This is a mirror of http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=330

WHAT:
This is a substantially modified rewrite of the "2html.vim" script that's found in the Vim runtime "syntax" directory, and used exactly as that file is used (i.e.): 

  :so[urce] ~/scripts/code2html.vim

RECENT:
24 Sep 2008 - ATTENTION PLEASE! There will be no more revisions to this script under *this* name.  Because there is a collision between the name "code2html[.vim]" and another F/LOSS software project by that name, I am renaming this script to "buf2html[.vim]".  THE NEW SCRIPT IS LOCATED AT http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=2384.

WHO:
Based on work by Bram Moolenaar and David Nečas ("Yeti"), now maintained by Soren Andersen.  Past contributions by Christian Hujer.       

WHY:
The main thing this module changes is the automatic addition of some simple css code to specify the fixed-width (monospace) font you want the HTML-ized syntax-colored code to be rendered in -- IF any of those fonts are findable by the reader's WWW browser. This provides an HTML rendering in modern browsers that can surprisingly closely replicate the appearance in the GVIM editor.

INSTALL:
Save this vim file to a directory convenient for you. Do *not* place it in a runtime plugin directory; you do not want it to be evaluated when opening any file for editing.  This is a script but not a plugin.  The author tends to have a ~/scripts dir on his accounts, and places this file there, alongside awk, sed, perl and other such script/programs.

FEATURES:
The code will find out what "guifont" value the user is using, and convert that specification (usually set in ".gvimrc") to a css font spec. There are also changes to output an up-to-date xml -type header (DTD) by Christian Hujer.

It will also create a "<DIV>" section containing the main "<PRE>" block. To understand why this is good, running a test example shows better than a thousand words. It allows specification of the font in css, as well as some other things, like padding of the contents of the "<PRE>" and some differing bgcolor for the document as a whole vs the "code" content. This is all primarily a matter of personal preference of course.

Examples of source highlighted with this script can be found at my home page at http://intrepid.perlmonk.org

If you view the output of this script -- run on your GVIM on one of your own source code documents, and viewed in a competent css-supporting browser -- you may find that the document looks so identical to your GVIM display that you'll be tempted to start sending vim commands to your browser ;-). 

UPDATE: 22 Oct 2002
In a little while a new version will be uploaded (presently I am having Christian check our merged changes before we commit to releasing this major update).
  * Made output of DTD not dependant on whether user has html_use_css=1.
  * Made significant changes to program flow, fixed a problem with output of the style definitions in the header STYLE block.
  * Added several new variables that the user can set to change the behavior of the script.

All in all, the program is more robust, outputs more correct (according to latest W3C standards) HTML, script has more configurability, and the output is prettier (as source).

UPDATE: Aug 08 2002 20:32:28 EDT
Sorry -- did not have time right now to properly document ALL the changes in v1.1, but these include:
  * fixed the stupid ".main_code" bug (should have written to the head style block "#main-code" instead of ".main-code"). aargh.
  * added a new function to create the CSS font specifier, it is doing a much better job than the previous code
  * the output is much more cosmetically proper.
Thank you very much to all the people who downloaded version 1.0. Please give the update a try -- it is much improved.