Clone the repo, tangle this file:
(org-babel-tangle)Put generated .el file in your load-path.
Get an integration token from the bottom of your Medium settings page.
Put the following into your .emacs:
(require 'org-sendto-medium)
(define-key org-mode-map (kbd "C-x C-j") 'org-sendto-medium)Press M-x customize-group<CR>, then input ‘org-medium’. Put your integration token in the field “Org Medium Integration Token”, then apply and save.
Of course, you should use your own token.
In Org-Mode, you can use M-x org-sendto-medium or C-x C-j to publish current file to Medium. The post will be licensed with org-medium-default-license. Alternatively, call C-u C-x C-j to publish, and you will be asked to choose one of the following licenses: “all-rights-reserved” “cc-40-by” “cc-40-by-sa” “cc-40-by-nd” “cc-40-by-nc” “cc-40-by-nc-nd” “cc-40-by-nc-sa” “cc-40-zero” and “public-domain”, then one of the following post status (visibility): “public” “draft” and “unlisted”.
The header of the file must conform to the Emacs Lisp library header conventions. See references for more information.
;;; org-sendto-medium.el --- Export articles in Org-Mode to Medium
;; Copyright (C) 2016 Haoyang Xu
;; Author: Haoyang Xu <haoyang@expoundite.net>
;; Created: 22 Mar 2016
;; Version: 0.1
;; Package-Requires: ((org "8.0")(emacs "24.1"))
;; Keywords: comm, processes
;; Homepage: https://github.com/celadevra/org-sendto-medium
;; This file is not part of GNU Emacs.
;;; Commentary:
;; This package provides a function to publish Org-Mode files to Medium.com.
;;; Code:This package uses url.el for request/response handling, and json.el for parsing responses.
(require 'url)
(require 'json)Use a variable to store the beginning of API Endpoint, for ease of upgrade later:
(defvar org-medium-apibegin "https://api.medium.com/v1"
"Beginning of the Medium API endpoints. The part from 'https://' to the end of version indicator.")(defvar org-medium-apiuser (concat org-medium-apibegin "/me")
"API Endpoint for obtaining user information, such as ID.")As a desktop application, this package uses Medium’s ‘self-issued access tokens’ to authenticate the user and let Medium API know it is talking to an agent who is on behalf of some user. A variable org-medium-integration-token is used to store the token.
Save token in a variable:
(defcustom org-medium-integration-token nil
"Self-issued token for authentication with Medium. You can generate yours at https://medium.com/me/settings"
:group 'org-medium
:type 'string)With correct integration token, Medium’s user information API endpoint will send us a series of data, we are storing the “id” data in this variable:
(defvar org-medium-author-id nil
"Author id returned by Medium API given correct token.")When publishing on Medium, you can reserve all the rights, or choose from several Creative Commons license. By default, it’s “All Rights Reserved”. This variable allow you customize the default license you want to use for your posts.
(defcustom org-medium-default-license "all-rights-reserved"
"Default license for posts published."
:group 'org-medium
:type '(choice
(string :tag "all-rights-reserved" "all-rights-reserved")
(string :tag "cc-40-by" "cc-40-by")
(string :tag "cc-40-by-sa" "cc-40-by-sa")
(string :tag "cc-40-by-nd" "cc-40-by-nd")
(string :tag "cc-40-by-nc" "cc-40-by-nc")
(string :tag "cc-40-by-nc-nd" "cc-40-by-nc-nd")
(string :tag "cc-40-by-nc-sa" "cc-40-by-nc-sa")
(string :tag "cc-40-zero" "cc-40-zero")
(string :tag "public-domain" "public-domain")))In some cases, I may want to publish the article as a draft or unlisted on Medium. This customizable variable determines the default behaviour: to publish as public, unlisted, or a draft.
(defcustom org-medium-default-visibility "public"
"Default visibility of posts published. Can be one status among the 3 below:
public, unlisted, or draft."
:group 'org-medium
:type '(choice
(string :tag "Public" "public")
(string :tag "Unlisted" "unlisted")
(string :tag "Draft" "draft")))Before doing anything else, test if the integration token is empty. If empty, prompt user to go to medium.com, get an integration token and set the variable.
(defun org-medium-test-token ()
"Test if the integration token for medium is present. If not, ask the user to get one and open the url for user."
(if (or (not org-medium-integration-token) (string= "" org-medium-integration-token))
(progn
(if (y-or-n-p "Your integration token is not set, take you to medium so you can get one? ")
(browse-url-default-browser "https://medium.com/me/settings"))
(generate-new-buffer "*Instructions*")
(switch-to-buffer-other-window "*Instructions*")
(insert "Scroll to the bottom of your Medium settings page, find heading \"integration tokens\".\n
In the text box below, input an identifier such as \"my emacs\", \n
and hit the \"Get integration token\" button, copy the generated\n
token and paste it in the minibuffer.")
(let ((x (read-string "Paste your integration token here: ")))
(customize-save-variable 'org-medium-integration-token (eval x)))
(message "Integration token saved.")
(kill-buffer "*Instructions*"))
(message "Integration token found.")))To create a post, one must send a POST request to the API endpoint, part of which is the author’s ID.
Get author ID from Medium:
(defun org-medium-get-authorid ()
"Obtain author information from Medium and return the id for later use"
(progn
(org-medium-test-token)
(org-medium-me-query)))(defun org-medium-me-query ()
"Query Medium for user information."
(let* ((url-request-method "GET")
(auth-token (concat "Bearer " org-medium-integration-token))
(url-request-extra-headers
`(("Content-Type" . "application/json")
("Accept" . "application/json")
("Authorization" . ,auth-token)
("Accept-Charset" . "utf-8"))))
(url-retrieve org-medium-apiuser 'org-medium-find-id)))
(defun org-medium-find-id (status)
"Parse JSON to extract required data from response."
(progn
(switch-to-buffer (current-buffer))
(set-window-point (selected-window) (point-min))
(search-forward-regexp "\"id\":\"\\([0-9abcdef]*\\)\"")
(setq org-medium-author-id (current-word))
(kill-buffer)))Things I learned writing these two functions: you can use backquote, instead of quote, to quote a list. In this case, you can use a comma in a backquoted list to force evaluation of lists and variables. Alternatively, you can use cons to construct an association list, which evaluates the values before creating the key-value pair. You don’t always need json.el. You can use search and ‘current-word’ to extract useful information.
The API accepts the following parameters:
| Parameter | Type | Required? |
|---|---|---|
| title | string | y |
| contentFormat | string | y |
| content | string | y |
| tags | string array | n |
| canonicalUrl | string | n |
| publishStatus | enum | n |
| license | enum | n |
Below are some experiment space for optimized output:
(org-html-export-as-html nil nil nil t '(:with-toc nil))The above code seems good enough. When running the code, Emacs opens a HTML buffer in another window, the generated HTML only have the <body> part, so the content part can be generated with this.
Then I can use a function to read the content of the buffer, another to process the content so they become a sane html string, and return the string.
(defun org-medium-get-content (title)
"Get generated html from Org's export buffer."
(save-excursion
(let ((buffer (org-md-export-as-markdown)))
(org-medium-process-markdown buffer title))))
(defun org-medium-process-markdown (buffer title)
"Sanitize buffer content so they are acceptable by Medium's API.
Only tags such as <h1><h2><blockquote><p><figure><a><hr> and some
emphases are accepted."
(save-excursion
(with-current-buffer buffer
(goto-char (point-min))
(insert (concat "# " title))
(buffer-string))))How do I get title?
(defun org-medium-get-title ()
"Get title from the #+TITLE keyword of current document."
(save-excursion
(goto-char (point-min))
(search-forward-regexp "#\\+title:\\ *")
(let ((beg (point))) (end-of-line) (buffer-substring-no-properties beg (point)))))Then we can create the json and post it to Medium:
(defun org-sendto-medium (&optional arg lic visib)
"When called without arguments, publish your post to Medium with default settings.
When called with universal argument, allow interactive selection of license and visibility.
When called with LIC and/or VISIB arguments, send post request with customized arguments to alter publishing behaviour.
Possible LIC values are:
\"all-rights-reserved\"
\"cc-40-by\"
\"cc-40-by-sa\"
\"cc-40-by-nc\"
\"cc-40-by-nd\"
\"cc-40-by-nc-nd\"
\"cc-40-by-nc-sa\"
\"cc-40-zero\"
\"public-domain\"
Possible VISIB values are \"public\" \"draft\" and \"unlisted\".
"
(interactive "P")
(if (not (and org-medium-author-id (org-medium-test-token)))
(setq org-medium-author-id (org-medium-get-authorid)))
(let* ((url-request-method "POST")
(auth-token (concat "Bearer " org-medium-integration-token))
(url-request-extra-headers
`(("Content-Type" . "application/json")
("Accept" . "application/json")
("Authorization" . ,auth-token)
("Accept-Charset" . "utf-8")))
(custom-params (equal arg '(4)))
(title (org-medium-get-title))
(content (org-medium-get-content title))
(content-format "markdown")
(license (if custom-params (org-medium-show-license-help)
(or lic org-medium-default-license)))
(publish-status (if custom-params (org-medium-show-visibility-help)
(or visib org-medium-default-visibility)))
(url-request-data (encode-coding-string
(json-encode-plist `(:title ,title
:contentFormat ,content-format
:content ,content
:publishStatus ,publish-status
:license ,license))
'utf-8))
(url (concat org-medium-apibegin "/users/" org-medium-author-id "/posts")))
(url-retrieve url (lambda (status) (switch-to-buffer (current-buffer)))))
(kill-buffer (get-buffer "*Licenses*"))
(kill-buffer (get-buffer "*Visibility*")))By default, the above function sends the post with default settings. You can also send in arguments to customize license, visibility, etc.
Maybe I don’t need a full-blown interface like org-export-dispatch. For now, I only need to let user choose license and visibility if the function is called with C-u.
Need to define two help functions to show user the choices and set values:
(defun org-medium-show-license-help ()
"Helper function, show a buffer with possible licenses, let user choose, and return the license value."
()
(generate-new-buffer "*Licenses*")
(switch-to-buffer-other-window "*Licenses*")
(insert "Possible choices:
All rights reserved [a]
CC-BY [b] CC-BY-SA [s]
CC-BY-NC [c] CC-BY-ND [d]
CC-BY-NC-SA [n] CC-BY-NC-ND [y]
CC-0 [0]
Public Domain [o]
")
(let ((x (read-char-choice "Select a license: " (append "abscdny0o" nil))))
(cond ((equal x 97) "all-rights-reserved")
((equal x 98) "cc-40-by")
((equal x 115) "cc-40-by-sa")
((equal x 99) "cc-40-by-nc")
((equal x 100) "cc-40-by-nd")
((equal x 110) "cc-40-by-nc-sa")
((equal x 121) "cc-40-by-nc-nd")
((equal x 48) "cc-zero")
((equal x 111) "public-domain"))))
(defun org-medium-show-visibility-help ()
"Helper function, show a buffer with possible visibility choices for post, let user choose, and return the visibility value."
()
(generate-new-buffer "*Visibility*")
(switch-to-buffer-other-window "*Visibility*")
(insert "Possible choices:
Public [P]
Draft [D]
Unlisted [U]")
(case (read-char-choice "Select visibility: " (append "PDU" nil))
(80 "published")
(68 "draft")
(85 "unlisted")));; testing
(org-sendto-medium '(4) nil nil)(provide 'org-sendto-medium)
;;; org-sendto-medium.el ends here