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Lagrange: how to add an additional WWW search engine with snippets

ISSUED: 2024-05-03

This is something cool that I recently stepped into by accident and for which I don't have any credit, but for the sake of the good Cage I decided to write down my discovery so him, and others, can read about it.

Ruby_With post

Frog that finds stuff

Ruby_Witch on bbs.geminispace.org recommended a web search called "frogfind.com" as WWW text based search engine:

What in the world is FrogFind?

Which has this peculiarity:

The search functionality of FrogFind is basically a custom wrapper for DuckDuckGo search, converting the results to extremely basic HTML that old browsers can read. When clicking through to pages from search results, those pages are processed through a PHP port of Mozilla's Readability, which is what powers Firefox's reader mode. I then further strip down the results to be as basic HTML as possible. (http://frogfind.com/about.php)

A WWW search engine with this feature fits just right on any Gemini client that supports HTTP proxy, such as Lagrange and Telescope, I absolutely wanted to find out how to integrate it into my favorite clients.

Having the ability to penetrate the WWW from a Gemini client is a fixation of mine… Nyxt is a WWW browser the supports both HMTL5 and Gemini/Gopher.

Nyxt: the hacker's browser.

HTTP Proxy

To browse HTML pages you need an HTTP Proxy, there are several options available, the one I use is "Stargate" by the ultra-prolific: Acidus.

Public Stargate Proxy: A Gemini-to-HTTP gateway

Stargate works very well in rendering HTML page in a Gemini-fashion, and the service is offering for free to anyone, so I give a BIG THANK YOU to Acidus for this, and all the other amazing stuff he/she does!!! 🙏🙏🙏

Setting up Lagrange

Lagrange has a lot of cool features, the ones that interest me for this gemlog are:

network proxy
snippets

Once these are set up you can use Lagrange to make textual searches on the WWW.

Network settings

Lagrange supports HTTP proxy, but you need to fill the right fields:

Go to Preference > Network
Look for Proxies: HTTP proxies
Add this value:

stargate.gemi.dev:1994

You done.

Snippets

Snippets are a way to store and recall short strings of code or text, in Lagrange snippets have been introduced since version 1.17:

Learn more about Lagrange & Snippets

I've never used them since Skyjake himself suggested me how to conveniently take advantage of them to add additional search engines.

gemini://bbs.geminispace.org/u/skyjake/17339

Here the steps:

Go to Preferences > Snippets.
Add a new snippet that starts with an exclamation point character (aka a "bang"), for example "!f".
The content should be:

http://frogfind.com/?q=

Save the snippet and close Preferences.
Now you can enter the bang shortcut in the URL bar:

!f gemini protocol

You got this! 👍

With this trick it is now possible browsing the WWW in a textual mode which is perfect for any Gemini client! 😉

Wrapping this up

As I wrote I do not have any credit about this, I have just reported what I was told so other people can take advantage of this neat feature!

For comments or suggestion write me at:

freezr AT disroot DOT org

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