weblog/moving-off-gemini.html


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<title>Moving my weblog off Gemini (without leaving it) — tjp.lol</title>
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        <p class="meta"><a href="../weblog/index.html" style="text-decoration:none;">&larr; weblog</a> &nbsp;/&nbsp; <time datetime="2026-06-30">2026-06-30</time></p>
        <h1>Moving my weblog off Gemini (without leaving it)</h1>
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          <a href="../weblog/index.html">gemini</a><a href="../weblog/index.html">small-web</a><a href="../weblog/index.html">tools</a>
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      <p><em>This is placeholder text laid out so you can see how a full post reads. Replace it with the real <span class="mono">.gmi</span> content when you export the capsule &mdash; the structure below covers everything a converted Gemini post will need: headings, lists, quotes, code, and links.</em></p>

      <p>I've kept a capsule at <code>gemini://gemini.ctrl-c.club/~tjp/</code> for a few years now. Gemini is a lovely place to write: the format is so constrained that there's nothing to fiddle with, and the whole thing rewards plain, linear prose. But I wanted a web presence too &mdash; one that fits in with the personal sites I keep finding in webrings.</p>

      <h2>The plan</h2>
      <p>The goal was never to abandon geminispace. It was to have both, from one source of truth. Gemtext is close enough to Markdown that a small converter gets you most of the way there:</p>

      <ul>
        <li>Keep writing <code>.gmi</code> files in my capsule.</li>
        <li>Run a converter that emits HTML with the same structure.</li>
        <li>Wrap each page in the site template you're reading now.</li>
      </ul>

      <h2>The converter</h2>
      <p>Gemtext has exactly one block-level construct per line, which makes parsing almost insultingly simple. Here's the core of it:</p>

      <pre><code>while IFS= read -r line; do
  case "$line" in
    "### "*) echo "&lt;h3&gt;${line#### }&lt;/h3&gt;" ;;
    "## "*)  echo "&lt;h2&gt;${line### }&lt;/h2&gt;" ;;
    "# "*)   echo "&lt;h1&gt;${line## }&lt;/h1&gt;" ;;
    "=> "*)  emit_link "$line" ;;
    "* "*)   emit_list_item "$line" ;;
    "&gt; "*)   echo "&lt;blockquote&gt;${line#&gt; }&lt;/blockquote&gt;" ;;
    "")      echo "" ;;
    *)       echo "&lt;p&gt;$line&lt;/p&gt;" ;;
  esac
done &lt; "$1"</code></pre>

      <p>That's genuinely most of it. The fiddly parts are link lines (<code>=&gt;</code> can be a bare URL or have link text) and collapsing runs of <code>* </code> lines into a single <code>&lt;ul&gt;</code>.</p>

      <blockquote>The best format is the one that outlives the tool you wrote it in. Gemtext will still be readable when this converter is long gone.</blockquote>

      <h2>What I kept</h2>
      <p>No client-side anything. The web version renders identically with JavaScript disabled, because there is no JavaScript to disable. Fonts are whatever your system already has. The whole page is a few kilobytes.</p>

      <p>If you want the source, it lives with the rest of my <a href="../projects/index.html">projects</a>. And the capsule is still there &mdash; see the <a href="../about/index.html">colophon</a> for how it all fits together.</p>
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