Smalltalk Labs Browser for blogs is a JavaScript widget that you can put on your blog (or any other kind of website) to allow your blog's readers to display any Smalltalk class you mention in a blog post in a web based code browser, so that they don't need to have a Smalltalk image handy when you mention a class in an article or tutorial.

You can try it out by clicking on this Pharo Smalltalk class here: ByteString

(If you don't use a Mozilla or WebKit browser, you will see a website instead of the code browser)

You don't need to have a blog that runs on Smalltalk for this, Smalltalk Labs Browser for blogs works as a JavaScript widget on your blog and fetches all the information about a Smalltalk class from a database over the net through AJAX, which means it works on most free blog hosts like Tumblr and Blogger, the only requirement is that you can add custom JavaScript to your blog's theme or your website's HTML code.

At the moment there are all classes of Pharo 1.1 in the database.

Popular open source Smalltalk libraries and frameworks will be added soon, e.g. Seaside and Pier.

Squeak is coming up next, then other Smalltalks (where the license allows code redistribution).

When a new version of a Smalltalk implementation is uploaded, for example Pharo 1.2, the old version is kept so that your old blog posts, articles or tutorials still work and point to the right version of a class which might have changed or was even removed in a newer release. This isn't a guarantee though, I might still be forced to remove a version of a Smalltalk implementation or specific classes in a version. This shouldn't happen but you never know.

You will soon be able to upload your own classes, or classes that you are allowed to redistribute, into the database yourself. These classes will only show up in your version of Smalltalk Labs Browser for blogs, not in anyone else's. It will work a bit like a code snippet / pastie service.

You can get the code at Github under the open source "Apache License, Version 2.0", with a small part licensed under the MIT license (namely, a CSS file from ShoutPier which is used to do the syntax highlighting of displayed source code).

You receive updates automatically since you don't download the JavaScript widget but instead just include it on your website from this server. These updates will add new features and fix bugs or security holes.

Upgrades are manual. Upgrades happen when there are breaking changes in the (soon to come) public API for any reason, or if there is anything else that would need you to manually change something on your website. This shouldn't happen too often (or at all). The old version will be kept available so that you can take your time to upgrade to a never version. Upgrading itself is easy, you just change /v1/ to the new version number in the URL to the JavaScript file.

You can see the currently deployed version of the Client and the Server below. This might help in tracking down a bug if you encounter a problem. The version number relates to upgrades and the build number to updates. The code repository uses these version numbers in tags, so you can easily view a list of all code commits between two or more versions or upgrades if you want to see what has been changed in the newest version for example.

That's awesome! You can reach me by email (haicolon at gmail dot com) or Twitter @HaiColon.

If you encounter a bug, head on over to the issue tracker on Github.

Nothing easier than that! Just head over to the configuration interface where you get personalized instructions by answering a handful of multiple choice type questions about your blog/website, no signup necessary.