convert between mf2 and form-encoded micropub

[snarfed]

inspired by @tantek and @elf-pavlik: http://indiewebcamp.com/irc/2015-03-03#t1425429655537

micropub spec: http://micropub.net

[elf-pavlik]

:+1: once you have it i'll link it from https://www.w3.org/wiki/Socialwg/Social_syntax#Serialization

[bcomnes]

A conceptual example of this: https://github.com/bcomnes/mf2-to-form-urlencoded

It would require some actual logic to clean this up to work as a micropub post request, but this is how serializing would work.

[aaronpk]

What is the purpose of this? I don't understand what it would be used for.

[snarfed]

sounds like @elf-pavlik has a use case where he has AS 2.0 data that he'd like to publish via micropub: http://indiewebcamp.com/irc/2015-03-03#t1425429753753

[aaronpk]

I still don't understand. If he's publishing data, he would be publishing HTML with microformats.

[elf-pavlik]

@aaronpk imagine that my frontend app generates JSON object as in http://www.w3.org/TR/activitystreams-core/#fig-an-object-that-is-both-a-place-and-a-gr-location

{
  "@context": [
    "http://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams",
    {
      "gr": "http://purl.org/goodrelations/v1#"
    }
  ],
  "@type": ["Place", "gr:Location"],
  "displayName": "Sally's Restaurant",
  "longitude": 12.34,
  "latitude": 56.78,
  "gr:category": "restaurants/french_restaurants"
}

I assume we'll find an algorithmic way to serialize AS2.0 JSON objects to Microformats HTML (otherwise I don't think we should keep Microformats HTML serialization mentioned in the spec!) SocialWG: ACTION-34

In optimistic scenario I'd get

<div class="h-geo">
  <div class="p-name">Sally's Restaurant</div>
  At
  Longitude: <span class="p-longitude">12.34</span>,
  Latitude: <span class="p-latitude">56.78</span>.
  <meta name="category" content="restaurants/french_restaurants" />
</div>

or improved Microformats HTML version Social WG: ACTION-26

Then if I want to post it to Micropub endpoint, which as for today doesn't accept application/json or text/html. I need to serialize it to application/x-www-form-urlencoded

[aaronpk]

If you've already generated the HTML, why would you want to post it to a Micropub endpoint? I am just having a really hard time imagining an actual case when you would want to do this. Feel free to give me an actual use case that demonstrates otherwise.

[elf-pavlik]

Actually AS2.0 JSON -> Microformats JSON -> Microformats form-urlencoded makes more sense. Then server I post it to uses template to generate HTML. Even if client (frontend) would generate AS2.0 JSON -> Microformats HTML, I would need to send it to the server (backend) somehow.

[aaronpk]

I'm hearing an awful lot of plumbing talk. What is it you are actually trying to do? Can you describe it without using the terms "AS 2.0", "JSON", or "Microformats"?

[kylewm]

Guys regardless, activitystreams-unofficial is not the right place to implement this functionality. It may be misleadingly named, but it's not a general purpose format A -> format B conversion tool... it just converts streams from social media silos to various usable formats.

[elf-pavlik]

e.g. I want to check in to that restaurant, but it dosn't have indie profile yet so i create one for this restaurant on my domain which they can later migrate to their own http://indiewebcamp.com/micropub#Nested_Microformat_Objects

we experiment with such Portable Linked Profiles in https://github.com/hackers4peace/plp-docs

you did something similar with: http://aaronparecki.com/events/2015/03/17/1/socialwg-2015

just no portability at this moment

[aaronpk]

This is what Micropub is for. If you've got your data in some other format, then what you really want to do is convert from that format to Micropub, I don't see any reason to go through Microformats as an intermediary step. Anyway @kylewm is right, this is probably not the right repo for this functionality.

[snarfed]

fwiw granary has become a "general purpose format A -> format B conversion tool," so this feature request is now appropriate for this repo after all.

i don't actually plan to do this myself anytime soon; just sayin'. i'd happily merge a PR though!