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I believe the best way to grow the Gemini ecosystem is to launch a concerted effort to get Gemini support built into the tools of bloggers. This is something I'd been thinking about for awhile, before discovering Gemini that filled a large part in my desire to reclaim the internet from advertising and the corporate browser problem. If we can make producing Gemini content a default choice alongside html, I believe most amateur writers would be totally happy with a secondary channel. So as a community, what do you think about a campaign to: 1. Work with static site generators to get Gemini support built. At the least as supported plugins, then as part of the default distribution. md2gemini is key here 2. Get feed readers to support gemini, starting with open source ones. And this is the hardest but is aided by the previous two: 3. Get CMS/blog hosts to support gemini; I'm thinking smaller players first but building up to WordPress, medium, etc... Cheers, Case -- Email domain proudly hosted at https://migadu.com
On Thu, 18 Jun 2020 12:36:25 -0600 case <me at case.codes> wrote: > 1. Work with static site generators to get Gemini support built. At > the least as supported plugins, then as part of the default > distribution. md2gemini is key here My understanding is that you only really need text/gemini for index pages; all other text content can be text/plain, text/markdown, etc. How this text gets varies by client, but the only thing stopping somebody using a static site generator from also publishing on Gemini is the need to generate text/gemini index pages. However, I remember enough about how Jekyll works to know that it should be possible to create a Liquid template that outputs a gemini index, since Liquid templates have also been used in Jekyll to generate RSS, Atom, and JSON feeds. You can probably do the same in Hugo and Pelican using their templates; no need for plugins. Hell, you could probably generate a text/gemini index with M4 and a makefile if you wanted. > 2. Get feed readers to support gemini, starting with open source ones. IIRC, feed readers support render HTML by using libraries like webkitgtk3. Supporting Gemini text would require the implementation of a similar rendering library. > And this is the hardest but is aided by the previous two: > 3. Get CMS/blog hosts to support gemini; I'm thinking smaller players > first but building up to WordPress, medium, etc... We could probably go directly for WordPress support by implementing text/gemini publishing as a plugin. However, I suggest that we immediately write off Medium as a lost cause. I don't think there's any way Ev Williams and co. would be amenable to letting content leak out of their proprietary walled garden via an alternate protocol like Gemini. -- Matthew Graybosch gemini://starbreaker.org #include <disclaimer.h> gemini://demifiend.org https://matthewgraybosch.com gemini://tanelorn.city "Out of order?! Even in the future nothing works."
On Thu, Jun 18, 2020 at 12:36:25PM -0600, case wrote: > 2. Get feed readers to support gemini, starting with open source ones. This shouldn't be that hard, but I don't think non-tech people even know what feed reader is nowadays. > And this is the hardest but is aided by the previous two: > 3. Get CMS/blog hosts to support gemini; I'm thinking smaller players first but building up to WordPress, medium, etc... I don't like this. One of the main points of gemini for me is decentralization and that it is not commercial. Adding support for something like medium would slowly make it only slightly better than the web - requiring users to login after they read 3 articles, etc. I think it would be cool if we had a pretty Android & IOS app marketed as a blogging/writing platform. On the first screen it would prompt the user to select an instance where they want to register an account (in fact creating an ssh account), then it would be simply normal gemini client app. The homepage could be a feed reader, the user could write gemini markup directly in the app or they could write it as WYSIWYG. I think this way, it would be possible to get non-tech people use it. Paper
On Thu, Jun 18, 2020 at 04:30:30PM -0400, Matthew Graybosch wrote: > On Thu, 18 Jun 2020 12:36:25 -0600 > case <me at case.codes> wrote: > > > 1. Work with static site generators to get Gemini support built. At > > the least as supported plugins, then as part of the default > > distribution. md2gemini is key here > > My understanding is that you only really need text/gemini for index > pages; all other text content can be text/plain, text/markdown, etc. Yes, but the text/gemini syntax is much simpler, simpler to parse... Of course if a blogger wants to have inline images, then they will probably have to use markdown. > However, I remember enough about how Jekyll works to know that it > should be possible to create a Liquid template that outputs a gemini > index, since Liquid templates have also been used in Jekyll to generate > RSS, Atom, and JSON feeds. You can probably do the same in Hugo and > Pelican using their templates; no need for plugins. I read a phlog post about 3 months ago where someone was describing how they created a template for Hugo which outputs gophermaps, maybe we could get inspiration there. > > 2. Get feed readers to support gemini, starting with open source ones. > > IIRC, feed readers support render HTML by using libraries like > webkitgtk3. Supporting Gemini text would require the implementation of a > similar rendering library. Most people I know are using a web based client, there it shouldn't be a big problem. Plus, webkit2gtk and other libraries like this render HTML, so if we converted text/gemini to HTML, it will work. I know, not the best solution, but it's a possibility. Paper
paper at tilde.institute writes: > I read a phlog post about 3 months ago where someone was describing > how they created a template for Hugo which outputs gophermaps, maybe > we could get inspiration there. Haha, that was me. I've considered adding support for text/gemini, but the way my original solution worked, it would only create text/gemini index pages; the actual content pages don't get converted from whatever the source was (probably markdown). -- +-----------------------------------------------------------+ | Jason F. McBrayer jmcbray at carcosa.net | | If someone conquers a thousand times a thousand others in | | battle, and someone else conquers himself, the latter one | | is the greatest of all conquerors. --- The Dhammapada |
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