Load GitHub Gists asynchronously and optionally specify which file to show.

README.md

Load GitHub Gists asynchronously

This is now a Bower package: [gist-async]. [gist-async]: https://github.com/razor-x/gist-async

Requires jQuery.

Jekyll plugin included that modifies the gist markup added by its gist Liquid tag.

Load GitHub Gists asynchronously and optionally specify which file to show. This allows you to keep related files in a single gist, but show them individually on your pages. The async loading prevents your page rendering from stalling.

Example markup:

<div class="gist" data-gist="8288761" data-gist-file="gist-async.coffee">
  <a href="https://gist.github.com/8288761">Loading file gist-async.coffee from 8288761</a>
</div>

The minimal required markup is

<div data-gist="8288761"></div>

Demo on CodePen: http://codepen.io/razorx/pen/mGKih

Based on Mark Selby's async-gists.js: https://gist.github.com/markselby/7209751

This version by Evan Sosenko: https://gist.github.com/razor-x/8288761

gist-async.coffee

# Load GitHub Gists asynchronously
# and optionally specify which file to show.
#
# This is now a Bower package: gist-async.
# https://github.com/razor-x/gist-async
#
# Requires jQuery.
#
# Based on Mark Selby's async-gists.js:
# https://gist.github.com/markselby/7209751
#
# This version by Evan Sosenko.
#
# Source and usage instructions:
# https://gist.github.com/razor-x/8288761
#
'use strict'
$ ->
  GIST_HOST = 'https://gist.github.com'
  elements = $('div[data-gist]')
  gists = {}
  code = []
  stylesheets = []

  # The asynchronous asset loader function.
  loader = (url) ->
    link = document.createElement 'link'
    link.type = 'text/css'
    link.rel = 'stylesheet'
    link.href = url
    document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild link
    return

  elements.addClass('loading')

  # Get elements referencing a gist
  # and build a gists hash referencing
  # the elements that use it.
  elements.each (index, element) ->
    element = $(element)
    gist = element.data 'gist'
    gists[gist] ?= targets: []
    gists[gist].targets.push element

  # Load the gists.
  $.each gists, (id, data) ->
    $.getJSON "#{GIST_HOST}/#{id}.json?callback=?", (data) ->
      gist = gists[id]
      gist.data = data

      # Only insert the stylesheets once.
      stylesheet = gist.data.stylesheet
      if stylesheets.indexOf(stylesheet) < 0
        stylesheets.push stylesheet
        loader(stylesheet)

      div = gist.data.div
      gist.files = $(div).find('.gist-file')
      gist.outer = $(div).first().html('')

      # Iterate elements refering to this gist.
      $(gist.targets).each (index, target) ->
        file = target.data 'gist-file'
        if file
          outer = gist.outer.clone()
          inner = "<div class=\"gist-file\">" \
            + $(gist.files.get(gist.data.files.indexOf(file))).html() \
            + "</div>"
          outer.html inner
        else
          outer = $(div)

        outer.hide()
        target.fadeOut 'fast', ->
          $(this).replaceWith(outer)
          outer.fadeIn()

tag-gist.rb

# Overrides the gist markup added by Jekyll's gist Liquid tag
# to support loading GitHub Gists asynchronously using gist-async.coffee from
# https://gist.github.com/razor-x/8288761
module Jekyll
  class GistTag
    def gist_script_tag(gist_id, filename = nil)
      file_data_attr = filename.empty? ? '' : %Q{ data-gist-file="#{filename}"}

      # Append additional markup to this string that will be replaced on gist load
      inner = ''

      %Q{<div class="gist" data-gist="#{gist_id}"#{file_data_attr}>#{inner}</div>}
    end
  end
end

Found this immensely useful. I forked your gist to add a silly little WordPress shortcode for easy gist embedding. Thanks for your excellent work on this, seems way more predictable/maintainable than the crazy PHP string manipulation I was doing to produce the same result. And it's async.

Oops, meant to link to the shortcode source: https://gist.github.com/timrourke/4e10a1149a151e340896#file-shortcode-php

@timrourke I'm glad you found this useful. I just noticed your comment now as am converting this to a full-fledged Bower package. I will make a new gist with the WordPress and Jekyll plugins. Then I will create a demo page that loads them using the plugin!

https://github.com/razor-x/gist-async