The code syntax highlighting feature is only enabled on certain sites. In order for code to be highlighted and for any of the hints listed in the above question to work, the Markdown extension has to be enabled on the site where one's posting code.
The syntax highlighting feature is enabled on the following sites:
Note that the above list consists of per-site metas as well, as there are some sites where it's enabled on the main site but not on the corresponding per-site meta. The above list was last updated 2019-03-15; if it becomes outdated, please copy the Markdown generated by the below code snippet and replace the above list with that, and then update the date here.
The following code snippet fetches the list of sites with syntax highlighting enabled.
$.get('https://api.stackexchange.com/2.2/sites?pagesize=500&filter=!*L6SiaRiUSk*Z2zr', function(data) {
var i,
$result = $('#result'),
$md = $('#md'),
sites = [],
specials = {
biology : { mhchem: true},
chemistry: {mhchem: true },
earthscience: {mhchem: true },
electricalengineering: {delim: true},
codereview: {delim: true}
},
sec,
extra;
for(i=0; i < data.items.length; i++) {
if (data.items[i].markdown_extensions &&
data.items[i].markdown_extensions.indexOf('Prettify')>-1)
{
sites.push(data.items[i]);
}
}
sites.sort(function(l,r) { return l.name<r.name?-1:1; });
for(i = 0; i < sites.length; i = i + 1) {
$result.append(
$('<li></li>').html(sites[i].name)
);
$md.append(
$('<pre></pre>').html('1. [' + sites[i].name+'](' + sites[i].site_url.substr(sites[i].site_url.indexOf(':') + 1) + ')')
);
}
});<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<ol id="result">
</ol>
<div id="md">
</div>The above snippet was originally written by rene here for fetching the list of sites with MathJax enabled, and later modified with the help of user315433 in chat to support fetching the list of sites with syntax highlighting enabled.
This feature is enabled on sites with a relatively strong focus on programming. Normally, it will be enabled by staff when newly creating the site, based on the scope of the site's Area 51 proposal. If, for some reason it's not enabled on a site where it should be, post a request on the site's per-site meta.
If a topic isn't primarily focused on programming but could substantially benefit from a particular flavor of syntax highlighting, post a request on the site's per-site meta and link to some (10 or so) posts where highlighting would be helpful. SE staff will then evaluate the request and let you know the result.
If syntax highlighting is enabled on a main site but not on its per-site meta, and you feel it's useful to have enabled on the meta site, post the request on the per-site meta itself and tag it meta.
