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Methods for expressing emphasis on gemtext.

𝕬nyone that might have read my blogpost about asynchronous gemini content by email, might be wandering: how did I manage to make 𝘪𝘵𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘤, and 𝗯𝗼𝗹𝗱 text apear on a gemtext documet.

No it has nothing to do with gemtext markup.

In fact if someone views the raw text of the article on their client, they will see that the emphasis is still there, and no markup is used to achive those effects. In fact it has nothing to do with the gemtext syntax, or how your Gemini client renders it.

Those are simply utf-8 symbols, that anyone can write, and – 𝘩𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘧𝘶𝘭𝘭𝘺 – every client can support.

Link to the article.

My first idea about expressing emphasis.

𝕳aving followed some of the discussion, about gemtext, and its limitations, I was looking at effective ways of expressing emphasis myself.

Most people, just use the markdown notation like *this* or **this**, that the client will not render in any useful way –but it can be very easily translated in a markdown document. Or hopefully some client in the future, might support it.

But the asterisks method looks distracting to me –and kind of ugly I must admit!

So I thought I might try the old typewriter method, of using spaces between letters in emphasized words, instead of italics, and just capitalising words, instead of bold text.

The effect of BOLD, and i t a l i c s, is not bad at all this way! – in My Honest Opinion – and I might still use it in the future; because i feel that it is that the best looking solution for terminals.

The accidental discovery.

𝕿rying to use w i d e words as a substitute for italicization, I was faced with the problem of auto word wrapping, that was splitting my words in two lines.

The only solution to this is, using a non-breaking-space between the letters.

This is a matter of keyboard, and/or text editor.

So I was looking for a way to insert a non-breaking-space* on android, when I stumbled upon the app: 𝘪𝘳𝘳𝘦𝘨𝘶𝘭𝘢𝘳 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘳e𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘬𝘦𝘺𝘣𝘰𝘢𝘳𝘥.

This opened a whole set of possibilities, like:

𝗕𝗼𝗹𝗱, 𝘪𝘵𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘴, ｗｉｄｅ, sᴍᴀʟʟ ᴄᴀᴘs, u͟n͟d͟e͟r͟l͟i͟n͟e͟d͟, ̶s̶̶t̶̶r̶̶i̶̶k̶̶e̶̶o̶̶u̶̶t̶, 𝔬𝔩𝔡 𝔈𝔫𝔤𝔩𝔦𝔰𝔥, 🄱🄾🅇🄴🅂,

🅱🅾🆇🅴🆂, 𝚖𝚘𝚗𝚘𝚜𝚙𝚊𝚌𝚎, 𝕔𝕦𝕥𝕠𝕦𝕥, 🇲🇦🇷🇮🇹🇮🇲🇪, ˢᵘᵖᵉʳᵗᶦⁿʸ, and even:

T̵̢̹͙̣̲̦̜̝͚͎̀͋̑̈͘̕͟͠͝ḫ̴̘̦̟̗̔̂̌̿͌̏̽͂̆̃̋͘̚į̸̨̛̣̼͎̹̘͓̖̥̣̯͉͙̈́̊̿̃̎̈͂͊̋̚̕͝͝s̶͚͔̼͙̫̫̣͈͛͆̑͌̑͂̊̉̽̕͝ ̵̡̨̰̺͈̙̃̅̔̊̐̄̔̌͑́̌̊͝ã̷͎̤̦̻͍̗̬̰̯͗̚b̸̥̱̩͒̍̉͊̌́̌͊̒̾̋ô̸͓̫̫̪͉͐͊͛̔͊̍̎̀̏̈̀̑m̵̧͇̹͕͓̻͇̖̖̪̺̳̉͆̓̃͊̃̈́͌͆̄͜͝ͅi̷̛̫̮̩̙͉͎̓̀͒̎̑̌͗̌̀͘͠n̵̨̡̺̻̯͇͕̰̺̩̻͉̫̎̎̚͝a̶̧̡̯͖͇̖͇̟͂͐͌̈́̓̄̔̈́͌͐̂͛̚͠t̵͓͔̻̮̰͖̯̓̈́̓i̷̠̪͙̤̲̥̥̟̝͖̰͌̓̆͑̆̕ǫ̸̙͎͚̝̍̈̌ņ̷̢̰̖̼̗̹̩̺̝̹͙̱̤͋̃̓̎̔̃̿̀͋̂́̌͡͡!̴͚̩̣̮͕͍̮́̂̽̐̿͐̓͊͜͡͝

The trick is obviously using utf-8 bold, and italic symbols, like in the link below.

https://www.compart.com/en/unicode/block/U+1D400

So normally anyone can do it in a sophisticated editor like 𝘝𝘪𝘮, that allows easy insertion of symbols, and mapping them to keystrokes, or custom keyemaps.

I managed to do it finally, by using the 𝘩𝘢𝘤𝘬𝘦𝘳‘𝘴 𝘬𝘦𝘺𝘣𝘰𝘢𝘳𝘥. You can long press the "combine" key on the right of the 𝘴𝘱𝘢𝘤𝘦𝘣𝘢𝘳, and then hit double <space>.

Advantages

They look great. They do work wonderfully in giving emphasis.
They don't require rendering, and don't depend on the client.
They are actual 𝘳𝘢𝘸 𝘵𝘦𝘹𝘵, and not "rich text" or anything complicated.

Concerns

They are probably not recognized by dictionaries, and spell-checkers.
Search functions probably will not recognize the emphasized word as same as the unemphasized.
Text to speech programs, probably can not read them correctly.
They do not convey the information of 𝘦𝘮𝘱𝘩𝘢𝘴𝘪𝘴 like html tags, or markdown "asterisks".
They kind of belong in the WYSIWYG mentality of text editing that is not to my liking.
I surely would not like to see gemini capsules becoming an eyesore of decorated text.

Irregular Expressions on F-droid

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