undefined | Better HN

0 pointsSoftTalker2y ago0 comments

Gemtext seems to be more like wanting to be an online typewriter. Back when typewriters were used to write documents, there was one typeface and font, and no hyperlinks or images. To reference other documents you could use footnotes or a bibliography. Margins and line spacing (except maybe for block-quotes) were fixed. A lot of useful information was communicated in this format, but it does seem a bit too austere today.

0 comments

graypegg2y ago

That’s a good analogy, that does seem to be the guiding aesthetic they’re going for.

It’s austere but I can see why people like it if they’re really into writing as this raw “doesn’t need anything else” medium. I like my silly little pictures and syntax highlighted code samples though.

SoftTalkerOP2y ago

The weird thing is you can write like that in HTML if you want to.

    <html>
      Lots of plain text
    </html>

Will render just fine. I don't think any browsers really even require those opening and closing tags.

Karellen2y ago

You'll need to do a little bit more if you want paragraphs in your text, because otherwise HTML will just smush them together.

rhn_mk12y ago

It will not. You'll lose line breaks.

1 more reply

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse