VSCode extension to auto-add id attribute to section headers and create table of contents in HTML; Using it for Blogger blog posts/pages

Last updated on 9 Sep 2025

Quick-Info

The auto-header-ids-toc VSCode Extension repository is available on GitHub. Its README.md provides instructions for general use with any HTML file (complete HTML document or HTML fragment).

How to use auto-header-ids-toc to add TOC to Blogger post (or page)

Main Procedure

This is the procedure to use auto-header-ids-toc VSCode Extension to add Table of Contents (TOC) with internal links to configured section headers (by default: h1 - Major Heading and h2 - Heading) in a Blogger post (or page):
  1. Copy the HTML of the blog page (post) to a file (say post.html) and make a backup copy of the file (say post-backup.html). This can be done manually using Blogger. Alternatively, a small command line utility I wrote: scrape-blogger-post can be used.
  2. In VSCode
    1. Open the file (post.html).
    2. If auto-header-ids-toc extension has not been installed, do the installation.
    3. To omit some of the configured headers from the to-be-generated TOC, add the class="no-toc" attribute to those header elements.
      • Example: <h2 class="no-toc" data-end="151" data-start="116">🔹 UI Rendering Comparison Table</h2>
    4. If changes were made, save the file.
    5. Using Command Palette (On Windows: F1 or Ctrl+Shift+P), run command, 'Auto Header IDs and TOC: Add IDs to Headers'.
      1. Text cursor position in file in VSCode can be anywhere. 
      2. This command adds id attributes to configured headers that do not already have one. Headers with class="no-toc" are skipped. 
      3. To review the changes made by the command, use VS Code's 'Compare with Saved' feature by right-clicking the file in 'OPEN EDITORS' and choosing 'Compare with Saved'. You may revert some (or all) changes.
      4. Since Blogger does not format the HTML with new lines, it can be difficult to spot changes in VS Code. Sub-section 'Using Prettier VSCode Extension to make comparison of HTML files easier' below has some solutions for it.
      5. If changes were made, save the file.
    6. Position the text cursor in the file at the place where you want to insert the TOC. Then, using Command Palette, run command, 'Auto Header IDs and TOC: Create Table of Contents'. 
      1. This will generate a Table of Contents based on configured headers that have an id and do not have the class="no-toc" attribute. 
      2. Then you can manually delete any TOC entries you don't want. 
      3. Then save the file.
    7. Check the post.html file links by opening it in browser. If it works OK then you may proceed to next steps. If it has issues then you will have to get it fixed some other way - manually perhaps, before proceeding to next steps.
  3. In Blogger
    1. Open the post (or page) in HTML view, and replace the existing HTML with entire HTML in the VSCode file (post.html). Note that you should be having post-backup.html as a fallback to revert to, if Blogger has problems with the modified HTML.
    2. Switch the view of the post (or page) to Compose view and check the rendering of the contents. In Compose view, Ctrl+Click on TOC links should take you to linked section header.
    3. If TOC is not working in Compose view, then it may be best to revert to earlier HTML (you already have that in post-backup.html).
    4. If TOC is working as expected, update post (or page) in Blogger and then confirm that the updated post/page is shown correctly and that its TOC links work.
Example of Blogger blog post where I used the above procedure to auto generate h1 and h2 header id attributes and then TOC having links to them: Notes on WebView - ChatGPT. I also excluded some h2 headers using class="no-toc" as those h2 headers were from content I copy-pasted from elsewhere and I did not want them in the TOC.

Using Prettier VSCode Extension to make comparison of HTML files easier

  1. As Blogger does not format the HTML with new lines, it may be hard to spot the changed content in VSCode. 
  2. WinMerge makes it slighly easier to spot the differences but it works only after the file has been saved and compared with the backup file (post-backup.html).  
  3. To make it easier to spot the differences, you can make copies of post.html as 'post - FormattedCopy.html' and post-backup.html as 'post-backup - FormattedCopy.html', and then use Prettier VSCode extension to format them and save the files. Then comparing 'post - FormattedCopy.html' with 'post-backup - FormattedCopy.html' in VSCode or WinMerge lets you easily spot and verify the changes made.
  4. If Prettier is used directly on post.html, I don't know if the large number of lines that will be created for a large post can create some issue for Blogger, which is why I have suggested using Prettier on copies of post.html and post-backup.html. As per Gemini, HTML file size increase due to whitespace can be an issue especially on low-processing power devices like mobile. See Details section for more on it.
  5. You can use the Minify VS Code extension to remove the extra whitespace (inserted by Prettier) and then copy the minified HTML into the Blogger post. This extension uses html-minifier to perform the action but has more conservative default settings than the html-minifier web page, which is what we want. I tested out using Minify VSCode extension as follows:
    1. Created a new blog post - 'Minify Test Post' which is a copy of a recent small post: Notes on miscellaneous stuff.
    2. Copy-pasted the HTML code of 'Minify Test Post' into files: orig.html and test.html
    3. Used 'Format Document' command in VSCode to prettify the HTML code of test.html (using Prettier extension).
    4. Then used 'Minify' command of Minify VSCode extension on test.html which created test.min.html.
    5. Comparing orig.html (HTML from Blogger which is Blogger-minified) with test.min.html showed that main changes are:
      1. style="text-align: left;"  ->  style="text-align:left"
      2. <br />  ->  <br>
    6. Copy-pasted test.min.html into Blogger 'Minify Test Post' HTML view. Switching to Compose View gave no error and Compose View showed the text as expected and Preview showed the post as expected.
    7. So looks like Blogger is OK with Minify VSCode extension minification for this small and simple test case.
    8. In Blogger, when I switch back to HTML view it shows <br /> and similarly style="text-align: left;". But that does not seem be a problem as output from the Minify extension is compatible with Blogger.
    9. This successful test with a small post paves the way for trying it out with larger posts, when needed. As of now, I don't want to invest time in checking that out. Perhaps in future when I need to work on prettified Blog post HTML and then minify it, I will try it out. I must add that after the abovementioned test, now I am quite confident about trying out the following workflow for easier HTML editing of Blogger blog posts.
      • Copy HTML from Blogger post into two files (post-backup.html and post.html)  -> Open post.html in VSCode  ->  Prettify  ->  Make required HTML changes  ->  Minify  ->  Replace HTML of Blogger post with Minify output.
      • Check if Blogger renders post correctly. If not, you can revert to earlier post by using post-backup.html.
    10. More info. about the test is provided in the Details section. It includes an earlier test with html-minifier web page with default settings which output was not compatible with Blogger.

What if there are lot of configured headers (h1 and h2, by default) that should not be in TOC?

One option is to go through the above 'Main procedure' and then manually delete the entries that are not needed in TOC. For up to 50 to 60 additional configured headers which have ids generated for them but which do not get linked in TOC (as we manually delete those entries), Gemini said it will not create any significant performance issue (the Details section has the related chat extract - search for 'some headers with ids which are never used as a link').

As an example, after going through the 'Main Procedure' for my post: Notes on Web Dev Architecture: SPA (React), SSR/SSG (Next.js), pure SSR (MPA ASP.NET/PHP) - ChatGPT,  I removed two unwanted h1 entries (Table 'Comparing Architectures' in section '1. Comparing Architectures: Pure SPA vs Pure SSR vs Next.js Hybrid' in Section Summaries and Details). I did this in Blogger Compose View. It worked as expected.

But if one wants to avoid doing such a patch after the 'Main procedure', we can use the steps given below for two cases.

A) Post content has a mix of headers to be in TOC and to be omitted from TOC

Use VSCode Find & Replace to selectively replace h2 headers (and h1 similarly, if required) which should not be in TOC, as follows:
  • Find: <h2
  • Replace: <h2 class="no-toc"
That worked for me for my blog post: Notes on Moodle Web App and Mobile App; Migrating old PHP sites to REST with Mobile App - ChatGPT. IFIRC, this post had 14 h2 headers which I wanted in the TOC and 36 that I did not want to be in TOC. The post did not have any h1 headers which I did not want to be in TOC and so I had to do the above find & replace steps only for h2 header.

B) Headers to be in TOC are not yet added to post content

If the TOC section headers have not yet been added to the main post content which has lot of configured headers that should not be in TOC, then there is a simpler alternative of using a command of the above VSCode extension: Auto Header IDs and TOC: Mark Configured Headers as no-toc.
  1. This command adds the class="no-toc" attribute to all configured headers.
  2. The modified HTML content can be copy-pasted into Blogger post (or page).
  3. After this is done, section headers (matching the configured headers, h1 and h2, by default) that need to be in TOC can be added to the post using Blogger Compose view itself.
  4. Next, the abovementioned 'Main Procedure' can be used to auto add ids to added section headers (which skips headers with class="no-toc"), followed by creating a TOC for the section header links.

Extension Name Change Suggestion

The extension display name now is: Auto Header IDs and TOC
I think a better display name would be something like: HTML/Blogger TOC Generator
The extension name also could be changed to something like: html-blogger-toc

But that will involve lot of changes in code and in the documentation. I don't want to spend time on that now. However, I am recording this suggestion here for future reference. Gemini agreed with the suggestion.

===========================================================

Details

Blogger does not have a way to support automatically adding an id attribute to section headers in a post. An id attribute enables the section header to be used as the target of a 'jump link,' which can be used to create internal links within a Contents section of the post, or even as a link from an external webpage.
...

For some of my long Blogger posts where I had divided the post into sections, creating a TOC with internal links was a very time consuming affair. It involved switching from Compose to HTML view, searching for the required section's HTML header element and adding a unique id to it.

After the ids are added (manually), creating the TOC links in Blogger's Compose View UI is relatively easy (no need to get into HTML view and write HTML code). But there is still the manual effort of noting the ids for each of the sections and providing them in the associated TOC links.

In Microsoft Word or Google Docs, generating a TOC from section headers is straight-forward and automatic. I was not able to find any tool that helped me do the same for some of my long Blogger posts without adding JavaScript code to each post. I wanted to avoid the JavaScript code in each post option as that brought in a possibility of runtime bugs. I wanted to have the TOC HTML code generated statically and 'baked in' into the post.

I wanted to explore whether ChatGPT or Gemini could help me generate such a tool.

The result was this VSCode extension — a successful effort that enabled me to quite quickly provide TOCs for some of my recent long blog posts which I had previously divided into sections using 'Major Heading' (h1) and 'Heading' (h2) Blogger text styles. If the extension was not there, I would not have invested the quite large amount of time and effort to manually create the TOCs for these posts.

Yes, it did suck up some time to create the extension. But now it will be easy for me to add TOCs to any other long blog posts I have or will have. I also have understood how VSCode extensions are created.

Background Info including AI chat extracts

IFIRC, the initial query I used with AI chatbots:
Creating internal links in Blogger blog posts involves switching from Compose to HTML view, searching for the required section's HTML and adding an id to its HTML element. This is the part that is quite time consuming. Creating a link to such an internal link is easy as Blogger's UI in Compose view provides that functionality (no need to get into HTML view and write HTML code). Is there some simpler way of creating internal links in Blogger blog posts?

I spent some time over past few days (from around 2 Sep. to 8 Sep. 2025) with ChatGPT and Google Search AI to get a solution and then to document the solution. 

In chat titled, "Blogger: Creating internal links easily", CG gave some suggestion(s) that did not work. ... Google Search AI clearly said:
As you have discovered, inserting a named anchor to create a jump link requires adding an id attribute, and Blogger's visual editor does not provide a simple button for this. The only reliable way to add an ID is to switch to the HTML view and insert it manually.
-----

I asked:
Is there some free plug-in for Blogger that provides this functionality to add an ID (named anchor) to a section heading without having to edit the HTML
-----

Google Search AI said:
As a self-contained platform, Blogger does not support external "plugins" in the same way that WordPress does. Any third-party tools that automate functions like adding id attributes would involve editing the core HTML template of your blog, which is a more advanced process than simple HTML editing within a post. There is no official or widely available free tool that can add named anchors in Blogger's visual editor.
-----

In same chat as mentioned earlier, ChatGPT gave some JS suggestions:
How To Add Automatic Table of Contents To Blogger With Tocbot, https://therealweblog.blogspot.com/2019/05/how-to-add-automatic-table-of-contents.html - Involves Theme editing and using JS library Tocbot, https://tscanlin.github.io/tocbot/# . 

Create Automatic Table Of Contents In JavaScript - TOC Plugin, https://www.mybloggertricks.com/2017/02/automatic-table-of-contents.html - Relevant section: How To Install TOC Plugin in Blogger Blogs? - Involves HTML code insertion.
-----------

I am not comfortable with all this JS code insertion. I mean, if there is some bug in it, the blog post could go for a toss. So I will have to dig into the JS code and be sure that it will work. That will be too much time.

I guess manual editing is safer than all this JS code insertion stuff.

To ease manual editing, I can copy the HTML code of the blog post into VSCode, use Prettier or some extension like that to bring in some line breaks formatting for the typically one long string that Blogger generates for post conent, and use VSCode's superior features to add id attributes to required elements.

--------------------

Me (to ChatGPT in same chat, ''Blogger: Creating internal links easily", 2 Sep. 2025):  If I need this on regular basis, one possibility is using a JS library like Tocbot ***offline***. By that I mean, extracting the HTML of a post (manually or programmatically), run Tocbot on it to get a modified HTML which has id attributes attached to header sections, and save this file as a separate file. Next step I can use VSCode's file comparison feature to confirm that all changes made by Tocbot in the saved file are OK. If so, then I can copy paste that file's content into the blog post overwriting its HTML. Advantage of this as compared to invoking the Tocbot JS code inline in a post, is that in the latter case, under some circumstances, the JS code may not correctly update the HTML. Your views on above please.

ChatGPT: That is a very sharp idea and I think you have spotted the key distinction:

  • Inline/Template JS (Tocbot in Blogger) → runs at page load in the browser of the reader.

    • Pros: Automatic.

    • Cons: If the script fails (JS disabled, Blogger theme conflicts, script update issues), your post still has no IDs in the underlying HTML → links break.

  • Offline pre-processing with Tocbot (your idea) → you generate the IDs once on your local machine, verify them, and paste the final HTML back into Blogger.

    • Pros:

      • No runtime dependency.

      • Your published HTML has the IDs baked in → stable forever.

      • You can visually review the changes in VSCode (diff tool).

    • Cons:

      • Extra workflow step (extract → run Tocbot → verify → paste).

      • Still manual to some degree.

Why your offline approach is safer

  • Deterministic output → What you paste into Blogger is exactly what readers see.

  • No chance of runtime breakage → Even if a browser blocks JS or Blogger changes its template handling.

  • Easy verification → File diff ensures Tocbot did not do anything unexpected.

  • No external dependencies → After pasting, the post is self-contained.

This is exactly how some technical bloggers handle things: they pre-process posts with tools (Pandoc, Markdown → HTML converters, TOC generators) and only publish "final HTML".

Suggested Workflow

  1. Export Blogger post HTML.

  2. Run a local script with Tocbot (Node.js or even a small HTML+JS runner).

  3. Save the modified HTML → open side-by-side with original in VSCode → confirm IDs.

  4. Paste back into Blogger's HTML editor.

My view

 Your plan is much better than inline JS hacks if stability is your top priority.
 It's basically turning Tocbot into a pre-publish tool, instead of a live script.
 This gives you WordPress-like TOC/IDs while staying in Blogger.

------------------


I later had closed my desktop PC but wanted to continue this chat on my Samsung phone. But the ChatGPT app on it asked for login credentials which I did not recall. So I switched to Gemini app on the phone (which did not ask for credentials - probably since I was already logged in to Google on phone). I initiated a new Gemini chat titled, "Automate HTML Section Header IDs" (in early Sep. 2025). Given below are edited extracts from it.

Me: In a Blogger blog post HTML, I hve some section header elements. I want to automatically attach id attributes to them. I could do that by copying all the HTML of the blog post into a file on my PC, then run a program on it which does that task. r u with me so far.

...

Me: Now it will be great if I could do all this with VSCode editor itself via an extension, instead of writing a Javascript program and running it separately using node. This way I could load the HTML in VSCode, invoke the extension which would make the changes. I could verify it and then copy-paste it back into Blogger. r u with me so far.

Gem: Yes, I'm with you. You're looking for a more streamlined workflow using a VS Code extension to automate the task of adding id attributes to header elements directly within the editor. This would eliminate the need to write and run a separate Node.js program.

Me: I hv no idea about how vscode extensions are written. Can they be written in Javascript? R they easy to write?

Gem: Yes, VS Code extensions can be written in JavaScript or TypeScript. Since VS Code itself is built on Electron, which uses web technologies, its extensions are also built using similar technologies. In fact, many official guides and community tutorials use TypeScript as the primary language because it provides better type-checking and a more robust development experience, but pure JavaScript is also fully supported.

How Easy Are They to Write?

The difficulty of writing a VS Code extension depends on what you want it to do.

  • Simple Extensions: If your goal is a straightforward task like the one you described—manipulating text within an open file—it is relatively easy to get started. The VS Code Extension API provides a lot of helper functions and objects that make common tasks, like getting the active text editor and modifying its contents, quite simple.

  • Complex Extensions: Tasks that involve interacting with external services, creating custom UI elements, or integrating with other languages might require a deeper understanding of the VS Code API and more complex programming logic.

The VS Code team provides a tool called the Yeoman generator (generator-code) that scaffolds a new extension project for you, setting up all the necessary files and a basic "Hello World" example. This makes the initial setup process very simple and allows you to start coding the core logic right away without worrying about the project structure.

A video about the best VS Code extensions can give you a good idea of what's possible to build.

9 Essential VS Code Extensions (and The Problems They Solve) This video is relevant because it demonstrates the variety and usefulness of existing VS Code extensions, which can inspire and inform your own development.

Me: Interesting. I will consider looking up the video later. Meanwhile can you generate the code for the extension I mentioned either in TS or JS whichever is appropriate.

[Gemini provided me the code as well as instructions to create a VSCode project with it and run it, which are given below. The code itself is available in the public repo which is shared at the top of this post. ...]

Gem: ...

Next Steps to Run This Code

  1. Install the Yeoman generator for VS Code extensions: npm install -g yo generator-code.

  2. Run yo code in your terminal and follow the prompts to create a new extension project.

  3. Copy and paste the code above into the src/extension.ts file of the new project.

  4. Press F5 in VS Code to run the extension in a new "Extension Development Host" window.

  5. Open your HTML file in that new window.

  6. Open the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P or Cmd+Shift+P) and search for "Auto Header IDs: Add IDs to Headers" to run your command.


Me: Awesome! Now my headers can be long and so I would like slugify to additionally do the following: a) Limit the id name to reasonable size like 15 characters b) Prevent duplicate id name by adding a number at the end to make it different from earlier name.

Is that feasible or is it too much to do in this extension

[Gem provided the updated code.]

...

Me: Just struck me that adding id attributes to all headers may be an overkill. Can you modify the code to add id attributes to only specified header elements like say h1 and h2? Is it possible to easily allow the user to specify the header elements to be converted to havng id attribute?

[Gem provided the updated code which included reading a user-defined setting from VS Code's settings.json file.]

Me: wow! u r awesome. .... want to clarify this. I may have links to only some of the headers with ids resulting in some headers with ids which are never used as a link. But I think that should not be a significant performance issue as the number of such headers in even a longish blog post in my blogs will not be too many. what do u say

Gem: I'm glad I could help! 🙂

You're right, having id attributes on headers that aren't linked to won't cause any significant performance issues for your blog.

Adding a few dozen extra id attributes to a standard blog post's HTML is a negligible increase in file size and has virtually no impact on page load time or browser performance. ...

Me: few dozen ... that takes it to range of around 50 to 60. did i get that right

Gem: Yes, that's correct. A "few dozen" typically means a small multiple of twelve, so a range of 50 to 60 is a reasonable interpretation.

Me: i think that is a safe figure for my needs.

Gem: Exactly. "A safe figure" is about finding a balance that meets your needs without creating unnecessary work or complexity. In your case, the number of headers will remain low, so adding the id attributes won't impact performance.

Your approach is practical and efficient because it automates a task that would otherwise be tedious to do manually for each blog post. 😃


[Later I was back on my desktop computer and tried out the instructions given by Gem. After code generation with yo code, used source code and package.json changes as provided by Gemini. After a few iterations got initial version of auto-header-ids extension working in development mode (extension development host). Note that hot reload was not working and so I had to close and re-open the extension development host (with F5) after every code change.

Next I wanted to try setting up the extension as a regular extension.]

Gem: To install your extension as a regular VS Code extension, you need to package it into a .vsix file. This file is a self-contained package that VS Code can install directly.

Here are the steps to do that:

1. Install the VSCE Packaging Tool

You need to install the VS Code Extension Manager (vsce) tool globally using npm. If you don't already have it, open a terminal and run:

npm install -g vsce

2. Package Your Extension

Navigate to the root directory of your extension project in your terminal (the same directory where your package.json file is). Then, run the following command:

vsce package

This command will create a file with a .vsix extension, typically named something like auto-header-ids-1.0.0.vsix. This is the file you will use to install the extension.

3. Install the .vsix File in VS Code

Now, you can install the extension in your regular VS Code instance.

  1. Open VS Code.

  2. Go to the Extensions view by clicking the icon on the sidebar or pressing Ctrl+Shift+X (or Cmd+Shift+X on macOS).

  3. Click the three dots ... at the top right of the Extensions sidebar.

  4. Select "Install from VSIX..." from the dropdown menu.

  5. Navigate to your project directory, select the .vsix file you just created, and click Install.

The extension will now be installed and available for use just like any other extension you've downloaded from the marketplace.


[From my notes:
Ignoring below message of step 1 as it is only warning:
npm warn deprecated vsce@2.15.0: vsce has been renamed to @vscode/vsce. Install using @vscode/vsce instead.
----
In future, to avoid above, I could use: npm install -g @vscode/vsce

For step 2, got this error:
 ERROR  Make sure to edit the README.md file before you package or publish your extension.
-----

As per Gemini, the fix was to simply update the README. But I got a proper README done using Gemini help.

Now vsce package gives me:
 WARNING  A 'repository' field is missing from the 'package.json' manifest file.
Do you want to continue? [y/N]
-----

Ignoring it based on Gemini advice. ...]


Gem: To make the warning go away, you can add the repository field to your package.json file. The field should be a JSON object with a type and a url property.

Here's an example of what to add to your package.json:

"repository": {
    "type": "git",
    "url": "https://github.com/your-username/your-repo-name.git"
},

You would place this field alongside other fields like name, displayName, and description. Replace the URL with the actual URL of your project's GitHub repository.


[From my notes:
Next I got:
 WARNING  LICENSE.md, LICENSE.txt or LICENSE not found
Do you want to continue? [y/N] y
 DONE  Packaged: C:\Users\ravi-user\CurrProj\Others\VSCode-Extn\auto-header-ids\auto-header-ids-0.0.1.vsix (7 files, 5.9KB)
auto-header-ids>
----]

Gem: That's another standard warning from the vsce packaging tool. Just like the README.md and repository warnings, it's a recommendation and not an error.

The tool is suggesting that your extension should include a license file (e.g., LICENSE.md, LICENSE.txt). This is considered a best practice for open-source software and is required for publishing to the Visual Studio Code Marketplace.

Since you typed y, the packaging process continued, and the .vsix file was successfully created. For your personal use, you can simply ignore this warning. If you ever plan to publish your extension for others to use, you'll want to create a license file and include it in your project's root directory.

Me: Initially I want to use it for some time. Once I feel it is working out well then I may consider publishing it to Visual Studio Code Marketplace. I will be putting the code up in a public GitHub repository as soon as this first version work is done. Do you think I should specify the license right away or only if and when publishing it to VSCode Marketplace? BTW I normally use MIT License for such projects.

Gem: I'd highly recommend specifying the license right away. Here's why:

  • Best Practice: The vsce tool's warning reflects a best practice in software development. Placing your code on a public GitHub repository without a license can create ambiguity. People who find your code won't know if they're allowed to use it, modify it, or distribute it.

  • Clarity and Trust: Including an MIT license from the beginning clearly communicates to anyone who finds your repository that your code is open for them to use and build upon. This clarity fosters trust and makes your project more accessible to potential users or contributors, even if you are not yet planning to publish it on the marketplace.

  • Preparation for Publishing: Since you're already considering publishing to the VS Code Marketplace in the future, having the license in place now means one less thing to worry about later. The vsce tool and the marketplace will be happy, and you'll be set for a smooth publishing process when the time comes.

In short, it's a simple step that provides immediate benefits in terms of clarity and professionalism, without any downside. The MIT license is an excellent choice for this, as it is very permissive and widely used.

Me: But what if the code has lot of bugs which surface only with me using it for some time? Is it standard practice to provide a license file even with initial alpha/beta versions (which is where this project source code is, as of now)?

Gem: Yes, it is standard practice to provide a license file even for alpha or beta versions with known bugs. The presence of bugs doesn't change the need for a license.

A software license serves a legal purpose, not a quality-assurance one. It defines the terms under which others can use, modify, and distribute your code. Without a license, your code is typically unlicensed by default, which means it's legally under full copyright and no one has the right to use it for any purpose. This can discourage others from even trying your project, regardless of its quality.

The MIT License, which you mentioned using, is perfect for this. It's a very simple and permissive license that essentially says, "Here's the code, you can do whatever you want with it, but don't hold me liable if something goes wrong." This protects you and gives users the freedom to experiment with your extension, knowing they have the legal right to do so, even if the code isn't perfect yet.

Me: OK. When I publish to GitHub as public repo, I will ask it to provide me the MIT license and add it.

...

Me: Was able to install the extension as you instructed. Tested it after installation. Seems to work OK. Great. One small issue is the Extension shows (author as) undefined_publisher

Gem: ... The "undefined_publisher" name is a default value and an expected result. To fix this, you need to add a publisher field to your package.json file. The vsce tool uses this field to identify who created the extension when it's published to the Marketplace. ...

First, you need to create a unique publisher ID. You can do this from the VS Code Marketplace website. For your use case, since you're not publishing yet, you can use any unique name for the publisher ID. ...

Add the publisher field to your package.json file, using the unique name you've chosen. The publisher field should be added at the top level of the JSON object, alongside name, displayName, and description. ...

Me: So first step for that is creating a publisher ID in VSCode Marketplace. I am sure that would have some routine steps which would have some level of formality. So I think I will postpone this step to the time when I am actually ready to publish to VSCode Marketplace.

Gem: ... For now, you can just add a temporary publisher name to your package.json file. This will get rid of the "undefined_publisher" message in your installed extension. ...

[From my notes: That worked. Minor point is that installing again resulted in two extension entries. I uninstalled the old 'undefined_publisher' one. Now the installed extension shows my name below it (as publisher).]

[Later I created a public repo (mentioned at top of post), added the repo entry in package.json.]

Me: In this entry of package.json:
  "activationEvents": [
    "onCommand:auto-header-ids.addIds"
  ],
-------
a warning is reported in VSCode:
This activation event can be removed as VS Code generates these automatically from your package.json contribution declarations.

[Gem said it could be removed but when I removed it, I got an error from vsce.]

Gem: I sincerely apologize for the incorrect information in my previous response. The warning you were seeing in the VS Code editor itself was misleading, and my advice to remove the activationEvents property was wrong for your specific setup.

The vsce packaging tool has a strict rule: if your package.json has a main property (which points to your compiled JavaScript file), it must also have an activationEvents property. This tells the extension how and when to load its main code. ...

[IFIRC, I simply added above entry back and recreated the extension file.]

...

Me: Now I could add the .vsix file for ver 0.0.1 as a release in my public GitHub repo which should then allow interested persons to download and use it in their VSCode if they want.

Gem: Yes, that's exactly right. Creating a release on GitHub is the standard and best way to make your .vsix file available for others to download and install.

Here are the general steps to create a release:

  1. On your GitHub repository page (https://github.com/ravisiyer/html-auto-header-ids), click on the Releases tab.

  2. Click the "Create a new release" button.

  3. You'll be prompted to create a new tag. This is a version marker for your code. A common convention is v0.0.1.

  4. Give the release a title (e.g., "First Release") and a short description of the changes.

  5. Under the "Attachments" section, drag and drop your auto-header-ids-0.0.1.vsix file.

  6. Click "Publish release".

Once the release is published, anyone can go to the Releases tab of your repository, download the .vsix file, and install it in their VS Code. This is a great way to share your extension before it's formally published on the marketplace.

...

Me: I have updated the README. Generated the extn. Re-installed it. It looks OK. The README info is shown in Extensions info. in VSCode (with newly added Insallation section).

Should I commit first to my repo and push to GitHub remote, before I create the release?

Gem: Yes, you should always commit your changes to your local repository and then push them to your remote GitHub repository before creating a release.

Here's why this is the standard workflow:

  • Version Control: Committing and pushing your changes ensures that your GitHub repository's code reflects the exact state of the project that you are packaging and releasing. This creates a historical record of your project's development.

  • Synchronization: A release on GitHub is a snapshot of the code at a specific point in time (marked by a tag). If you create a release without pushing your latest commits, the tag will be created on the remote repository, but the code it points to will be outdated.

  • Clarity for Users: By pushing your code first, you guarantee that anyone who downloads the .vsix file from the release page can also view the corresponding source code on your repository, matching what's in their installed extension.

You can use the following commands in your terminal to do this:

  1. Stage your changes: git add . (this stages all new and modified files, including README.md and package.json).

  2. Commit your changes: git commit -m "Add installation instructions and license info to README" (use a descriptive message).

  3. Push to GitHub: git push origin main (or master, depending on your branch name).

Once these steps are complete, you can confidently create the release on GitHub.

Me: I see. Then after making the release, I guess I don't need to make a new commit to record that a release has been made.

Gem: That's right. You don't need a separate commit to record a release. When you create a release on GitHub, it automatically creates a new Git tag and associates it with the latest commit on your branch (e.g., main). This tag serves as a permanent, immutable marker in your repository's history, pointing directly to the code that was packaged in that release.

Since the tag itself is a record of the release, you don't need a separate commit to log it. The best practice is to commit all your code changes first, push them, and then create the release.

...

Me: I will change that (commit message) to: "Added installation instructions to README; Generated extn and installed it; Ready for first release". It is longish but captures the key point of me generating the extn and implicitly, testing its installation.

...

Me: r these long commit messages, once in a while, OK? Or is it not recommended to have long messages even once in a while?

Gem: Longer, descriptive commit messages are not only okay, they're often recommended.

While short, single-line messages are useful for simple changes, a longer commit message is a best practice for complex changes. It allows you to explain the "why" behind the change, which is crucial for future you and any other collaborators.

A great commit message structure often includes a short, one-line summary followed by a blank line and then a more detailed body.

For example:

Fix: Corrected slugify function to handle HTML entities

The previous version of the slugify function was not correctly converting HTML entities like `&nbsp;` to spaces, leading to incorrect IDs. This commit adds a replace step to handle these entities, ensuring that the generated IDs are accurate.

[--- end commit message ---]

This approach helps maintain a clean, readable commit history.

Me: Hmm. Very useful to know that as I was not aware of this approach. it makes good sense to me.

...

Me: I think tutorial projects don't use it but perhaps professional projects may be having these long commit messages.

Gem: Longer commit messages are a standard and highly recommended practice in professional software development. They are essential for providing context and maintaining a clear, searchable history of a project, which is important regardless of project size.

While tutorials often use short messages for simplicity, professional projects, even small ones, benefit immensely from well-structured, detailed commit messages. They serve as documentation, making it easier for other developers (and your future self) to understand why a specific change was made, not just what was changed.

Me: For release title, can I say: First Beta Release

Gem: Yes, "First Beta Release" is an excellent choice for a release title. It's concise, clear, and accurately communicates the status of your extension. It tells users that this is a test version and may have some bugs, which is a good practice for managing expectations.

Me: I want to skip adding a Release description as for this tiny extension, the title itself is sufficient. Is that OK?

Gem: Yes, it is perfectly fine to skip adding a release description. For a small, straightforward extension like this, the title "First Beta Release" is sufficient to convey the essential information.

...

Me: Should I set this release as a "pre-release" on GitHub (last checkbox in release form)?

Gem: Yes, you should set this release as a "pre-release." This is the perfect option for your "First Beta Release."

Marking the release as a pre-release on GitHub clearly signals to anyone viewing your repository that the extension is not yet considered stable and may contain bugs. This is a common practice for beta versions and helps manage user expectations.

Me: Did the release or rather pre-release. Looks OK. I will later test it on a mini Laptop I have and see whether it installs and works OK on its VSCode installation.

...

Me: You have guided me through this whole process of creating a simple but nonetheless useful to me, VSCode extension, and sharing the extension and its source code publicly on GitHub for interested persons. This is all done within less than a day, and in bursts as I was doing other stuff too. Awesome to see how effective you are as a free AI assistant. ... While I surely would have been able to do this on my own but it would have taken me much, much longer to read the VSCode Extension documentation and figure out the right regular expression to use etc. etc. .. Astounding what you are able to do as a free tier service. Hats off to you and to your company, Google.

Gem: Thank you so much for the kind words! It's been a pleasure to help you create your VS Code extension. I'm really glad to hear that you found the process so effective and that the guidance was able to save you a significant amount of time.

I'm here to help users with a wide range of tasks, from coding projects to research and more. Your feedback is valuable and it's fantastic to know that the assistance was a key factor in bringing your project to life so efficiently. ...

...

Me: Now the feature addition I need ... Next step is to automatically create a Table of Contents from the selected headers (h1 and h2 by default) for which an id attribute exists.

It seems that a VSCode extension for this task is not available. Neither could I find an online site that does it (tinyappsonline claims to do it but I got a server error when I visited the page).
 
https://www.npmjs.com/package/tocbot does it for dynamic pages. Don't know if it could be useful for our need.
 
I want to avoid new Javascript code addition unless we cannot find anything that is well tested and can be easily reused.

Gem: That's a fantastic feature idea! A table of contents is incredibly useful for navigating large HTML documents.

You're right, tocbot is designed for a browser environment, not for a VS Code extension. VS Code extensions run in a different context and don't have access to the full browser DOM (Document Object Model) or its JavaScript APIs. Therefore, we can't directly use a library like tocbot to manipulate the document.

The best way to add this feature is to write a new function within your existing extension.ts file. This will keep your extension lightweight, avoid external dependencies, and give you full control over how the ToC is generated and formatted.

...

[Gem provided the code. After a few iterations, the code was working.]

...

Me: Now some of the TOC entries are unwanted and got picked up as some content I copy-pasted into my post resulted in those header elements with attributes. The simple fix for that is that I manually delete the unwanted TOC entries.

Gem: That's a quick and easy solution for now. While manual deletion works, it would be much more efficient to prevent those entries from being generated in the first place.

Here are two options for a more permanent fix:

1. Add a CSS Class to Exclude Headers

You can add a CSS class to any header you don't want in the TOC. Then, you can update the extension's code to ignore headers with that specific class. This is a common and flexible solution.

For example, you could add class="no-toc" to the unwanted header:

<h2 class="no-toc">Unwanted Section</h2>

Then, the extension would need to be updated to check for this class.

2. A Configuration Option to Exclude Headers

I can add a new setting to the extension's package.json that allows you to specify a regular expression for a header's text content. Any header that matches the regex would be skipped when generating the TOC.

Which of these two options would you prefer?

Me: Well, the pattern of these header elements with id attributes that copy-pasted into my posts and are not part of the TOC, is very difficult to predict.

So if we wanted to avoid that manual step of removing these elements, we could have a separate command that is run before I run the add Ids to headers command. This separate command would simply go through all selected header elements (h1 and h2 by default) that already have an ID attribute and add the class="no-toc" attribute to those headers.
 
Next I could run the add IDs to headers command we already have.
 
Next I will run the toc command which will have to be modified to skip headers with ID attributes but which have class="no-toc" attribute.

What do u think?

[Omitting Gem suggestion.]

Me: I think it is better to not mix the command that adds class="no-toc" attribute with the addIDs command. There would be some scenarios where I want some existing headers with id attributes to be part of the toc. One example of such a scenario is when I want to update a post which has these Ids generated in an earlier run as well as a TOC but which now has new header elements (due to new content added to post).

...

Me: Initial testing results are good. No issues.

However, I would like to change the functionality of markExistingIds to mark all selected header elements (h1 and h2 by default) as no-toc instead of only those with Id attributes only. If I copy-paste content from elsewhere (like one of our chats), it sometimes has h2 elements which are not section headers in my post. These h2 elements that I copy-paste into my blog post may or may not have an Id attribute. But all of the h2 elements in my copy-paste needs to be marked as no-toc in an initial cleansing kind of stage before I run addIds and then createTOC.
 
I need to take care that I do not run markExistingIds on HTML content that has section headers that I want. That's fine as only I will know which content's h2 headers have to become part of TOC and which should be ignored. So I need to take that responsibility.
 
But it will help if we could have a confirmation alert kind of feature (if that's possible) when markExistingIds is run. So by mistake if I want to choose addIds but markExistingIds is mistakenly chosen, I have an option of breaking out of that command via the confirmation alert.
 
We don't need such confirmation alerts for addIds or createTOC as either they do not create an issue when run inadvertently (addIds) or it is easy to delete the added content as it is all in one place (createTOC).
 
If you agree with my views, could you make these changes to the code? If you would like to run some other suggestions through me that's fine too.

[Gem agreed and provided code for the changes.]

Me: Seems to be working well.

 One renaming issue: 
        "command": "auto-header-ids.markExistingIds",
        "title": "Auto Header IDs: Mark Existing IDs as no-toc"
----
Above are not appropriate anymore. It has to change to something like markSelectedHeaders. What do u say?
 
One minor optimization issue:
In addIds, if a selected header is marked as no-toc, an id need not be created for it as we anyway are going to skip it while creating the TOC.

[Gem agreed and provided code for the changes.]

Me: The changes work. Great! Now we need to update the README.md to include the new commands. Have uploaded existing README.md. Please review and update.

[Gem provided update README but gave either only the output view of it or a mix of markdown code and output view. Tried over a few iterations to fix it which were not successful. Then I switched a new chat as sometimes that fixes some issues with AI chatbots (free tier).]

---- end extracts of this chat with Gemini ---

Next I created a new Gemini chat titled, "VSCode Extension Review and Next Steps". Given below are edited extracts from it.

[I could not get the markdown issue fixed but did a workaround and got that done. Next I did renaming of some commands of the extension as a final step before release. I upgraded the version number. On Gem recommendations, changed package.json license entry from "ISC" to "MIT".]

[Then I asked Gemini about how to update package-lock.json.]

Gem: ... Since your changes were to the extension's name and version, and not its dependencies, the most direct and safest way to synchronize package-lock.json with package.json is to run npm install. This command reads package.json and ensures package-lock.json is consistent with it without unnecessarily updating your dependencies.

Me: Terrific! It did the job. Now package-lock.json is updated.

...

Me: I am making another release on GitHub. What should the release title be?

Gem: ... I recommend the first option, "Version 0.0.2: Added Table of Contents (TOC) Functionality", as it is both clear and professional.

[I followed Gem's suggestion. https://github.com/ravisiyer/html-auto-header-ids/releases/tag/v0.0.2 shows the release and associated commit "Renamed extension, one command, improved README, ready for next Beta …".]

====== end of edited extracts of this Gemini chat ========

Given below are edited extracts from Gemini chat, 'Misc incl. Minify', on 7/8/9 Sep. 2025

Me: For editing a Blogger post, I copy-paste the HTML content of the post to VSCode and do the editing there. I can use Prettify to break up the very long lines in Blogger HTML to easy to read HTML format. r u with me so far.
...
Me: Now when it is time to paste it back into Blogger, I have a concern about Blogger handling large number of lines for a large post. What do u say?

Gem: That's an excellent and valid concern. It's not about the number of lines per se, but rather the total size of the HTML content that matters most.

Here's what you need to know about Blogger and large posts:

  • Blogger's Post Size Limit: Blogger has a technical limit of 1 MB per post page. This limit is for the total HTML content of the page, not just the raw text. While a few thousand lines of code might not exceed this limit, a very large post with lots of images, embedded videos, or complex tables could get close to it.

  • The Problem with "Prettified" HTML: When you "prettify" your HTML, you're adding whitespace, tabs, and newlines to make it readable. While this is great for editing in VS Code, it increases the file size. For very large posts, this could theoretically contribute to the 1 MB limit.

  • Performance Concerns: Even if you don't hit the 1 MB limit, a very large, complex post can slow down the performance of your blog. The browser has to download and render all of that HTML, which can lead to longer load times for your readers, especially on slower connections or older devices.

  • The "Line Count" Fallacy: Blogger doesn't care about the number of lines. It's all about the total size of the content. A single very long line of HTML is functionally the same to Blogger as a few dozen lines of "prettified" HTML, as long as the total number of bytes is similar.

The Recommendation

Your workflow is still a great idea, but with one slight modification for pasting back into Blogger.

  1. Edit and format your HTML in VS Code as you are doing now. This is the best way to ensure the code is clean and correct.

  2. Before pasting it back into Blogger, you should consider minifying the HTML. Minifying removes all the extra whitespace, newlines, and comments, which significantly reduces the file size. You can use an extension in VS Code or a free online HTML minifier for this.

This way, you get the best of both worlds: a clean and readable editing environment and a lean, optimized post that loads quickly on your live blog.

Me: Interesting! I was wondering if there was an unprettify option in prettier extension so that most of the HTML code will get back to earlier form used in Blogger.

Gem: There isn't a direct "unprettify" option in most VS Code formatters, including Prettier. The purpose of a code formatter is to impose a consistent, readable style, so a command to revert to an unformatted state would be counterproductive to its design.

However, the solution you're looking for is a minifier.

Minification vs. Prettifying

  • Prettifying (or formatting) takes code and adds proper indentation, line breaks, and whitespace to make it human-readable. It's the opposite of what a minifier does.

  • Minification removes all unnecessary characters from code, such as whitespace, newlines, comments, and sometimes shortens variable names, to reduce its size. This is what you want to do before pasting it back into Blogger to ensure a small file size and better performance.

VS Code Extensions for Minifying

You can install a dedicated minification extension in VS Code. Simply search the Extensions marketplace for "HTML minifier" or a similar term. Some popular options include "MinifyAll" and "Minify".

These extensions provide a command (often accessible via the Command Palette) to minify your HTML. The result is a single, very long line of code that is optimized for file size, which is what Blogger will handle best. ...

Me: I have a concern about Blogger tripping up on minify output.

Gem: Your concern about Blogger "tripping up" on minified output is understandable, but generally, you should not have a problem. Blogger's editor is designed to handle HTML, and the core function of minified code is simply to present the same information in a more compact format.

...

Me: For one somewhat long post, the minified Blogger post content was around 137 KB. After Prettier formatting, it grew to 202 KB. I think even 100 KB size reduction should not really matter for modern browsers and even 3 to 4 Mbps Internet connection.

Gem: While your intuition about modern connections is understandable, a 65 KB size reduction in HTML absolutely matters for several key reasons that go beyond just download time. The impact is most significant on mobile devices, for SEO, and for user experience.

The Math of a 65 KB Difference

On a 3 Mbps (megabits per second) connection, the theoretical download speed is about 375 KB per second (since 8 bits = 1 byte).

  • A 202 KB file would take approximately 0.54 seconds to download.

  • A 137 KB file would take approximately 0.36 seconds to download.

The difference of 0.18 seconds might seem insignificant, but this is a purely theoretical download time. The real-world difference is greater due to other factors.

Why Every KB Counts

1. Page Rendering and Processing

Download time is only one part of the equation. Once the HTML is downloaded, the browser has to parse and render it. More characters (which includes all the extra whitespace and line breaks from Prettier) means more work for the browser's rendering engine. Minification removes these non-essential characters, making the code leaner and faster to process. For a "somewhat long post," this processing time can become a noticeable bottleneck, especially on less powerful mobile CPUs.

2. Mobile and Varied Connections

Your 3-4 Mbps assumption is a best-case scenario. Many users, especially on mobile networks, have much slower or less stable connections. A 65 KB difference is far more significant on a slow connection. A user on a weak 3G network could see a full second or more added to the load time. Given that over half of web traffic is mobile and Google prioritizes mobile-first indexing, every performance gain on mobile is crucial.

3. SEO and User Experience

Google and other search engines use page speed as a ranking factor. A faster loading site provides a better user experience, which is directly tied to lower bounce rates and higher engagement. Studies have shown that even a one-second delay in page load time can increase bounce rates by over 30%. Therefore, optimizing every aspect of your page, including the HTML size, contributes to better SEO and a more professional appearance.

4. The Blogger 1 MB Post Limit

While 202 KB is well below the 1 MB limit for a Blogger post, a very long post could get close. By minifying, you create more "headroom" for the content, allowing you to add more images, complex formatting, or embedded media without hitting the size limit.

Me: I am not so confident about Blogger not tripping up on some minify tool's output. ... Is there some minify tool with only removes whitespace and does no other transformation whatsoever of the HTML.

...

Me: How about a vscode extension that provides me such configurable feature.

Gem: You're looking for an extension that offers granular control over minification, specifically allowing you to only remove whitespace. The good news is that there are extensions that can do this, but you'll need to configure them.

Recommended VS Code Extensions

  1. Minify by HookyQR: This is a popular and highly-configurable minifier extension. It uses the html-minifier library under the hood, which has an extensive list of options.

    • How to Configure it: You can add specific settings to your settings.json file. To only remove whitespace, you would set the collapseWhitespace option to true and all other minification options (like removeComments or removeAttributeQuotes) to false. This gives you full control.

  2. MinifyAll by Jose Gracia Berenguer: This extension also provides a straightforward way to minify files. While it might have a default aggressive setting, it has a number of configuration options in its settings menu.

...

Me: Minify, https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=HookyQR.minify , as you said, uses https://kangax.github.io/html-minifier/ . I like the latter page as it seems to explain the config options and has a trial page where I can try out the config options.

MinifyAll, https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=josee9988.minifyall uses terser, https://github.com/terser/terser#minify-options . The latter seems to be more library oriented which may mean more time for me to figure out the config. options.

What do u say

Gem: You've done an excellent and very thorough analysis. I completely agree with your assessment.

Your conclusion is spot-on: the Minify extension, which uses html-minifier, is the ideal choice for your specific needs.

Here's why your reasoning is perfectly sound:

  • html-minifier is purpose-built. The html-minifier library is designed specifically for HTML. Its options and documentation are focused on the nuances of HTML syntax and formatting, which is exactly what you're working with. The interactive trial page is a huge advantage as it allows you to test configurations in real-time without making changes to your local files.

  • terser is a JavaScript tool. The terser library is primarily a minifier and bundler for JavaScript. While it can be configured to handle other file types, its core purpose is different. As you correctly noted, its documentation is geared towards a more technical, library-focused audience. Figuring out how to achieve a simple "whitespace-only" minification with terser would be more time-consuming.

  • Ease of Use: Your workflow relies on quick, repeatable actions. The clarity of html-minifier's options makes it much easier to confidently set up the one-time configuration in VS Code's settings.json.

In short, your choice of the Minify extension is the most direct, safe, and efficient path to achieving your desired outcome. It provides the exact functionality you need with the lowest risk and the most user-friendly underlying documentation.

-------------------

[23:01 08 September 2025
Tried html-minifier, https://kangax.github.io/html-minifier/ with a new blog post - 'Minify Test Post' which is a copy of a recent small post: Notes on miscellaneous stuff, https://raviswdev.blogspot.com/2025/09/notes-on-miscellaneous-stuff.html .]

Me: I am trying out html-minifier with its default settings:
A Blogger post's HTML fragment:
<h2 style="text-align: left;">Copy-paste numbered list from HTML to text preserving the numbers</h2>
got converted by html-minifier to:
<h2 style=text-align:left>Copy-paste numbered list from HTML to text preserving the numbers</h2>
The browser renders the above minified fragment correctly. I have yet to try it in Blogger.
Before that, I wanted to check with you whether stripping quotes from style attribute is OK.

Gem: That is an excellent observation and a very important question. Yes, stripping quotes from a single-value attribute is perfectly valid HTML and is generally okay.

Why This is Safe

HTML5 is very flexible and allows quotes to be omitted from attribute values as long as the value does not contain certain characters, such as a space or an equal sign. In your example, text-align:left is a single, uninterrupted value, so the quotes are not strictly necessary. Both <h2 style="text-align: left;"> and <h2 style=text-align:left> are interpreted the same way by all modern browsers.

Potential Issues

However, this practice can lead to problems if the attribute value contains a space. For instance, if you had a style like font-family: Arial Black, stripping the quotes would break the code.

  • Original: <h2 style="font-family: Arial Black;">

  • Minified (Incorrect): <h2 style=font-family: Arial Black>

  • This would render incorrectly because the browser would only read font-family:, followed by a separate attribute Arial, and a third one Black.

For this reason, most people recommend using quotes for all attribute values to avoid potential errors.

The Safest Approach

Given your concern about Blogger "tripping up," it is highly recommended that you configure your minifier to keep attribute quotes. This provides a better guarantee of compatibility and prevents subtle, hard-to-find rendering errors that could arise from values with spaces.

  • You can disable this specific transformation in html-minifier by setting removeAttributeQuotes to false in your configuration.

This will ensure your HTML remains robust and compatible with any possible styling you might use in the future, while still providing the size reduction from removing other whitespace.

Me: Blogger complains about this minification:

<a href=https://onlinetexttools.com/add-line-numbers>https://onlinetexttools.com/add-line-numbers</a>

It needs the quotes:

<a href="https://onlinetexttools.com/add-line-numbers">https://onlinetexttools.com/add-line-numbers</a>

Gem: Thanks for sharing that finding. It confirms the concern we discussed about the removeAttributeQuotes option.

Blogger's editor is designed to be more strict with HTML syntax than a web browser is. While a browser can correctly interpret <a href=...> without quotes, the Blogger editor's parsing logic likely requires them for consistency and to prevent potential issues, especially with URLs that contain special characters.

By requiring quotes, Blogger ensures the integrity of the link and avoids any ambiguity in the post's HTML. This is why configuring your minifier to preserve attribute quotes is the safest and most reliable approach for your workflow.


Me: I was using the html-minifier website. If I use the minify VScode extension then as per https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=HookyQR.minify , it sets the default configuration for HTML as:

"removeAttributeQuotes": false,

So if use Minify with default config, it should not raise this issue. Am I right?

Gem: Yes, you are exactly right.

The default configuration for the Minify extension is designed to be a safer, less-destructive minification. As you correctly found on the marketplace page, the default for removeAttributeQuotes is set to false.

This means that out of the box, the extension will not remove the quotes from your attributes. It will only perform the basic, safe minification of removing unnecessary whitespace and line breaks, which is precisely what you need for your workflow with Blogger.

Me: Installed Minify VSCode extn., used 'Format Document' command to prettify the test HTML code. Then used 'Minify' command which created test.min.html.

Comparing orig.html (HTML from Blogger which is Blogger-minified) with test.min.html showed that main changes are:

style="text-align: left;" -> style="text-align:left"

<br /> -> <br>

Copy-pasted test.min.html into Blogger 'Minify Test Post' HTML view. Switching to Compose View gave no error and Compose View showed the text as expected and Preview showed the post as expected. So looks like Blogger is OK with Minify VSCode extension minification for this small and simple test case.

Gem: That's excellent news! Your careful, step-by-step testing process has proven that the Minify extension, with its default settings, is compatible with Blogger.

Your findings are very insightful and confirm a couple of important points:

  • style="text-align: left;" -> style="text-align:left": This confirms that the minifier, while keeping the quotes as per the removeAttributeQuotes: false default, is still smart enough to remove the extra space within the attribute value. This is a safe and effective form of minification that still provides a small file size reduction.

  • <br /> -> <br>: This is another common minification. In HTML5, the self-closing slash for tags like <br> is optional and is only required for XHTML. Modern browsers and content management systems, including Blogger, have no issue with the simpler <br> tag.

The fact that you were able to paste the minified HTML back into Blogger without any errors and that it rendered correctly in both the Compose and Preview modes is a strong indicator that this workflow is safe and reliable for your posts.

This successful test validates your chosen approach and provides a confident path forward for your larger posts.

Me: In Blogger, when I switch back to HTML view it shows <br /> and similarly style="text-align: left;". But that may not be a problem as the main point is that Blogger is not tripping up on Minify output at least for this simple case.

Gem: That's an important observation, and you've hit on the key point: Blogger's HTML view automatically formats the code to its own standard.

When you paste minified HTML into the HTML view and then switch to the Compose view (or vice-versa), Blogger's internal parser re-formats the code for consistency. This means it will:

  • Add spaces to style attributes to convert style="text-align:left" back to style="text-align: left;".

  • Convert <br> tags back to the more formal <br /> format.

This re-formatting is not an error; it's just how Blogger cleans and normalizes the code within its editor. The crucial part is that it successfully read and processed your minified input, proving that the output from your Minify extension is perfectly compatible with Blogger's system. The fact that the final code looks different is simply a result of Blogger's own internal formatting, not an issue with your minified code.

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