OutText is a jQuery plugin that generates links for randomly-selected (and not-so-randomly-selected) words throughout an HTML document.

• jQuery 1.7.1+ (may work with even older versions)

• Can be used on the entire page, or within a select portion of the document.
• Random link generation according to a configurable frequency.
• Restricts link creation within certain element types.
• Allows configurable "priority words" that will always yield OutText links.
• Recognizes leading and trailing punctuation, ignoring them when creating links.
• Tested with Chrome, Firefox, IE10 (including IE8 mode)

OutText can be registered in two different ways.

• Apply OutText to the entire document:

$.OutText({
	// ...
});

• Apply OutText to a selected portion of the document:

$("#bodyText").OutText({
	// ...
});

There are a number of configuration properties supported at registration time, but none of them are required.

The HREF of the link created by OutText can be specified using the link_template property.

$.OutText({
	link_template: "https://www.google.com/#q={t}"
});

The {t} token represents where the inner text of an OutText link will be used to construct the URL. For example, if an OutText link is generated from the word javascript using the above example, the final link will resemble the following:

<a href="https://www.google.com/#q=javascript">javascript</a>

If no {t} token is present, the HREF will be created exactly as specified.

Default: #

The default behavior of OutText is to randomly-generate links from the pool of available words on the page. The frequency at which links are generated can be configured using the frequency property.

$.OutText({
	frequency: 0.3
});

The frequency property accepts any number between zero (no OutText links will be randomly generated) and one (all available words will be turned into OutText links).

Default: 0.1

On most web pages, there are a number of elements that may not behave or appear correctly if an OutText link were to be created within them. At registration time, these elements can be excluded from consideration when generating links.

$.OutText({
	excluded_elements: ["p", "b", "i", "u"]
});

The excluded_elements accepts an array of case-insensitive strings, each element of which is the name of an HTML node. If a matching node is encountered anywhere within the OutText registration area, no OutText links will be created within it.

This property has the highest priority of all available configuration properties. Even with a configured frequency of 100%, no OutText links will be created within these nodes.

Default: ["button", "a"]

If OutText is to be used in some sort of a targeted link campaign, it may be valuable to always generate an OutText link from a specific set of words. This is possible.

$.OutText({
	forced_words: ["bacon", "hoagie"]
});

When OutText encounters these words in the document, it will ignore any configured frequency setting and always generate a link from this word. This setting will still respect, however, any configured excluded element types.

OutText will not force link generation on a word that contains extra characters, including leading or trailing punctuation, or a word that is split by additional inner HTML tags.

<!-- This will generate a forced OutText link. -->
George: Some bacon would be really nice right now.

<!-- So will this. -->
Bob: But you ATE ALL THE BACON last night!

<!-- But this won't. -->
George: I can't help it if I can't resist the wonders of bacon!

<!-- And neither will this. -->
Bob: Stop saying B<b>A</b>C<i>O</i>N so much!

Default: []

• Eric Walklet