Orgmode Elements

The Org-mode syntax recognized is a sub-set of the Org-mode syntax.

Following Org-mode elements are parsed and HTMLized by lazyblorg. As a fall-back, all other Org-mode elements are converted using pandoc after the usual replacements (links to IDs,…) have been made.

Most Org-mode elements such as tables or blocks must not be indented to be recognized properly.

There must be an empty line between different Org-mode elements.

In the source code, following things can be checked:

• /lib/orgparser.py → parse_orgmode_file(…)
• /lib/htmlizer.py → sanitize_and_htmlize_blog_content(…)

If you want to get an overview on which sanitizing operation is done on what element, take a look at Sanitizing. It also contains a description on the labels used in the sanitizing tables below.

Basic Text Formatting

Currently supported Org-mode text formatting:

Example	Using Characters	Results in HTML	Notes
bold	asterisks	<b>
code	tilde	<code>	See this issue
verbatim	equality signs	<code>

Not yet supported, raise an issue or send a merge request if you need it:

• italic
• underlined
• strike-through
• special symbols
• subscripts and superscripts

Links

Linking Other Blog Articles (Internal Links)

For linking to another blog article within the same blog, please do use :ID: properties.

For example:

*** DONE This Is an Interesting Article                        :blog:
CLOSED: [2017-06-04 Sun 18:15]
:PROPERTIES:
:ID: 2017-06-04-interesting
:CREATED:  [2017-06-04 Sun 17:59]
:END:
:LOGBOOK:
- State "DONE"       from "NEXT"       [2017-06-04 Sun 18:15]
:END:
…
This is the interesting stuff.
…
*** DONE A Boring Article Referring To Another One     :blog:example:
CLOSED: [2017-05-27 Sat 17:43] SCHEDULED: <2017-05-28 Sun>
:PROPERTIES:
:CREATED:  [2017-05-27 Sat 17:30]
:ID: 2017-05-27-example-reference
:END:
:LOGBOOK:
- State "DONE"       from "NEXT"       [2017-05-27 Sat 17:43]
:END:
…
In case you want to read something really interesing,
visit [[id:2017-06-04-interesting][my other article]] in this blog.

See Sanitizing for all elements that may contain those internal links.

Links to Web Pages (External Links)

Any http(s)-links within an Org-mode article will result in

<a href="…">…</a>

in the resulting HTML. See Sanitizing for all elements that may contain those links.

Embedding External Content

Please do read about HTML blocks to include HTML snippets such as tweets or YouTube videos.

Embed Tweets into Your Blog Article

There was no need to develop something specific. Just follow following procedure:

1. insert an HTML block into your Org blog article
   • Easily done via entering <h + pressing the TAB key
2. go to the tweet you would like to embed in your browser
   • select the three dots below the Tweet
   • select “Embed Tweet”
   • copy resulting snippet
3. paste snippet into HTML block

Simple as that.

Example:

#+BEGIN_EXPORT HTML
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">You gotta love <a href="https://twitter.com/slydigsband">@slydigsband</a> - tune into <a href="https://t.co/7yylPwDKvi">https://t.co/7yylPwDKvi</a><br>I just bought the album. Guys, you really rock! Thanks for your Vienna gig!</p>&mdash; Karl Voit (@n0v0id) <a href="https://twitter.com/n0v0id/status/776735121823174656">September 16, 2016</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
#+END_EXPORT

Embed YouTube Videos

1. insert an HTML block into your Org blog article
   • Easily done via entering <h + pressing the TAB key
2. retrieve the YouTube URL of your video
3. replace (only!) HTVgPw7TR_k in the snippet example below with the video ID of your video

Example:

#+BEGIN_EXPORT HTML
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/HTVgPw7TR_k?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
#+END_EXPORT

Headings

One or more asterisks followed by at least one whitespace character.

HTML chars	Int. L.	Ext. L.	Text Format	URL Ampersands	Pandoc	Templates involved
x	x	x	x	x		#SECTION-TITLE#, #SECTION-LEVEL#

Like horizontal rulers, the first sub-heading does separate the teaser part of an article from the rest of it. Teasers are shown on the entry page as well as in the teaser-only feed.

Headings That Start a Blog Article

Recognized as a potential blog article heading when it is a heading that got the tag :blog: (or customized content of TAG_FOR_BLOG_ENTRY) and no NOEXPORT tag.

Headings Within a Blog Article

Headings within a blog article are migrated to HTML sub-headings of the article.

If such a heading has the NOEXPORT tag, this section and its sub-headings are omitted in the end result.

Drawers

Drawers must not be intended and directly follow a heading. After the first empty line, the parser is looking for Org-mode elements that are not drawers.

Drawers and its content is not visible in the HTML output. They are just parsed for the meta-data described in the next sections.

PROPERTIES Drawers

ID property: The first line starting with :ID: is interpreted as the line holding the ID of the heading.

CREATED property: line begins with :CREATED: (case insensitive) followed by at least one whitespace character and an timestamp.

LOGBOOK Drawers

State transitions: within LOGBOOK drawer: line begins with - State followed by at least one whitespace character, from, at least one whitespace character and text.

The most recent finished time-stamp is used to mark the last update on the article (latestupdateTS).

The oldest finished time-stamp is used to mark the first publishing date (firstpublishTS).

Paragraphs

If the parser is in the state where it is looking for content and this content is not a drawer, horizontal ruler, empty line, block, colon block, table, heading or list, it is classified as a plain paragraph.

HTML chars	Int. L.	Ext. L.	Text Format	URL Ampersands	Pandoc	Templates involved
x	x	x	x	x		#PAR-CONTENT#

Horizontal Rulers

At least five minus characters - followed only by optional whitespace characters.

Like the first sub-heading, horizontal rulers do separate the teaser part of an article from the rest of it. Teasers are shown on the entry page as well as in the teaser-only feed.

Lists

The very first list item must not be intended.

Lists are recognized with -, or +, or any number followed by a dot, followed by a space character, an optional checkbox ([ ] filled with one arbitrary character) and text.

Currently, blog articles must not start with a list. See this issue. Also, a blog article must not end with a list. See this issue.

Lists must not be interrupted by empty lines: an empty line ends the current list.

HTML chars	Int. L.	Ext. L.	Text Format	URL Ampersands	Pandoc	Templates involved
x	x	x	x	x		#CONTENT#

Tables

Tables must not be indented. They consist of lines that start with a | character.

Table formulas are ignored and therefore omitted.

Tables are HTMLized via pandoc.

Tables do miss some sanitizing:

HTML chars	Int. L.	Ext. L.	Text Format	URL Ampersands	Pandoc	Templates involved
	x				x

Blocks

Blocks must not be intended. They start with #+BEGIN_ followed by supported block types (below; case insensitive) and parameters. Blocks end with the first #+END found.

Optional names can pre-pended a block: lines starting with =#+NAME: = (case insensitive). Those names are used as captions for the blocks. Please note the different handling for HTML blocks.

Enforcing line breaks is not yet supported with lazyblorg. Open an issue if you need it.

SRC

SRC-blocks do miss some sanitizing:

HTML chars	Int. L.	Ext. L.	Text Format	URL Ampersands	Pandoc	Templates involved
x						#NAME#

EXPORT

Note: lazyblorg looks into block_type_export_backend which holds either HTML or LATEX.

HTML

HTML-blocks do miss some sanitizing:

HTML chars	Int. L.	Ext. L.	Text Format	URL Ampersands	Pandoc	Templates involved
x						#NAME#

Named HTML Blocks

If an HTML block has a name associated, it gets included into the blog article with a caption and the HTML source rendered as visible content.

#+NAME: This is the caption
#+BEGIN_EXPORT html
<a href="http://Karl-Voit.at">Link to my webpage</a>
#+END_EXPORT

… results in something similar to:

<a href="http://Karl-Voit.at">Link to my webpage</a>

The caption/name/title is omitted at the moment. See this related issue.

HTML Blocks Without a Name

If an HTML block has no name associated, its HTML source code is written as is into the HTML output of the blog article. This way, you can add HTML snippets for tweets, videos or other content directly into your lazyblorg article.

#+BEGIN_EXPORT html
<a href="http://Karl-Voit.at">Link to my webpage</a>
#+END_EXPORT

… results in something similar to: Link to my webpage

LATEX

LaTeX blocks are HTMLized via pandoc.

LaTeX-blocks do miss some sanitizing:

HTML chars	Int. L.	Ext. L.	Text Format	URL Ampersands	Pandoc	Templates involved
	x				x

EXAMPLE

EXAMPLE-blocks do miss some sanitizing:

HTML chars	Int. L.	Ext. L.	Text Format	URL Ampersands	Pandoc	Templates involved
x						#NAME#

VERSE

HTML chars	Int. L.	Ext. L.	Text Format	URL Ampersands	Pandoc	Templates involved
x	x	x	x			#NAME#

QUOTE

HTML chars	Int. L.	Ext. L.	Text Format	URL Ampersands	Pandoc	Templates involved
x	x	x	x			#NAME#

CENTER

Parsed but has no effect. Raise an issue or send a merge request in case you need it.

ASCII

Parsed but has no effect. Raise an issue or send a merge request in case you need it.

Colon Blocks

Colon blocks are blocks such as following example:

: Lines that start with a colon and a space
: are colon blocks.

Colon blocks are the safest way to embed characters of any kind. Their text format and line breaks are preserved, nothing gets interpreted or replaced. Therefore, colon-blocks do miss some sanitizing on purpose:

HTML chars	Int. L.	Ext. L.	Text Format	URL Ampersands	Pandoc	Templates involved
x						#NAME#

Comment Lines

Comment lines start with a hash character followed by at least one space

# This is an example

They are ignored by the parser and therefore omitted in the resulting article.

Org-Mode Elements and Their Placeholders

• http://orgmode.org/worg/dev/org-syntax.html
  • OLD: list of Org Mode elements: http://article.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.orgmode/67871
• Take a look at an Org-mode test-file (for unit testing) containing all implemented Org-mode syntax elements
  • This is the resulting HTML file
  • Here is the live-HTML version on my blog

Org elements: from ox-ascii.el (Org-mode)

Org Element	[fn:earmarked]	[fn:lowprio]	implemented since	[fn:internalrepresentation]	HTML5
external hyperlinks			<2014-01-30 Thu>		a
internal links			<2014-03-03 Mon>		a
bold			<2014-01-30 Thu>		b
center-block		x
clock		x
code			<2014-01-30 Thu>		code
drawer		x
dynamic-block		x
entity
example-block			<2014-01-30 Thu>	[‘example-block’, ‘name or None’, [u’first line’, u’second line’]]	FIXXME
example “colon-block”			<2014-08-10 Sun>	[‘colon-block’, False, [u’first line’, u’second line’]]	pre
export-block		x
export-snippet		x
fixed-width		x
footnote-definition		x
footnote-reference		x
headline			<2014-01-30 Thu>	[‘heading’, {‘level’: 3, ‘title’: u’my title’}]	section+header+h1
horizontal-rule			<2014-01-31 Fri>	[‘hr’]	(ignored and only interpreted to mark end of standfirst)
inline-src-block		x
inlinetask		x
inner-template		x
italic		x
item
keyword		x
latex-environment			<2014-01-30 Thu>	[fn:pypandoc] [‘latex-block’, ‘name or None’, [u’first line’, u’second line’]]
latex-fragment		x
line-break		x
link	x
paragraph			<2014-01-30 Thu>	[‘par’, u’line1’, u’line2’]	p
plain-list	x			[‘list-itemize’, [u’first line’, u’second line’]]	ul+li
plain-text			<2014-01-30 Thu>	see: paragraph
planning		x
quote-block			<2014-01-30 Thu>	[‘quote-block’, ‘name or None’, [u’first line’, u’second line’]]	blockquote
quote-section		?
radio-target		x
section			<2014-01-30 Thu>	[‘heading’, {‘title’: u’Sub-heading foo’, ‘level’: 3}]	h2, h3, …
special-block		x
src-block			<2014-01-30 Thu>	[‘src-block’, ‘name or None’, [u’first line’, u’second line’]]	pre
statistics-cookie		x
strike-through		x
subscript		x
superscript		x
table	x			[fn:pypandoc]
table-cell	x
table-row	x
target
template		x
timestamp		x
underline		x
verbatim	x				pre
verse-block			<2014-01-30 Thu>	[‘verse-block’, ‘name or None’, [u’first line’, u’second line’]]	pre
html-block			<2014-01-30 Thu>	[‘html-block’, ‘name or None’, [u’first line’, u’second line’]]	pre (if no #+NAME: then insert directly!)
the rest				[fn:pypandoc]

NOTE: OrgParser is using “par” for anything it can not interpret as something else.

[fn:earmarked] Planned to be implemented soon (or at all :-)

[fn:lowprio] This feature is low on my personal development list (way take some time or might never get implemented)

[fn:pypandoc] This element gets converted using pypndoc (and additional sanitizing)

[fn:internalrepresentation] usually in list: blog_data['id-of-entry']['content']

• Blocks: (beginning with BEGIN_)
  • EXPORT (new with Org-mode 9)
  • ASCII
  • HTML (deprecated since Org-mode 9)
  • LATEX (deprecated since Org-mode 9)
  • QUOTE
  • SRC
  • VERSE

The list of the placeholders and their occurrence might be a bit outdated. Please refer to blog format and the source code for the most current version.

placeholder	description	gets sanitized	source
#ARTICLE-TITLE#	heading/title of the blog article	x	Org: heading
#ARTICLE-ID#	id of the article		PROPERTIES-drawer
#ABOUT-BLOG#	a line of text which describes the blog in general		FIXXME
#BLOGNAME#	short name of the blog		FIXXME
#ARTICLE-YEAR#	four digit year of the article (folder path)		Org: CREATED-time-stamp
#ARTICLE-MONTH#	two digit month of the article (folder path)		Org: CREATED-time-stamp
#ARTICLE-DAY#	two digit day of the article (folder path)		Org: CREATED-time-stamp
#ARTICLE-PUBLISHED-HTML-DATETIME#	time-stamp of publishing in HTML		Org: CREATED-time-stamp
#ARTICLE-PUBLISHED-HUMAN-READABLE#	time-stamp of publishing in		Org: CREATED-time-stamp
#TAGNAME#	string of a tag		Org: tags of Org-heading
#SECTION-TITLE#	title of the next heading/section	x	Org: heading of Org sub-heading
#SECTION-LEVEL#	relative level of the next heading/section		Org: level of heading - level of article + 1
#PAR-CONTENT#		x	Org: content which is not recognized as something special
#A-URL#	URL of a hyperlink		Org: Org-link
#CONTENT#	description of the hyperlink		Org: Org-link
#CONTENT#	text of the list item	x	Org: item content of Org list
#NAME#	Org-mode name of a block		Org: #+NAME: declaration

What	template-name	placeholder replacements
article	article-header	ARTICLE-TITLE, ABOUT-BLOG, BLOGNAME, ARTICLE-(ID,YEAR,MONTH,DAY,PUB*)
	article-header-begin	ARTICLE-TITLE, ABOUT-BLOG, BLOGNAME, ARTICLE-(ID,YEAR,MONTH,DAY,PUB*)
	article-header-end	ARTICLE-TITLE, ABOUT-BLOG, BLOGNAME, ARTICLE-(ID,YEAR,MONTH,DAY,PUB*)
	article-tags-begin
	article-usertag	TAGNAME
	article-autotag	TAGNAME
	article-tags-end	ARTICLE-TITLE, ABOUT-BLOG, BLOGNAME, ARTICLE-(ID,YEAR,MONTH,DAY,PUB*)
	article-footer	ARTICLE-TITLE, ABOUT-BLOG, BLOGNAME, ARTICLE-(ID,YEAR,MONTH,DAY,PUB*)
	article-end	ARTICLE-TITLE, ABOUT-BLOG, BLOGNAME, ARTICLE-(ID,YEAR,MONTH,DAY,PUB*)
	persistent-header	ARTICLE-TITLE, ABOUT-BLOG, BLOGNAME, ARTICLE-(ID,YEAR,MONTH,DAY,PUB*)
	persistent-header-begin	ARTICLE-TITLE, ABOUT-BLOG, BLOGNAME, ARTICLE-(ID,YEAR,MONTH,DAY,PUB*)
	persistent-header-end	ARTICLE-TITLE, ABOUT-BLOG, BLOGNAME, ARTICLE-(ID,YEAR,MONTH,DAY,PUB*)
	persistent-footer	ARTICLE-TITLE, ABOUT-BLOG, BLOGNAME, ARTICLE-(ID,YEAR,MONTH,DAY,PUB*)
	persistent-end	ARTICLE-TITLE, ABOUT-BLOG, BLOGNAME, ARTICLE-(ID,YEAR,MONTH,DAY,PUB*)
headline	section-begin	SECTION-TITLE, SECTION-LEVEL
paragraph, plain-text	paragraph	PAR-CONTENT
URLs	a-href	A-URL, CONTENT
plain-list	ul-begin
	ul-item
	ul-end
pre-fromatted text	pre-begin
	pre-end
html-block	html-begin	NAME
	html-end
src-block	src-begin
	src-end
	named-src-begin
	named-src-end