘s took care of that as well.  So:

That seems to work- proper display, nothing parsed.

Robin - thank you!! - that’s just what I’m looking for.  I appreciate your time and effort in writing the php.  I’ll try to add it to my site this weekend.

Thanks again.