RFC: TinyLogs format
Status: Draft Last update: 2021-06-10
Introduction
A Tinylog is a simple file with all "microblog" style entries to share small contents and interact with other other geminauts' tinylog.
The original idea and most "rules" comes from Drew/uoou/Friendo:
=> gemini://friendo.monster/log/lace.gmi
The goal of this RFC is to standardize the tinylog format for better coherence between authors by providing a consistent approach. This will also allow better tools around tinylogs to improve both authors and readers experience reading micro entries.
Tinylog format
This tinylog format proposal is composed of a mandatory part that tinylogs must be compatible with and optional information that author could add as meta information about their tinylog.
Mandatory format
Each tinylog entry must be formated as follow:
## <Date> <Entry Title>
<Content>
It starts with a second level header (##), followed by a space and then <date> followed by a space and then the <Entry Title>.
<Entry Title> format: Any text without new line.
<Date> format: 3 possible formats for the date:
YYYY-MM-DD h:m[:s] TZ
Weekday DD Month YYYY h:m[:s] TZ # format 1-24 for hours
Weekday DD Month YYYY h:m[:s] AM TZ # format 1-12 am/pm for hours
Entries should be in order from newest to oldest.
YYYY-MM-DD h:m[:s] TZ
Seconds are optional.
example:
2006-01-02 15:04:05 MST
2006-01-02 15:04 MST
Weekday DD Month YYYY h:m[:s] TZ
- Weekday should be in 3 letters format (eg: Mon for Monday).
- Month should be in 3 letters format (eg: Jan for January).
- Hours should be in 1-24 format.
- Seconds are optional.
example:
Mon 02 Jan 2006 15:04:05 MST
Mon 02 Jan 2006 15:04 MST
Weekday DD Month YYYY h:m[:s] am TZ
- Weekday should be in 3 letters format (eg: Mon for Monday).
- Month should be in 3 letters format (eg: Jan for January).
- Hours should be in 1-12 format.
- Seconds are optional.
example:
Mon 02 Jan 2006 03:04:05 PM MST
Mon 02 Jan 2006 03:04 PM MST
<Content> format: Any text without 2 new lines.
Each entry must be separated with 2 new lines (ie paragraph break).
Example:
## Mon 07 Jun 2021 10:44:26 PM CEST
A small thought to share.
## Sun 06 Jun 2021 11:44:26 AM CEST
A first tinylog entry
Optional information
Additional informations could be added at the top of your tinylog file:
# <Tinylog Title>
<description>
author: <author>
avatar: <emoji>
licence: <licence>
<Tinylog Title> Can be any text without a line break.
<description>: Can be any text without 2 line breaks (= paragraph break). Description can be before or after the metadata but not between.
<author> format: @authorName[@capsule.tld] with authorName the tinylog author name and "capsule.tld" the url of the author capsule. The emoji and capsule url are optional. This intends to simplify communication between authors as well as discovery of new tinylog feeds.
Example:
author: @bacardi55
author: @bacardi55@gmi.bacardi55.io
<emoji> format: emoji [emoji description]. The description is optional.
Example:
avatar: 🦪
avatar: 🦪 (:oyster:, U+1F9AA)
<licence> format: the name of the licence.
Other additional metadata could be added but shouldn't be expected.