mimemagic VS KeenWrite

If you're curious, here's how I solved it for ruby back in the day. Still used magic bytes, but added an overlay on top of the freedesktop.org DB: https://github.com/mimemagicrb/mimemagic/pull/20

Get it directly from github commit.

[AO3-6152] - Due to a licensing incident with a Rails dependency known as mimemagic, we had to update Rails to 5.2.5 and mimemagic to 0.3.6.

I don't think mimemagic works on Windows after the drama. I opened a PR for that a month ago but no one seems to care: https://github.com/mimemagicrb/mimemagic/pull/141

"License, motherfucker"

I know the vulgarity of the statements is tongue in cheek, but this one has been reinforced lately by the "MIME Magic" debacle[1], mama mia.

[1] https://github.com/mimemagicrb/mimemagic/issues/98

it has a licensing issue

https://github.com/mimemagicrb/mimemagic/commit/749a7e59de480b7c0373acc4f8ceb4444352ba46#diff-2ea7e2364883967953ab518a8316b639e612b8a6f20eadb7b97939d91c8e2612

On the other hand mimemagic provides by_magic https://github.com/mimemagicrb/mimemagic#usage which does detection by heuristic. It's a radically different method for a radically different use case.

Anyway, I created a PR addressing new Mimemagic not working on Windows https://github.com/mimemagicrb/mimemagic/pull/141

Someone broke the internet for rails https://github.com/mimemagicrb/mimemagic/issues/98

I wrote a series of blog posts about typesetting Markdown using pandoc:

https://dave.autonoma.ca/blog

I found pandoc on its own to be a little limiting:

* Awkward to use interpolated variables within prose.

* No real-time preview prior to rendering the final document.

* Limited options for TeX support (e.g., SVG vs. inline; ConTeXt vs. LaTeX).

* Inconsistent syntax for captions and cross-references.

For my purposes, I wanted to convert variable-laden Markdown and R Markdown to text, XHTML, and PDF formats. Eventually I replaced my tool chain of yamlp + pandoc + knitr with an integrated FOSS cross-platform desktop editor.

https://keenwrite.com/

KeenWrite uses flexmark-java + Renjin to provide a solution that can replace pandoc + knitr.

Note how the captions and cross-reference syntax for images, tables, and equations is unified to use a double-colon sigil:

https://gitlab.com/DaveJarvis/KeenWrite/-/blob/main/docs/ref...

My Typesetting Markdown series[1] describes crafting shell scripts to cobble together pandoc, knitr, math, ConTeXt, and YAML-based interpolated variables to produce PDF files.

For my sci-fi novel, my character sheet was inside of a spreadsheet. It dawned on me that the character sheet could be replaced with a YAML file and integrated with a Markdown editor. I developed KeenWrite[2] to replace the scripts while allowing me to use interpolated variables and R inside of the prose.

My novel has two separate timelines and I wanted to make sure that dates lined up correctly without having to do the date math manually. I implemented a number date functions in R[3] based around an "anchor" date. As long as all my other dates are relative (in days) to the anchor date, all the math checks out. Possessives and pronouns are also handled in R (meaning I can change a character's gender by changing a single variable, provided I haven't referenced any sex-specific body parts or characteristics).

Also, I wanted a nice-looking PDF file to send to alpha readers (more wanted, see profile). For that, I crafted KeenWrite Themes[4] along with a video tutorial series showing how all the software components work together.

[1]: https://dave.autonoma.ca/blog/2019/05/22/typesetting-markdow...

[2]: https://keenwrite.com/

[3]: https://gitlab.com/DaveJarvis/KeenWrite/-/blob/main/R/conver...

[4]: https://gitlab.com/DaveJarvis/keenwrite-themes/

[5]: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB-WIt1cZYLm1MMx2FBG9...

I developed KeenWrite[0] with similar ideas to mdbook: typeset into PDF from Markdown. Technically, this happens in three stages. First, the Markdown is converted to XHTML. Second, the XHTML is converted to TeX commands. Third, the ConTeXt typesetting system produces a PDF file. Both the GUI and CLI can export to PDF.[1]

Like mdbook, the themes are isolated. Instead of CSS, KeenWrite themes are written in ConTeXt. There are several example starter themes.[2] A "thesis" theme would be a nice addition, but there's a problem.

Markdown lacks a standard for cross-references and citations. An open KeenWrite issue animates a possible UX solution.[3] The topic of references/citations has been discussed on CommonMark[4] without much movement. Parsing cross-references and citations would benefit flexmark-java[5] integrations. KeenWrite uses flexmark-java, but I'm otherwise unaffiliated. If anyone is interested in helping, reach out (see profile).

[0]: https://keenwrite.com/

[1]: https://gitlab.com/DaveJarvis/KeenWrite/-/blob/main/docs/cmd...

[2]: https://gitlab.com/DaveJarvis/keenwrite-themes/

[3]: https://gitlab.com/DaveJarvis/KeenWrite/-/issues/145

[4]: https://talk.commonmark.org/t/cross-references-and-citations...

[5]: https://github.com/vsch/flexmark-java

My desktop text editor, KeenWrite, uses Wine, rcedit-x64.exe, osslsigncode, and a shell script. First, rcedit-x64.exe tags the binary with identifying information:

https://gitlab.com/DaveJarvis/KeenWrite/-/blob/main/installe...

Then osslsigncode applies the certificate:

https://gitlab.com/DaveJarvis/KeenWrite/-/blob/main/scripts/...

Echoing what Rodeoclash wrote: Having to pay to play on Windows for an open-source project that makes $0 is a decline of ownership over our own machines.

When I started developing KeenWrite[1], I wanted a modular architecture[2] that made the choice of Markdown vs. AsciiDoc vs. DocBook irrelevant with respect to generating PDF or HTML files. The core idea of writing pure text documents is to separate content from presentation; the syntax, while important to some, shouldn't sway the output format.

KeenWrite could integrate AsciidoctorJ and its XHTML5 back-end to support AsciiDoc in the future, if there was demand.

[1]: https://keenwrite.com/

[2]: https://gitlab.com/DaveJarvis/KeenWrite/-/raw/main/docs/imag...