Here's a quick hack to replace an Org link with a footnote. Maybe a fun first
commit for someone would be to update `org-footnote-new` to accept optional
LABEL and DEFINITION arguments that allow a footnote to be created
programmatically?
(defun my-replace-link-with-footnote ()
"Replace an org link with a footnote.
Place the link target in the footnote and the description in the
location of the original Org link."
(interactive)
(if (org-in-regexp org-link-bracket-re 1)
(save-excursion
(let ((remove (list (match-beginning 0) (match-end 0)))
(link (org-match-string-no-properties 1))
(description ; link is description
(if (match-end 2)
(org-match-string-no-properties 2)
(org-match-string-no-properties 1))))
(apply 'delete-region remove)
;; replaces link with footnote and jumps to footnote
(call-interactively 'org-footnote-new nil)
(insert " " link)
(beginning-of-line)
;; follow link back to original point
(org-open-at-point)
(insert description)))))
