is ascii link format canonical? can it be made more linkifiable?

is ascii link format canonical? can it be made more linkifiable?

[Samuel Wales]

recent maint.

org-ascii-links-to-notes is t.

i am exporting bare links that look in the source like

  http://whatever.com

1] seemingly, notes are not created.  actually i don't mind this,
because i don't want notes in this case.

2] the links get exported like

  [http://whatever.com]

i get the same result if i export source that looks like

  <http://whatever.com>

or

  [[http://whatever.com]]

i do not know the standard, but i think that some email clients will
not linkify this because of the brackets.  are we sure that [] are
canonical?  not <>?  is it the clients that are wrong?

can this be customized so that the link can be exported totally bare
without any bracket-like characters for maximum client linkification?

obviously whitespace might be needed near punctuation.

thanks.

-- 
The Kafka Pandemic: <http://thekafkapandemic.blogspot.com>

The disease DOES progress. MANY people have died from it. And ANYBODY
can get it at any time.

"You’ve really gotta quit this and get moving, because this is murder
by neglect." ---
<http://www.meaction.net/2017/02/03/pwme-people-with-me-are-being-murdered-by-neglect>.

Re: is ascii link format canonical? can it be made more linkifiable?

[Ben McGinnes]

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On Mon, Feb 05, 2018 at 09:26:14PM -0700, Samuel Wales wrote:
> 
>   [[http://whatever.com]]
> 
> i do not know the standard, but i think that some email clients will
> not linkify this because of the brackets.

Correct.

> are we sure that [] are canonical?  not <>?  is it the clients that
> are wrong?

No, it's because the square brackets are valid characters for use in
file names and thus can be part of the URL itself.  There's no way for
a MUA to recognise the difference.

You can see this demonstrated here:

http://www.adversary.org/test/]

And here:

http://www.adversary.org/test/]]

Angle brackets, however, are not valid in URLs and recognisably used
within HTML, XHTML, XML and variants.  Since most MUAs achieve their
WYSIWIG interfaces via some means of implementing HTML (or a
bastardisation of it), the angle brackets are recognised as a means of
specifying a particular type of object.  Some MUAs will leverage the
mailcap file to be more specific with this.  Some, of course, won't
and some wander off on strange bastardised rich text tangents or
custom protocols (insert pointed look at Microsoft Outlook here).

Mostly, though, GUI MUAs went for HTML 4.01 and/or an XHTML variant
after Netscape Communicator hit the Net in the late '90s and everyone
(eventually) followed suit.  Along with retaining some simplistic
carry over from plain text emails similar to basic text mark-up in
org-mode (e.g. *bold*, /italics/, _underline_ and so on).  Most of
which were de facto standards, not official ones.  Basically the geek
equivalent of demonstrating how custom and tradition were more
pervasive than law (RFCs and MUA design).


Regards,
Ben

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Re: is ascii link format canonical? can it be made more linkifiable?

[Nicolas Goaziou]

Hello,

Samuel Wales <samologist@gmail.com> writes:

> recent maint.
>
> org-ascii-links-to-notes is t.
>
> i am exporting bare links that look in the source like
>
>   http://whatever.com
>
> 1] seemingly, notes are not created.

This is expected. You wouldn't want to create an empty note, would you?

> actually i don't mind this, because i don't want notes in this case.
>
> 2] the links get exported like
>
>   [http://whatever.com]
>
> i get the same result if i export source that looks like
>
>   <http://whatever.com>
>
> or
>
>   [[http://whatever.com]]
>
> i do not know the standard, but i think that some email clients will
> not linkify this because of the brackets.  are we sure that [] are
> canonical?  not <>?  is it the clients that are wrong?
>
> can this be customized so that the link can be exported totally bare
> without any bracket-like characters for maximum client linkification?

I changed it in master. Now, external links are wrapped within angle
brackets. Please let me know if it fixes the issue.

Regards,

-- 
Nicolas Goaziou

Re: is ascii link format canonical? can it be made more linkifiable?

[Samuel Wales]

On 2/10/18, Nicolas Goaziou <mail@nicolasgoaziou.fr> wrote:
>> 1] seemingly, notes are not created.
>
> This is expected. You wouldn't want to create an empty note, would you?

i think it is ok to not make notes.  you could in principle make numbered notes.

>> can this be customized so that the link can be exported totally bare
>> without any bracket-like characters for maximum client linkification?
>
> I changed it in master. Now, external links are wrapped within angle
> brackets. Please let me know if it fixes the issue.

after i posted, i remembered that some sites, including blogger or
wordpress, will not linkify <links> in their comments, but will
linkify bare links [and who knows what else].

so i'm thinking the ability to specify the brackets would be useful.

what i would do, in fact, is specify them as spaces.  i'd rather have
ugly clickability than beautiful non-clickability.  especially for
non-technical users.

-- 
The Kafka Pandemic: <http://thekafkapandemic.blogspot.com>

The disease DOES progress. MANY people have died from it. And ANYBODY
can get it at any time.

"You’ve really gotta quit this and get moving, because this is murder
by neglect." ---
<http://www.meaction.net/2017/02/03/pwme-people-with-me-are-being-murdered-by-neglect>.

Re: is ascii link format canonical? can it be made more linkifiable?

[Nicolas Goaziou]

Hello,

Samuel Wales <samologist@gmail.com> writes:

> after i posted, i remembered that some sites, including blogger or
> wordpress, will not linkify <links> in their comments, but will
> linkify bare links [and who knows what else].
>
> so i'm thinking the ability to specify the brackets would be useful.

You can use a filter, then. For example, in
`org-export-filter-final-output-functions', you can replace
`org-angle-link-re' with first sub-group.

> what i would do, in fact, is specify them as spaces.  i'd rather have
> ugly clickability than beautiful non-clickability.  especially for
> non-technical users.

"Clickability" is not what ASCII back-end is about. I'd rather have some
decent-looking output. Anyway, per above, you can tweak the results to
your liking.

Regards,

-- 
Nicolas Goaziou                                                0x80A93738