How to stop EE from converting straight quotes to html entities in <script> tags in an entry

Question

I'm trying to embed an instance of jwplayer in an entry. The embed code for that looks something like this:

<div id='my-video'></div>
<script type='text/javascript'>
    jwplayer('my-video').setup({
        file: 'url_to_file',
        image: 'url_to_image',
        width: '320',
        height: '240'
    });
</script>

I was just wondering if there is anyway to keep the formatting set to XHTML and still have it not convert the straight quotes between the initial set of parenthesis into entities. Here is a snippet of the problem area:

<div id='my-video'></div>
<script type='text/javascript'>jwplayer(&#8216;my-video&#8217;).setup({…

Further Information: I'd really like to get this worked out so let me clarify a few points here to try to make everything as clear as possible.

• Only the first set of quotes inside jwplayer('my-video') are getting converted, all the rest of the quotes are left alone. Nothing I've tried in changing the formatting works. In auto br mode, taking out the whitespace causes it to stop being mangled.
• I need to be able to add the embed code in the entry itself, not in the template code.
• I would prefer not to install an add-on to do it, but having already installed stash and allow-ee-code in the process of trying to get it worked out demonstrates that I'm willing if it is necessary.

Answer 1

There is a config variable called "protect_javascript" which needs to be set to "no".

$config['protect_javascript'] = 'n';

EDIT: You can also use Stash to solve this issue too.

{exp:stash:set name="jwplayer"}
    jwplayer({my-video}).setup({...});
{/exp:stash:set}

Then you would use the get tag and output this parsed data within a script tag.

<script>
    {exp:stash:get name="jwplayer"}
</script>

Answer 2

The quotes in the jwplayer call are not the quotes you need (8220 and 8221 are not the same characters you used in the rest of the code). Simply replacing these again with straight quotes and updating your entry should work.

Answer 3

After a lot of experimentation I determined that everything inside the script tags inside a set of curly brackets was safe from being converted to entities. (This seems to be true with or without protect_javascript turned on)

Given that information, here was my solution:

<div id='my-video'></div>

<script type='text/javascript'>
function placeVideo() 
{
jwplayer('my-video').setup({
        file: 'url_to_file',
        image: 'url_to_image',
        width: '480',
        height: '360'
    });

}
placeVideo();
</script>

I had to wrap the call to the jwplayer function inside another function so that there would be curly brackets around the quotes.

Answer 4

I have found that formatting the javascript as strictly-compliant XHTML will prevent the Auto XHTML parser from converting the JS quotes to html entities and breaking the scripts.

Here are my tests and the results for each.

1 -- Nope

<script>load_slides_from("Some Text. ‘smart’ “quotes” are OK.");</script>

2 -- Nope

<script>
load_slides_from("Some Text. ‘smart’ “quotes” are OK.");
</script>

3 -- Nope

<script type="text/javascript">
  load_slides_from("Some Text. ‘smart’ “quotes” are OK.");
</script>

4 -- This works

<script type="text/javascript">
 //<![CDATA[
  load_slides_from("Some Text. ‘smart’ “quotes” are OK.");
 //]]>
</script>

5 -- This works

<script>
 //<![CDATA[
  load_slides_from("Some Text. ‘smart’ “quotes” are OK.");
 //]]>
</script>

6 -- This works

<script>//<![CDATA[
  load_slides_from("Some Text. ‘smart’ “quotes” are OK.");
//]]></script>

7 -- This works

<script>//<![CDATA[
  load_slides_from("Some Text. ‘smart’ “quotes” are OK.");//]]></script>

Since it is often the case that you will want to use Javascript that does NOT include curly brackets on their own line I think this is a more generally useful solution.