tdoc

A command-line tool and Rust library for handling all kinds of text documents (Markdown, HTML, Gemini, and FTML - Formatted Text Markup Language).

This project is a partial rewrite of the Go library available at https://github.com/roblillack/ftml, bringing FTML support to the Rust ecosystem with improved performance and memory safety.

CLI usage

tdoc is the unified CLI for viewing and exporting FTML, HTML, Markdown, and Gemini content. When no input path is provided it reads from stdin. The output format is detected from the --output/-o file extension.

# View a local FTML file with ANSI styling (defaults to a pager)
tdoc document.ftml

# View a local Markdown file with ANSI styling
tdoc notes.md

# View a local HTML file with ANSI styling
tdoc email.html

# View a local Gemini file with ANSI styling
tdoc capsule.gmi

# View from a URL
tdoc https://example.com/document.html

# Disable ANSI formatting (disables the pager and emits ASCII)
tdoc --no-ansi document.ftml

# Read from stdin (defaults to FTML)
cat document.ftml | tdoc

# Force the input format for stdin/unknown extensions
cat notes.md | tdoc --input-format markdown

# Export to different formats (extension determines the output)
tdoc paper.ftml --output paper.md      # Markdown
tdoc paper.ftml --output paper.ftml    # FTML
tdoc paper.ftml --output paper.html    # HTML
tdoc paper.ftml --output paper.gmi     # Gemini
tdoc paper.ftml --output paper.txt     # Wrapped ASCII text

What is FTML?

FTML (Formatted Text Markup Language) is a lightweight document format designed for simplicity and ease of processing. As a strict subset of HTML5, it remains fully compatible with standard web technologies while being far easier to parse and work with programmatically. FTML provides the essential features needed for rich text documents—such as paragraph structures, headings, lists, and inline styles—without the complexity of full HTML or Markdown. It’s ideal for straightforward text content like emails, memos, notes, and help documentation.

Key features:

• Simple structure: Only the most essential formatting options
• HTML-compatible: Valid FTML is valid HTML5
• Diffable: Designed to work well with version control
• Unambiguous: Usually only one way to express something

For the full FTML specification, see the original repository.

Features

tdoc provides a comprehensive toolkit for working with FTML documents in Rust:

• Load and Save: Parse FTML documents from files or streams, and write them back with proper formatting
• Terminal Rendering: Render documents to terminal screens with full support for ASCII/ANSI formatting, including bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, highlight, code, clickable links and all supported paragraph types
• Format Conversion: Convert between FTML and other formats:
  • Markdown: Import and export Markdown documents with full round-trip support
  • Gemini: Import and export Gemini text (.gmi) documents with full round-trip support
  • HTML: Import HTML documents into FTML (basic support), with plans for full HTML export
• Document Manipulation: Build and modify FTML documents programmatically with a clean, type-safe API
• Inline FTML macro: Compose FTML document trees inline with the ftml! macro for ergonomic test fixtures and examples
• Command-line Tools: Ready-to-use CLI utilities for viewing, converting, and formatting FTML documents

Document Structure

FTML documents consist of a hierarchy of elements:

Block-level Elements

• Text paragraphs (<p>)
• Headers (<h1>, <h2>, <h3>)
• Code blocks (<pre>)
• Lists - ordered (<ol>) or unordered (<ul>)
• Checklists (<ul> whose items begin with checkboxes, or Markdown - [ ] task lists)
• Blockquotes (<blockquote>)

Checklists

Task lists are a special kind of unordered list whose entries start with checkbox inputs (HTML/FTML) or Markdown’s - [ ] syntax. tdoc now keeps those entries intact—including deeply nested child tasks—across the parser, Markdown/HTML writers, and the terminal formatter. That means you can read Markdown like this:

- [x] Ship release
  - [ ] Update screenshots
  - [x] Publish announcement

Code Blocks

• Represented in FTML as <pre> elements and emitted via the code { "..." } block in the ftml! macro.
• When rendered in ASCII or ANSI, code blocks maintain paragraph spacing and are wrapped in ---- separators with hard character-level wrapping.
• Markdown export uses fenced code blocks (`````), and HTML/FTML writers preserve the original whitespace verbatim.

Inline Styles

Text spans can have optional styles:

• Bold (<b>)
• Italic (<i>)
• Underline (<u>)
• Strike (<s>)
• Highlight (<mark>)
• Code (<code>)
• Links (<a href="...">)

Hyperlink Rendering

• ANSI output wraps link text in OSC 8 escape codes to create clickable hyperlinks in supporting terminals.
• ASCII output elides escape codes and appends numbered references; superscript numerals are used by default, with bracketed markers available through FormattingStyle::link_index_format.
• Links without visible content collapse to their normalized target so empty anchors remain discoverable.
• mailto: links with matching descriptions reuse their text instead of adding redundant indices.

Example Document

<h1>This <i>very</i> simple example shows ...</h1>
<p>How FTML really is this:</p>
<ul>
  <li><p>A <mark>strict</mark> subset of HTML,</p></li>
  <li><p>That is <b>easy</b> to wrap your head around.</p></li>
</ul>

Library Usage

Reading Documents

use tdoc::{parse, Document};
use std::fs::File;

fn main() -> Result<(), Box<dyn std::error::Error>> {
    // Parse from a file
    let file = File::open("document.ftml")?;
    let document = parse(file)?;

    // Access document structure
    for paragraph in &document.paragraphs {
        println!("Paragraph type: {}", paragraph.paragraph_type());
    }

    Ok(())
}

Writing Documents

use tdoc::{write, Document, Paragraph, Span};
use std::io::stdout;

fn main() -> Result<(), Box<dyn std::error::Error>> {
    // Create a document programmatically
    let mut doc = Document::new();

    let paragraph = Paragraph::new_text()
        .with_content(vec![
            Span::new_text("Hello, "),
            Span::new_styled(tdoc::InlineStyle::Bold)
                .with_children(vec![Span::new_text("world!")]),
        ]);

    doc.add_paragraph(paragraph);

    // Write to stdout
    write(&mut stdout(), &doc)?;

    Ok(())
}

Building with the ftml! macro

use tdoc::{ftml, write};

fn main() -> tdoc::Result<()> {
    // Compose a document inline, similar to RSX or JSX
    let doc = ftml! {
        h1 { "Hello World!" }
        ul {
            li {
                p { "This is a text paragraph inside a list item" }
                quote { p { "And this is a quoted paragraph in the same item" } }
            }
        }
        p { "Inline styles work " b { "just as well" } "." }
        code {
            "fn main() {\n"
            "    println!(\"Hello from FTML!\");\n"
            "}\n"
        }
    };

    write(&mut std::io::stdout(), &doc)?;
    Ok(())
}

Exporting to Markdown

use tdoc::{parse, markdown};
use std::fs::File;

fn main() -> Result<(), Box<dyn std::error::Error>> {
    let file = File::open("document.ftml")?;
    let document = parse(file)?;

    // Export to Markdown
    markdown::write(&mut std::io::stdout(), &document)?;

    Ok(())
}

Working with Gemini format

use tdoc::gemini;
use std::fs::File;

fn main() -> Result<(), Box<dyn std::error::Error>> {
    // Parse a Gemini file
    let file = File::open("capsule.gmi")?;
    let document = gemini::parse(file)?;

    // Export to Gemini
    gemini::write(&mut std::io::stdout(), &document)?;

    Ok(())
}

Importing from HTML

use tdoc::html;
use std::fs::File;

fn main() -> Result<(), Box<dyn std::error::Error>> {
    let file = File::open("document.html")?;
    let document = html::parse(file)?;

    // Now you have an FTML document
    println!("Parsed {} paragraphs", document.paragraphs.len());

    Ok(())
}

Implementation Status

This Rust implementation is a work in progress. Here's how it compares to the Go version:

Building from Source

# Ensure the OpenSSL/LibreSSL headers are available, for example:
sudo apt install libssl-dev

# Build the library and all tools
cargo build --release

# Run tests
cargo test

# Build specific binary
cargo build --release --bin tdoc

License

MIT

Contributing

This is a work in progress. Contributions are welcome! Please see the original FTML repository for the specification details.