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Russtopia rmagee at gmail.com
Thu Jan 28 21:32:57 GMT 2021
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Thank you all for the patient and informative discussions regarding the'can of worms' I may have opened re: forms...
I think the responses below do address many, if not all, of the concernsI initially had when proposing a form facility. I think it's great thatGeministrives to 'do more with less' and I can see some of these suggestionsare very clever. I'm going to try them out in an app of my own now :)It just takes a bit of a different approach from HTML.
-Russ
On Thu, 28 Jan 2021 at 10:08, <gemini-request at lists.orbitalfox.eu> wrote:
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Today's Topics:
1. Viability of *apps* on Gemini? (tayevnge)
2. Re: Viability of *apps* on Gemini? [TECH] (Johann Galle)
3. Re: Viability of *apps* on Gemini? (nothien at uber.space)
4. Re: Proposal: Simple structured form specification
(Katarina Eriksson)
5. Re: Viability of *apps* on Gemini? (Gary Johnson)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 2021 13:53:01 +0100
From: tayevnge <tayevnge at posteo.net>
To: gemini at lists.orbitalfox.eu
Subject: Viability of *apps* on Gemini?
Message-ID: <4e78e5a2-5e55-9bb8-7a4b-19a0f39b5756 at posteo.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
Hello,
Please help me understand viability of creating simple form-based apps
like message boards, job offer boards, etc on Gemini.
I am aware there are no multi-input forms but there seem to be an
"input" feature.
Does Gemini support or intends to support meaningful user input and
interactivity?
Is it realistic to build real world "text applications"?
How about multi-line user input, file upload etc?
Any example apps?
TIA!
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 2021 15:12:28 +0100
From: Johann Galle <johann at qwertqwefsday.eu>
To: tayevnge <tayevnge at posteo.net>
Cc: Gemini application layer protocol <gemini at lists.orbitalfox.eu>
Subject: Re: Viability of *apps* on Gemini? [TECH]
Message-ID: <6bd3c32e-7fe5-dbfb-a631-3ea7cf726570 at qwertqwefsday.eu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"; Format="flowed"
On 2021-07-28T13:53+01:00, tayevnge wrote:
Hello,
Hello!
Please help me understand viability of creating simple form-based apps
like message boards, job offer boards, etc on Gemini.
I am aware there are no multi-input forms but there seem to be an
"input" feature.
In theory you could do it, have a look at a recent thread on forms in the
mailing list archives:
<https://lists.orbitalfox.eu/archives/gemini/2021/004921.html>
Does Gemini support or intends to support meaningful user input and
interactivity?
I don't think so, beyond what is already present with the input and secret
input
status codes, as well as just "being on a page".
Is it realistic to build real world "text applications"?
Probably not, why not use another protocol? (again, see the linked thread)
How about multi-line user input, file upload etc?
Multiline input is theoretically possible by percent encoding a linefeed.
For file upload, maybe have a look at one of the adaptations mentioned in
the
linked thread (Dioscuri, Titan, and Inimeg)?
Any example apps?
Depends on what you would call an app. You can have a look at some pieces
published on the mailing list:
Tic Tac Toe (seems to be inoperable at the moment [1])
?? ?<gemini://tictactoe.lanterne.chilliet.eu>
?<https://lists.orbitalfox.eu/archives/gemini/2020/003712.html>
Interactive Fiction
?? ?<gemini://gemif.fedi.farm>
?<https://lists.orbitalfox.eu/archives/gemini/2020/003725.html>
Johann
[1] It gives me a header of "30 ---------", which does not make sense.
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Message: 3
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 2021 16:59:30 +0100
From: nothien at uber.space
To: tayevnge <tayevnge at posteo.net>
Cc: gemini at lists.orbitalfox.eu
Subject: Re: Viability of *apps* on Gemini?
Message-ID: <3KQVHF2U6KVHO.26X0EWRTACLYD at nothien.uber.space>
tayevnge <tayevnge at posteo.net> wrote:
Hello,
Hi!
Please help me understand viability of creating simple form-based apps
like message boards, job offer boards, etc on Gemini.
I'm going to quickly cover what I think are the best solutions to these
two applications.
Message boards *can* be done on Gemini. Short-form message boards,
somewhat like Twitter, with short message sizes, can definitely be done.
For example, you may have a 'post' page where the user provides
plain-text input as the post to be made, and the server redirects them
to the newly created post. Gemini provides and strongly recommends TLS
client certificates for authentication, so I suggest that the server
distributes a cert to the user when they sign up. But you can't do
things like notifications.
Long-form message boards which require different input formats, file and
image uploads, notifications, etc. are much, much better to implement as
mailing lists. All you need on top of a standard mailing list server is
a way to neatly present that information (i.e. to view topics/mails),
and that can be on Gemini easily.
A job offer board could be implemented as a Gemini server which lists
jobs and an e-mail address to receive e-mails from potential employees.
I don't think that giving users actual accounts and verifying that
they're human and stuff is a good idea - leave that up to the hiring
companies. It would be pretty neat to have a free gemsite (?) listing
job offers from FOSS companies.
~aravk | ~nothien
------------------------------
Message: 4
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 2021 18:00:25 +0100
From: Katarina Eriksson <gmym at coopdot.com>
To: "A protocol that is slightly more complex than gopher, but
significantly simpler than HTTP" <gemini at lists.orbitalfox.eu>
Subject: Re: Proposal: Simple structured form specification
Message-ID:
<> CAObwWNjSyJmOBVMtjHfuUzTRTGfmJg5q-xsbqjPqzQzKr1mx_Q at mail.gmail.com
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
When this topic have come up in the past, we have concluded that Gemini can
support forms with serial input fields, as opposed to the parallel input
fields people are used to from web forms.
One way to do this is to send status 10 until all the fields are satisfied,
like a CLI. Another way is to have a page with links pointing to one field
at a time.
Johann Galle <johann at qwertqwefsday.eu> wrote:
The basic idea is the following: Each form field is presented on a
separate "page" and the server keeps track of where the client is in the
form. Ideally the URL (URI/IRI?) contains all the data necessary, thus
"saving" the data on the client so it might be continued at a later date.
If the amount of data expected is larger than would fit in the URL,
server
side state with client certificates would be an alternative.
I haven't seen this approach yet, seems just as valid as the other ones.
Now to the different types of input fields. I assume the form's base is
gemini://example.com/form/ which might display some information about
the
form and the first input field.
On 27.01.2021 18:37, me at edaha.org wrote among other things:
# binary
Binary options are best known as checkboxes on the web. They're simple
on/off toggles. How they are displayed is up to the client
A check box can be simply implemented with two links for yes and no like
this for example:
```
Does Gemini need forms?
=
0/ No, it does not.
=
1/ Yes, it does.
```
Asking a question like this is not a good example for showing off
checkboxes but another way is to send this:
```
10 Does Gemini need forms? [yes/no]
```
...and repeat until the user supply a valid answer.
Multiple choice checkboxes can be combined into one input:
```
10 My server supports: [c: CGI, v: virtual host, s: sessions]
```
...and the user can answer "sv" or "cs" or "v" or whatever other valid
combination.
[...]
# choice
[...]
This refers to a single choice among a list of things.
<= choice Which of these protocols are we using?>
<= choice gemini>
<= choice gopher>
<= choice HTTP>
This could be implemented just like a checkbox, just with more options.
Coincidentally the syntax is very similar to the one proposed.
```
Which of these protocols are we using?
=
gemini/ gemini
=
gopher/ gopher
=
http/ HTTP
```
This would be:
```
10 Which of these protocols are we using? [gemini/gopher/http]
```
...in that same example. Though, I do like the links better.
# submit
Finally, submit. This one's easy:
... because it is not necessary. The server will just show you the result
or take the respective action after the last form field is filled. Maybe
a
final checkbox of "Are you sure" would be nice to let the user know that
this will result in some action.
Or just "Confirm sending this information"
--
Katarina
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Message: 5
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 2021 13:07:49 -0500
From: Gary Johnson <lambdatronic at disroot.org>
To: tayevnge <tayevnge at posteo.net>
Cc: gemini at lists.orbitalfox.eu
Subject: Re: Viability of *apps* on Gemini?
Message-ID: <87k0rx9bpm.fsf at disroot.org>
Content-Type: text/plain
tayevnge <tayevnge at posteo.net> writes:
Please help me understand viability of creating simple form-based apps
like message boards, job offer boards, etc on Gemini.
I am aware there are no multi-input forms but there seem to be an
"input" feature.
Does Gemini support or intends to support meaningful user input and
interactivity?
Is it realistic to build real world "text applications"?
How about multi-line user input, file upload etc?
Any example apps?
I described the current state of affairs around building dynamic
applications with Gemini and Gemtext in a recent message thread called
"The Tragedy of &". You can see it in the mailing list archives here:
https://lists.orbitalfox.eu/archives/gemini/2021/004947.html
A great (and quite popular) Gemini app is Astrobotany, which you can
find here:
gemini://astrobotany.mozz.us/
Have fun exploring Geminispace. The culture here celebrates doing more
with less. It's pretty uncommon to get new features added to the
protocol or markup language, so this drives people to get creative in
their thinking about how to mix-and-match protocols to build the things
they want or to find new solutions to old problems using Gemini's modest
toolkit.
Happy hacking!
Gary
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