[gopher] Hello Gopher Project

[Mateusz Viste]

Hello,

That's nice to see people still doing fun stuff in gopher :)
Btw, I noticed you added a link to my gopher hole to your site, thanks! 
But could you please correct the url to point to gopher.viste.fr instead 
of the old domain name?

About markdown: I am not sure that multiplication of gopher types is a 
good thing, as it's already somewhat a mess right now. The main question 
would be probably to know what are the benefits of markdown? If I 
understood correctly, it's a text format that brings simplistic 'rich' 
content with a set of font styles. As you noted, some people (me 
included) are using html on gopher, which already provides such 
capabilities. It also allows to use links, and embed images (does 
markdown allow this?). html is supported by virtually anything nowadays, 
that provides some graphical rendering... So I am not convinced markdown 
support would bring any significant improvements to gopher. Nonetheless, 
I'll listen to other's arguments with much interest.

Also, thanks for updating the great Overbite client on Android! I 
haven't had the occasion to test it on my phone yet, but your 
screenshots do look promising.

cheers,
Mateusz





On 12/12/2014 09:52 AM, Kevin Veroneau wrote:
> Hello everyone!
>
>    My name is Kevin Veroneau, and I have been using Gopher and running
> my own Gopherhole for about a year now.  I am now just starting to take
> a more active role in the Gopher community by contributing and/or
> updating code relating to new or existing Gopher projects.  You can
> learn more about me on my Gopherhole: gopher://gopher.veroneau.net
>
>    You can learn additional information about me through my Telnet
> @iamkevin.ca:5199, there is a telnet link on my Gopherhole as well.
>
>    Anyways, I'll brief the community here on what I have been up to
> Gopher-wise during the past week:
>
>    Earlier this week, I updated the Overbite Android application and
> updated the user interface, and enabled better compatibility with newer
> devices.  I personally have a Samsung S5, and there is no more "Menu"
> key, rather I need to hold down the "Recent apps" key to bring up the
> menu for older Android apps.  This was what I was needing to do on the
> old Overbite for Android app and it was driving me a little nuts...
> So, my first update was to make it both compatible with Android 2.3+,
> and also look 10x better on Android 4.0.3+.  You can download the
> updated APK and also view many screenshots on my Gopher here:
> gopher://gopher.veroneau.net/1library/OverbiteAndroid
>
>    Oh, and I also added a traditional address bar to the user interface.
>
>    My next project of this week was a brand new project, an XBMC(Soon to
> be called Kodi) app.  XBMC, if you don't know, is a rather popular open
> source media center application that is cross-platform.  Can you guess
> what this XBMC app might be?  If you guessed a native Gopher client,
> then you would be right!  Yes, now you can finally browse Gopherholes
> from the comfort of your couch using an IR remote control.  When using
> search servers, it will gladly bring up a nice remote friendly
> on-screen keyboard to request your query.  The app currently supports
> displaying directories, text files, and images.  So, it will appear as
> a "Picture" add-on in XBMC.  This makes it nice to just sit back one
> night and read a text-based novel on your 90" UHDTV. :D
> gopher://gopher.veroneau.net/1library/XBMC
>
>    You can download both the ZIP package for XBMC add-on and view
> screenshots of it in action in the Gopher URL above.
>
>    If that's not enough, I even did yet more interesting Gopher stuff
> this week...  Hopefully I'm not like the only guy on this mailing list
> that's actually using Gopher...
>
>    I built a pretty useable Gopher client in the Django Python web
> framework.  I built it so that I could allow people to browse my
> Gopherhole without a Gopher client or using a 3rd party proxy service.
> The full source will be released on my Python Diary blog tomorrow
> morning, if your curious about this one.  You can check it using this
> link if you wanted to see how it works and functions:
> http://iamkevin.ca/Gopher/
>
>    Now before I dive into something more technical, I'll bring up
> something I did a few months back.  Do you recall that gopherlib.py
> module that shipped with Python 2.5 last?  Well, I brought it back from
> the dead and updated it!  You can grab the latest copy of it on my...
> Gopher of course!
> gopher://gopher.veroneau.net/0library/gopherlib.py
>
>    My Django Gopher client actually uses this new updated Python module.
>
>    Okay, so now for some interesting news that may make some cringe.  I
> was told by some sources that this is the place to go if I want to
> discuss additions to the "Gopher Protocol" standard.  Well, this
> evening, I built a proof of concept new Gopher type.  I am really
> hoping that we can all work together to make this the newest Gopher
> type in years!  This new Gopher type fits Gopher so well that it would
> be stupid to not include it in the Gopher standard for for clients to
> actually support it.  Have you ever heard of this little markup
> language called "Markdown"?  It's a very simple, but powerful markup,
> and it's used on lots of programming and documentation websites.  If
> you use GIT, then you most likely store your README file in Markdown
> format.  Wouldn't this format fit in with Gopher's overall goal?
> Markdown is very lightweight, and looks good with or without being
> processed.  I see some Gopherholes trying to use HTML, and I'm like...
> REALLY!!!  Markdown would suit these types of documents better,
> especially when it comes to text-based or low end device clients.
> Markdown has the advantage of looking great, but still takes little
> bandwidth and looks nice in plain text too.
>
>    The best part about this, is that you can literally try out Markdown
> documents today before a standard is formalized to see how well it
> scales.  Text clients like "Lynx" and "Gopher" can just display such
> item types as "plain text" without processing them as Markdown.  So,
> there is very minimal work required to massively deploy this new Gopher
> type.  Currently, I have updated the Overbite for Android client to
> support it, you can download the updated APK and view screenshots at
> the following Gopher:
> gopher://gopher.veroneau.net/1library/OverbiteAndroid
>
>    I have also updated my Django Gopher client to render Markdown to
> show that updating Gopher proxies shouldn't be too much trouble either:
> http://iamkevin.ca/Gopher/msandbox/markdown.md
>
>    I believe how to render Markdown documents should be left to the
> client maintainer.  The client should at least be capable of displaying
> just the plain text document without the Markdown processing.  So,
> display the new Gopher type as type "0", in most languages it's very
> easy to make 2 Gopher types do the same thing.
>
>    If anybody here has access to SDF, I have also posted something there
> in the BBOARD about my ideas on how I would like to improve Gopher.
> You can also read the following Blog post on my Gopher here for
> additional information:
> gopher://gopher.veroneau.net/0blog/Ideas%20for%20Gopher
>
>    With all that said, I'd highly recommend borrowing around my hole to
> see what interesting Gopher stuff I've gotten my nose into.  I have
> some pretty interesting moles lying around there, and other articles
> and posts.
>
>    As you can very well see, I am very determined to see the Gopher
> protocol innovate into something great!  I did most of this in less
> than a week...  Do I even have a life?
>