[gopher] Gopher+ support in the community

[Kevin Veroneau]

One "optional" feature I am highly considering for the Qt4 version is a lazy loading "gopher TreeView" widget.  So, when enabled via a button on the toolbar, a easy to navigate gopher tree(generated using Gopher menus) of the current server will spring to life.  It will make navigating and finding information very quick and shows a TRUE advantage of gopher over HTTP.  I personally love how gopher organizes information in an easy to parse menu/tree.  The tree initially will only display gopher menu items.  So to access documents, the user still needs to access the menu itself to see it's documents and information items.

Other features I plan for both client is an "optional" gopher type filter.  So say you do a Veronica search, you can do a client-side filter to say only show images or text items.  Yet another TRUE advantage of Gopher over HTTP.  Basically, the clients I do make will truly try and leverage the powerful features within the protocol itself.  Of course, all these enhancement can be entirely turned off for that traditional gopher experience we all know and love.

Kevin.

On April 22, 2015 5:39:56 PM MDT, Kevin Veroneau <kevin at veroneau.net> wrote:
>I was thinking of urwid, but I don't feel it's the perfect match for
>this type of application.  It would require a good amount of work to
>use urwid for such a simple client.  I am planning on using the rather
>awesome and lightweight "npyscreen" library.  It's seems like a match
>made in heaven.  It supports lists(gopher menus) easily, and can easily
>display prompts from the user in a dialogue box.  It also makes it a
>snap to create context menus(and popup menus in general).  It even
>supports easy to create and manage forms(great for ASK) and for general
>preference screens/bookmark management.  I've built a documentation
>viewer in it before, which had a nested menu system and was able to
>show text documents with ease and minimal code.  Overall, I see
>npyscreen and gopher like a marriage made in heaven.
>
>http://npyscreen.readthedocs.org/
>
>Check out some of their examples and tell me it won't work. :)  That's
>why I noted I could release an initial client this evening due to how
>easy and powerful this library is.  Urwid is great, I made a few apps
>in it, but it used complex layouts to display the screen.  This made
>debugging a tad difficult, as it took some time to make an app look and
>function perfectly.  Telnet into my profile server to see that urwid
>app: telnet://veroneau.net:5199
>
>Kevin.
>
>On April 22, 2015 5:01:54 PM MDT, James Mills
><prologic at shortcircuit.net.au> wrote:
>>On Thu, Apr 23, 2015 at 8:53 AM, Kevin Veroneau <kevin at veroneau.net>
>>wrote:
>>
>>> For a gopher client, I was going to make a console-based one, along
>>with a
>>> Qt4 WebKit-based one. Qt4 is nicely cross platform, so nobody will
>be
>>left
>>> out.
>>>
>>
>>What are you plans here?
>>
>>I'd be interested in a console client (urwid?)
>>and QT4 would be nice too :)
>>
>>cheers
>>James
>>
>>
>>James Mills / prologic
>>
>>E: prologic at shortcircuit.net.au
>>W: prologic.shortcircuit.net.au
>>
>>
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>
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