The Scrippets plug-in for WordPress seems to be working well for self-hosted blogs, but it’s no use to folks who use services like Blogger, Tumblr and the like. For people on these platforms, the cost of simplicity is customization — they’re easy to use and hard to modify.

But in an effort to share the scrippets love, Nima and I have hacked together a solution to let users on these platforms copy-and-paste scrippets. It’s not as elegant as a plug-in, but it works.

It’s a two-part process.

First, you need to install the scrippets CSS. I wrote up instructions on how to do it for Blogger, but the same basic theory should hold for any other blogging or forum system that lets you modify the CSS.

Second, write your scrippet. We have a new Scrippets Maker that will automatically generate the code to copy-and-paste into your post.

So if you’re feeling brave — or if you want to duplicate your entry in the Scene Challenge on your own blog — give it a shot. You can even add Scrippets Maker to your bookmarks bar. Just drag the following up to your bookmarks:

Do you have a better solution?

Currently, Scrippet Maker is a page, but it would make a lot of sense as a bookmarklet. That’s in the works, but if you want to roll your own, by all means do it.

Coders out there might have a slicker overall solution for non-Wordpress users, and I’d love to hear it. Many systems (including Blogger) allow outside JavaScripts, so it may be possible to do text filtering much like the WP plug-in. The core scrippetize function is already available in JavaScript.

Meanwhile, there is the bigger issue of how to handle systems that don’t allow CSS modification at all — and forums that don’t want to deal with it. I’d love to find a way to let users link to a graphic version of a scrippet. (Essentially, click a button and the server converts the div into a jpg or png, and provides a link.)

As always, your brainstorms are welcome. And proof-of-concept links will be most graciously received.