A Markdown Monster addin that integrates with a few Gist features:

• Capture editor code or create new code, upload as Gist
  and embed into Markdown document
• Select existing Gists and embed into Markdown document
• Open Documents (Narkdown or otherwise) from Gist
• Save Documents (Markdown or otherwise) to Gist
• Delete Gists on Gist Site

Get a GitHub Personal Access Token

For authentication purposes you need a Github Personal Access Token. To create one, go to GitHub, click on your Profile and select Settings. Scroll down to the Developer Settings box and select Personal Access Tokens.

Save the retrieved value in the Gist Integration Addin configuration - click the downarrow next to the addin-icon and select Configuration.

{
  "GithubUserToken": "12345e0deb0c66041719d4cc7dec6cd45e",
  "GithubUsername": "JamesUser"
}

This features takes the current Clipboard or Editor text selection and pastes it as a Gist on Github. A separate editor screen pops up that lets you optionally format the code before posting it to a Gist. You can post anonymous or account based Gists, and use public or private visibility.

The resulting Gist is then embedded - via <script> tag - into the current Markdown document replacing the current selection.

Here's the Paste Code as Gist form that tells the story:

Here's the full set of steps to create and embed a Gist:

• Create some code in the editor
• Align code the way you want it (typically all the way to left)
• Select the code
• Alternately copy any external code to your Clipboard
• Click the Gist icon in toolbar
• Your code shows up in the editor
• Assign a filename with the extension that matches your code (ie. C# == MyFile.cs)
• Add an optional description
• Click Paste Code

The addin uses the Gist REST API to post the code to Github. The Gist API creates the Gist and returns a URL to the Gist so you can embed it into the page as an embedded Gist code block.

The embedded code in the markdown creates a <script> tag like this:

<script src="https://gist.github.com/35c288114e2cd98e1ca4fd875e7749fe.js"></script>

Set AllowRenderScriptTags: true

Markdown Monster by default doesn't allow <script> tags to be rendered. Embedded Gists use <script> tags and so you have to enable script embedding by setting the AllowRenderScriptTags: true in the Markdown Monster settings. Goto Tools -> Settings and find the AllowRenderScriptTags key to set.

The Open From Gist dialog allows you to view online Gists and perform a number of tasks on them.

• Embed existing Gists into Markdown
• Open Gists in the editor as a file
• Delete online Gists

To use this dialog:

• Go to File->Open From
• Go to Open or Embed from Gist

The dialog shows a list of existing Gist, which you can filter by user and an optional keyword search:

The most common thing you're going to use is to embed an existing Gist into a Markdown document. To do this, select the Gist you want to embed and use the context menu (or the Embed Button above) to insert the <script> link into the page.

A link is inserted into the page that looks like this:

<script src="https://gist.github.com/810de799ac33e8eba011f96f5e611c02.js"></script>

This Github hosted script code injects an <iframe> that houses the Gist as a code snippet widget into your Markdown document.

Open from and Save to Gist UI:

The addin adds two new Menu Options on the File menu:

• Open from Gist
• Save to Gist

To open a document from a Gist simply use Open or embed from Gist. Use the selection list to pick any Gist you want to load. Alternately you can explicitly type in a Gist Id. The username can be any user name, but it'll default the configuration value for GithubUsername in the Addin configuration. You can open Markdown documents or any other kind of code document for editing.

To Save a Document to a Gist use Save to Gist while a document is open. You can use the list to select a Gist from the list to update an existing Gist, or check Save as New Gist checkbox to create a new Gist with a filename.

File Name Extensions determine Syntax Coloring for Gist

For new Gists, you should always create a filename with an appropriate extension for the file you're saving so the Gist can display with the proper syntax highlighting.

Click the Save button to upload your Gist.

• Add Search Filter to Gist Selection Form
  Once Gists have loaded you can now filter the list with a search string to find all matching Gists.

• Retrieve up to the 100 Last Gists
  Changed the defaults to retrieve up to 100 of the last Gists from Github. 100 is the max for a single list grab and in order to keep the time to load reasonable this is - for now - the max list of Gists that can be loaded. (open to change in the future - it's possible to load up 3000 via paging).

• Show Gist Count on the Status Bar
  The number of Gists loaded now show on the status bar.

• Add Navigation Link to the HTML Gist
  You can now click on the URL icon in the list to navigate to the HTML Gist Page in your browser to check out the Gist before opening it.