[gopher] Re: Item Type Suggestions

["Jay Nemrow" <jnemrow@xxxxxxx>]

I am really against anything besides true text files being classified under
0.  Neither DOC nor RTF files are text files and would break all existing
gopher clients.  I think bunching almost every non-text file of this sort
under 9, which is not just executables these days, but anything stored in a
binary format (think FTP definitions), and then assertaining MIME type would
work much better.  The old Gopher standards were created in a different age
that pondered a much different situation than what we have.  I much prefer
putting almost everything under 9, just because older clients will do
something that is very acceptable - it will download and store the file as a
binary, which any viewer an handle.
Jay

On 7/4/08, JumpJet Mailbox <jumpjetinfo@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> JumpJet suggests the following Item Types be standardized:
>
> 0 = Plain text file
> 1 = Directory
> 2 = Search CSO server (i.e. a qi/ph index)
> 3 = ERROR
> 4 = BinHex-format file  (i.e. a *.HQX file)
> 5 = Binary archive file (i.e. a *.ZIP file)
> 6 = UUencoded-format file
> 7 = Search server (i.e. a WAIS index)
> 8 = Telnet as any kind of terminal
> 9 = Binary file (i.e. a *.EXE file)
> d or D = Any kind of Portable Document Format file (i.e. a *.PDF file)
> g or G = Any kind of Graphic file (i.e. a *.JPG file)
> h or H = HTML file
> i or I = Informational text that is displayed (as if it was a normal file
> name), but does not NECESSARILY link to any actual file.
> s or S = Any kind of Sound file (i.e. a *.WAV file)
> v or V = Any kind of Video file (i.e. a *.MPG file)
> This is pretty much as things are (to maintain compatability with older
> Gopher Clients and Servers), with the exception of combining "8" and "T",
> expanding "G" to include old type "I" (image files other than GIF), and
> adding new types "D" and "V".
>
> Note that letter cases are "neutral", so now type "I" and "i" are BOTH the
> indicators of an "Informational text".
>
> Modern software has the ability to detect file types and choose an
> appropriate file viewer.  Therefore "Item Types" are of less importance
> today.  Therefore I feel that "Item Types" should be BROADER in their scope,
> and indicate general file categories only (i.e., s = any kind of Sound file,
> g = any kind of Graphic file, etc.).
>
> Examples of grouping extensions in a broad Type system might be:
>
> Type 0 = DOC, RTF, TXT (also none or un-specified extensions)
> Type 4 = HQX, SEA
> Type 5 = ARC, GZ, LHA, LZH, RAR, TAR, TGZ, Z, ZIP
> Type 6 = UUE
> Type 7 = SRC
> Type 9 = COM, DLL, EXE
> Type d/D = PDF
> Type g/G = BMP, GIF, JPG, PNG
> Type h/H = HTM, HTML
> Type s/S = AU, MP3, WAV
> Type v/V = AVI, MOV, MPG
>
>
>
>
>
>