💾 Archived View for zaibatsu.circumlunar.space › ~visiblink › phlog › 20190612 captured on 2022-04-29 at 11:45:53.
⬅️ Previous capture (2021-12-03)
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I have been enjoying the widespread discussion of the gopher protocol. I really don't have much to add to the discussion. I like plain text. In my first phlog entry, I mentioned that I enjoy the absence of hyperlinks. I like that the form of plain text documents makes no demand of me other than to follow the ideas and arguments of the author. I also quite enjoy the odd sense of solitude and quiet provided by the terminal, but I've written about that elsewhere too. It was surprising to learn that I could be mimicking the essentials of gopher via the web. When Solderpunk mentioned it in his most recent phlog entry, I immediately created a couple of text files in a folder inside my html directory at www.circumlunar.space, just to see how it would work. I knew about the automatically generated file lists produced by web servers, but I didn't realize that the .txt file extension would allow me to serve text files. That may change the way I use my web space completely. * * * I have an Android phone that I use as a small tablet when I'm at home. For the last few months, I have been using Diggie Dog as my Gopher Client. But a few days ago, I decided to try out Pocket Gopher, only to discover that there was a bug in the current version at F-Droid (1.2.5) that prevents it from installing correctly. The previous version (1.2.4) does work. Meanwhile, a user at Github, Low012, has forked the app, fixed the bug, and submitted a pull request, but his fix -- which was submitted two months ago -- has not been adopted yet. So I decided to download the source code and build Low012's version 1.2.5. Then.... once I had the app open in Android Studio, I thought, I'd really like to make some changes.... One thing that I didn't like was the bookmark font size, which was rather large. So I reduced it. I also thought that I might change the colour scheme. There was a webOS app called 'Forums' that I used to use all the time years ago. I really liked its design, so I found the base colour used in that app and re-styled Pocket Gopher in an homage to Forums. Lastly, I decided to change the app icon, which is a rather generic android robot, to Solderpunk's Port 70 sticker design, which I really like (I wrote to Solderpunk for permission). I think the result is quite nice, but your tastes may differ. I don't consider the changes to constitute a fork, although I may fork the app in the future to provide myself with an easy way to integrate any updates. But really, it's just a restyled version of Pocket Gopher. The app is licensed under the "unlicense," which permits the modification and redistribution of the binary and/or the source code, so I've put it in a GMX share for anyone who wants to use it. You can find it at: https://c.gmx.com/@562929122364364709/uG3QwCi2Rjy76LetnlBPgQ The folder password is: gopher If you install the app, be aware that it will overwrite your existing Pocket Gopher bookmark file and you'll lose your bookmarks. If your device is rooted, you can save the file elsewhere and then restore it afterward. It is located at: /data/data/com.gmail.afonsotrepa.pocketgopher/files/bookmarks It's just a text file, so it's also handy to know the location so that you can edit the file to reorganize your bookmarks.