Bang on Org export some more

2 files changed, 41 insertions, 9 deletions

diff --git a/repo/www/helpers.py b/repo/www/helpers.py
index 34f274f..12d9a41 100644
--- a/repo/www/helpers.py
+++ b/repo/www/helpers.py
@@ -74,7 +74,7 @@ class _OrgPreprocessor:
         self._source_path = source_path
 
     def __enter__(self):
-        self._output = NamedTemporaryFile(mode='w+', suffix='.md')
+        self._output = NamedTemporaryFile(mode='w+', suffix='.org')
         try:
             run((
                 'emacs', '-Q', '--batch', '--load', 'preprocess-org.el',
diff --git a/repo/www/preprocess-org.el b/repo/www/preprocess-org.el
index f7be936..bad9f90 100644
--- a/repo/www/preprocess-org.el
+++ b/repo/www/preprocess-org.el
@@ -1,5 +1,41 @@
+;; How I Convert Org Files To HTML.
+;; ================================
+;;
+;; Or: Why We Can't Have Nice Things: Exhibit #42.
+;;     -------------------------------------------
+;;
+;; Or: I Got Way Too Much Time On My Hands, Apparently.
+;;     ------------------------------------------------
+;;
+;; I see two straightforward ways to export Org files to HTML:
+;;
+;; 1. ox-html.el, Org's HTML backend: even with all the settings and
+;;    filters available, there are still a few things that annoy me:
+;;    lots of extra <div>s, unstable section IDs…
+;;
+;;    Also, I want to squeeze pandoc somewhere in the pipeline, to run
+;;    my Lua filters.
+;;
+;; 2. pandoc: does not cover all of Org's features.  Org is so crammed
+;;    with constructs that don't exist in other markup formats
+;;    (agendas, logbooks, spreadsheets, properties…) and so many knobs
+;;    can be tweaked on a per-file basis (link abbreviations, tags,
+;;    TODO cycles) that Elisp remains the least painful way to process
+;;    these files, IMO.
+;;
+;; A less-straightforward, but still reasonably simple way to go would
+;; be to use Org's markdown backend, then run pandoc on the result.
+;; Unfortunately, AFAICT ox-md.el does not implement definition lists,
+;; nor syntax-highlighting in fenced code blocks.
+;;
+;; So here's where I'm at: using Elisp, I'll preprocess Org files to
+;; add a bunch of #+OPTIONS pandoc recognizes, "dumb down" the stuff
+;; pandoc does not recognize, format some other stuff arbitrarily,
+;; *then* I'll run pandoc on the result.
+
 (defun preprocess-org (input)
   (with-temp-buffer
+    (insert "#+OPTIONS: ^:{} tags:nil\n")
     (insert-file-contents input)
     (org-mode)
     (while (re-search-forward org-heading-regexp nil t)
@@ -10,11 +46,7 @@
             (dolist (tag tags)
               (insert "- " tag "\n"))
             (insert "#+end_tags\n")))))
-  (let ((org-export-with-properties t)
-        (org-export-with-section-numbers nil)
-        (org-export-with-sub-superscripts '{})
-        (org-export-with-tags nil)
-        (org-export-with-title nil)
-        (org-export-with-toc nil))
-    (org-md-export-as-markdown))    
-  (princ (buffer-string))))
+    ;; TODO: dump properties
+    ;; TODO: fontify TODO keywords
+    ;; TODO: expand #+LINK abbreviations
+    (princ (buffer-string))))