ox-w3ctr — org export backend for W3C TR CSS style

Based on Org-mode’s ox-html.el and CSS of W3C Technical Report tr-design’s base.css.

Status

Emacs Version	30.1	31.1	32.1
Package Version	0.2	0.3	0.4
Date	[2025-02-23]	[2026-08-24]	2027?

The current ox-w3ctr has not yet completed a full refactoring of the ox-html code, though it’s already largely usable. I plan to release version 0.4 when Emacs 32.1 comes out.

When version 0.4 is released, the package should no longer introduce breaking changes, and Emacs 32.1 will be the minimum supported version. In a sense, 0.4 will be the first official release.

Install and Use

Please use Emacs 32.0.50 or above. Download this repo and add it to load-path, or use package-vc like this:

M-x package-vs-install https://github.com/include-yy/ox-w3ctr RET

After installation and load, use C-c C-e w o to export a org buffer to HTML file. See more information from docstrings and comments (at least now).

TODO list [0/4]

1. [ ] Totally Refactor from ox-html.
2. [ ] Fully detailed documentation.
3. [ ] A friendly introductive video.
4. [ ] CI/CD support.

Roadmap

• Options tidy-up. The :options-alist is a grab-bag: a few entries are grouped, most are not. Order every entry, consider replacing cumbersome string options with *-function ones. Chart compatibility with ox-html for each option.
• Src-block feature gaps vs ox-html. Dropped when forking (judged low-value for W3C TR output). Revisit later:
  • Line numbers, coderef, retain-labels.
  • :html-wrap-src-lines and :html-klipsify-src.
  • Listing number in captions.
  • example-block fontification / line numbers.
  • Highlight engine: htmlize vs t-fontify-method + ef- slugs.
• Attr-reading machinery. The attribute helpers have grown several layers (t--read-attr__, t--make-attr__, t--make-attr__id, t--make-attr__id*, t--make-attr_html, t--make-attribute-string, t--src-block-attrs). Two syntaxes coexist (Lisp s-exprs for #+attr__, plists for #+attr_html). Candidates: a single intermediate representation or one canonical syntax.
• SVG global font cache. svg-by-mathjax uses fontCache: 'local'. MathJax’s fontCache: 'global' shares one <defs> per document (~1.9x smaller on a 100-formula sample). Tried and reverted; revisit if SVG output is kept.
• CSS cleanup in =assets/style.css=. Not urgent.
  • Dead rules: #home-and-up and .org-center (never emitted).
  • .ef-* highlight colours lean dark-theme; provide light/dark pair.
  • pre > code.src invisible in dark theme; add dark-block override.
  • Inline src (t-inline-src-block) has no CSS; give it a style or drop the dead class.
• Src-block highlight backends. Today t-fontify-method is engrave or nil (server-side). Planned: further server-side backends, or client-side (e.g. highlight.js) by emitting bare <code class“language-LANG”>=.

Non-goals

Explicitly out of scope for now.

• special-block (Web Component). Deferred to the mainline, after the options tidy-up. The unfinished t-special-block lives in zhua.el and still needs ox-w3ctr-component-registry and ox-w3ctr-collect-dependency.
• Dependency analysis. Charting how far ox-w3ctr leans on Org and mapping the internal t-* call graph. Final global-optimization and cleanup task.
• Cross-file link resolution (crossrefs). Resolving [[file:other.org::*Heading]] / ::#custom-id to an anchor in the target document, with a project-scoped persistent cache. Not now.
• Drop the =ox-publish= dependency. Replace org-publish-file-relative-name, org-publish-resolve-external-link, and org-publish-org-to with local implementations. Not now.