Export gemini links from orgmode to markdown

Today, finally a short post (for real) as oppose to my usual lengthy posts!

I’m currently working on deploying again my blog as a gemini capsule (if you don’t know what the gemini protocol is, read about it here) as I haven’t deployed any update to my gemini capsules for more than a year. While doing so, I had an issue when exporting my posts writen in org mode to markdown: each gemini:// link where ignore and removed in the exported file.

For example, a link in org mode like [[gemini://gmi.bacardi55.io][My capsule]] was exported as [My capsule]() in markdown. Which of course was an issue as I didn’t want to fix the generated markdown manually…

The solution, as usual, was clearly explained in the orgmode manual: I needed to add an hyperlink type and tell emacs how to export it. When you add a new hyperlink type, you can tell emacs how to store, open and/or export those links. As I was lazy, I just configure how to export those links in different format.

To do so, I added the following elisp code, 100% inspired from the above documentation page:

  (defun org-geminilinks-export (link description format _)
  "Export a gemini link from Org files."
  (let ((path (format "gemini:%s" link)) ;; %s contains the 2 starting slash
        (desc (or description link)))
    (pcase format
      (`html (format "<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"%s\">%s</a>" path desc))
      (`latex (format "\\href{%s}{%s}" path desc))
      (`texinfo (format "@uref{%s,%s}" path desc))
      (`ascii (format "%s (%s)" desc path))
      (`md (format "[%s](%s)" desc path))
      (t path))))

  (org-link-set-parameters "gemini"
                           :export #'org-geminilinks-export)

If, like me, you are using doom emacs, add the above quote within an after! ox command:

(after! ox
  [code from above]
  )

Next step is to define how to store and open those links, but for now it will do as I want to focus on the new pipeline to build and deploy my capsule that has been in a staled phase for far too long.