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Conversion of HTML to gemtext (was Re: A proposed scheme for parsing preformatted alt text)

Sean Conner sean at conman.org

Mon Sep 7 23:54:57 BST 2020

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It was thus said that the Great Sandra Snan once stated:

While I'm on the topic of one link per line, the whole numbers in the
paragraphs to refer to line links style is not cool. Its as if you want
inline links. If you wanted inline links then why didn't you put them in
the spec?
The spec was designed by someone who wanted text paragraphs followed by
(or preceded by) lists of links. _Pages_ are hypertext, but the prose
isn't.

Because it was clear that people *wanted* links in gopher? Because thereare too many variations on Markdown already? Because it's not that easy toparse Markdown? [1] Solderpunk wanted a way to include links and still makeit easy to parse.

I do the numbering thing because I'm converting HTML to gemtext, and Iborrowed most of the code from my work in converting HTML to text forgopher. I like HTML for its hypertext capabilities. But I found that itwas harder for me to convert HTML to gemtext tnan to plain text sincegemtext has *just* enough capabilities to make it seem easier, but notenough to handle some of the seldom used tags (like <DL><DT><DD>) or evensimple nesting (a <BLOCKQUOTE> within a <BLOCKQUOTE>).

I could serve HTML, but that would go against the grain of Gemini.

So I'm looking at this post of mine:

http://boston.conman.org/2020/07/28.1

and I'm wondering how I would do it differently. I supposed instead of(showing the rendered output, not the actual gemtext):

On Saturday, I sent a message [1] to the party responsible for slamming my Gemini server [2] (one among several) and I've yet to receive any response. I removed the block from the firewall, and I haven't seen any requests from said bot. It looks to have been a one-off thing at this time.

[1] /boston/2020/07/25.2 [2] /boston/2020/07/24.2

Weird.

But then again, this is the Intarwebs, where weird things [1] happen all the time [2].

[1] /boston/2006/10/30.1 [2] /boston/2015/04/29.1

At this point, I'm hoping it was fixed silently and it won't be an issue again.

I could do:

On Saturday, I sent a message to the party responsible for slamming my Gemini server (one among several) and I've yet to receive any response. I removed the block from the firewall, and I haven't seen any requests from said bot. It looks to have been a one-off thing at this time.

I sent a message slamming my Gemini server

Weird.

But then again, this is the Intarwebs, where weird things happen all the time.

weird things all the time

At this point, I'm hoping it was fixed silently and it won't be an issue again.

I'm not sure how I fell about that. It doesn't look as good to me as thenumbered links. Would you prefer I just serve up text/html? Not use HTMLat all? Change the output to the sample above?

And before I go, here are the links to all three versions (HTML, plaintext, gemtext):

http://boston.conman.org/2020/07/28.1 gopher://gopher.conman.org/0Phlog:2020/07/28.1 gemini://gemini.conman.org/boston/2020/07/28.1

-spc

[1] Markdown, as initially defined by John Gruber also allowed arbitrary HTML. I think most people either forget that detail, or don't know about it in the first place.