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Viability of *apps* on Gemini?

1. tayevnge (tayevnge (a) posteo.net)

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!

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2. Johann Galle (johann (a) qwertqwefsday.eu)

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:
<gemini://gemi.dev/gemini-mailing-list/messages/004921.gmi>

 > 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>
 ?<gemini://gemi.dev/gemini-mailing-list/messages/003712.gmi>
Interactive Fiction
 ?? ?<gemini://gemif.fedi.farm>
 ?<gemini://gemi.dev/gemini-mailing-list/messages/003725.gmi>

Johann

[1] It gives me a header of "30 ---------", which does not make sense.
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3. nothien (a) uber.space (nothien (a) 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

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4. Gary Johnson (lambdatronic (a) disroot.org)

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:

  gemini://gemi.dev/gemini-mailing-list/messages/004947.gmi

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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5. Baschdel (baschdel (a) disroot.org)

On 28.01.21 15:12, Johann Galle wrote:

> Hello!

Hello!

> Tic Tac Toe (seems to be inoperable at the moment [1])
>  ?? ?<gemini://tictactoe.lanterne.chilliet.eu>
>  ?<gemini://gemi.dev/gemini-mailing-list/messages/003712.gmi>
> 
> [1] It gives me a header of "30 ---------", which does not make sense.

That one is supposed to redirect to
=> gemini://tictactoe.lanterne.chilliet.eu/---------

I don't know if relative redirects are still in the spec, but they were 
when I wrote my client.

Have a nice weekend!

- Baschdel

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