The Boston Diaries

The ongoing saga of a programmer who doesn't live in Boston, nor does he even like Boston, but yet named his weblog/journal “The Boston Diaries.”

Go figure.

Thursday, July 16, 2020

Adventures in Formatting II: Gemini Boogaloo

If you are reading this via Gemini, then welcome to my blog! Emboldened by converting HTML to text for gopher, I decided to try my hand at converting HTML to the native Gemini text format (section 5 of the specification), and I'm less than thrilled with the results and I don't think given the contraints that I could do a better job than I have.

The format has similarities to Markdown but simpler, and you can't embed HTML for when Markdown has no syntax to do what you want. I mean, given that Gemini supports serving up any type of content, I could have just served up HTML, but well, I have the webserver for that. And I could have just used the plain text format I use for gopher, but the Gemini text format does allow for links, and I like my links (even if external links have a half life of about a year).

Most of the entries will look okay, it's only the occasional entry with deeply nested HTML that might look wierd.

And yes, the size of the server bloated quite a bit since I reused the HTML parser, but it's something I'll just have to live with for now.

Obligatory Picture

[The future's so bright, I gotta wear shades]

Obligatory Contact Info

Obligatory Feeds

Obligatory Links

Obligatory Miscellaneous

You have my permission to link freely to any entry here. Go ahead, I won't bite. I promise.

The dates are the permanent links to that day's entries (or entry, if there is only one entry). The titles are the permanent links to that entry only. The format for the links are simple: Start with the base link for this site: https://boston.conman.org/, then add the date you are interested in, say 2000/08/01, so that would make the final URL:

https://boston.conman.org/2000/08/01

You can also specify the entire month by leaving off the day portion. You can even select an arbitrary portion of time.

You may also note subtle shading of the links and that's intentional: the “closer” the link is (relative to the page) the “brighter” it appears. It's an experiment in using color shading to denote the distance a link is from here. If you don't notice it, don't worry; it's not all that important.

It is assumed that every brand name, slogan, corporate name, symbol, design element, et cetera mentioned in these pages is a protected and/or trademarked entity, the sole property of its owner(s), and acknowledgement of this status is implied.

Copyright © 1999-2024 by Sean Conner. All Rights Reserved.