[gopher] Re: Gopher for GNOME...

[David Allen <s2mdalle@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, Jan 03, 2001 at 05:42:19PM -0800, Bjorn Karger wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I thought that, as a Gopher advocate, you'd like to know that I released
> version 0.1 of my Gopher client for GNOME. That's right -- brand new
> software for the Gopher protocol ;-)

That's funny...I've been working on a client as well.  More on that in
a moment...

> It has been added to the GNOME Software Map
> (http://www.gnome.org/applist/) under the name of gnopher, if you are
> looking for it.

I've got my copy.

> I am writing you both especially because the Slashdot coverage of the
> gopher:// manifesto inspired me to do this, and I have used
> gopher.heatdeath.org as my main - testing - entrance into gopherspace
> while developing. Thanks guys!

Jeez, I wonder what their logfiles look like.  I've tested my client
on gopher.heatdeath.org, gopher.quux.org, and gopher.floodgap.com
(or, "The Gopher Formerly Known as Ptloma")  I know for a fact that if
they're logging, they're going to see that some moron over a period of
about 2 hours fetched the same file probably 20 times.  :)

> This is the very first release, lacking (beside of a few rough edges)
> Gopher+ and reasonable datatype support, but it _is_ my intention to
> have a complete (Nautilus-integrated) Gopher+ implementation at the end.
> Hope I have enough holidays ;-)

I downloaded it, and I had to get a copy of GNet, but I tried it out,
and it seems to work just fine.  A few look type things are a bit
strange, like text files not having associated icons, just names, and
how you can't click on the icon to activate something, you have to
click on the label, but it works just fine.  Also, I know for a fact
that gtk+ has some routines for measuring the width of text given
certain fonts, so if you want, you can hack in support to make the
newly opened text window exactly the right width for the widest line.
(So wrapping doesn't happen when a text file newly pops up)  I wrote
some code that did something similar to that for Gutenbook
(www.gutenbook.org) a while back.  I'm not sure if it ever got in...

One of the things that I noticed about it was it's directory type feel
- I don't use gmc much, but it reminded me of gmc, and acted as if the
gopher server was an extension of your local disk.  I took a different
approach as I was writing my client, but it was interesting to see it
done in this way.   

I'll send a message to the list in a few minutes with some details on
my client, but I'd be interested in talking to you going forward.
Hopefully we can steal ideas from each other.  I don't know how much
code we can share, since our base language/libraries/GUI are all
completely different, but there may be some possible collaboration.
:)  

-- 
David Allen
http://opop.nols.com/
----------------------------------------
"I don't have to take this abuse from you - I've got hundreds of 
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