@mfreeborn, @aleb , the patch is incorrect because it is missing lifetimes. I have a fix for the above. The function signature should be

pub fn to_inline_html<'a, T: Into<Option<&'a str>>>(&self, plot_div_id: T) -> String {

I build locally and the examples work fine with the above.
Should I fork and make a different PR or is it better we fix it in this already existing PR ?

Hang on a sec, I've just read this properly and I believe what we are looking for is:

pub fn to_inline_html<T: Option<AsRef<str>>(&self, plot_div_id: T) -> String {
    let plot_div_id = plot_div_id.into();
    let plot_div_id = match plot_div_id {
        Some(id) => id.as_ref(),
        None => Alphanumeric.sample_string(&mut thread_rng(), 20),
    };
    self.render_inline(plot_div_id)
}

EDIT: updated what I think should work as an implementation.

@mfreeborn , I tried your suggestion , but it does not work as is. I will try to see if I can get AsRef to work for this case.

This implementation would work

    pub fn to_inline_html<T: AsRef<str>>(&self, plot_div_id: Option<T>) -> String {
        let default = Alphanumeric.sample_string(&mut thread_rng(), 20);
        let plot_div_id = match &plot_div_id {
            Some(id) => id.as_ref(),
            None => default.as_str(),
        }

however the above will not allow one to write

plot.to_inline_html(None)

but the type must be speficied, which I think is ugly

plot.to_inline_html::<String>(None)

Do you @mfreeborn have any suggestion?

Closed by #115 - thanks for your input :)

@mfreeborn , thanks! Your solution was indeed simpler :).