bombadillo(1) General Operation Manual bombadillo(1)
NAME
bombadillo - a non-web browser
SYNOPSIS
bombadillo [options] [url]
DESCRIPTION
bombadillo is a non-web browser for the terminal. It features a full
terminal user interface, vim-like keybindings, document pager, config‐
urable settings, and a robust command selection.
bombadillo supports the following protocols as first class citizens:
gopher, gemini, finger, and local (a user’s file system). Support for
telnet, http and https is also available via integration with third
party applications.
OPTIONS
-h Display usage help and exit. Provides a list of all command
line options with a short description and exits.
-t Set the window title to 'Bombadillo'. Can be used in a GUI en‐
vironment, however not all terminals support this feature.
-v Display version information and exit.
PROTOCOL SUPPORT
All of the below protocols are supported. With the exception of go‐
pher, the protocol name must be present as the scheme component of a
url in the form of [protocol]://[the rest of the url].
gopher Gopher is the default protocol for bombadillo. Any textual item
types will be visited and shown to the user and any non-text
types will be downloaded. Type 7 (querying) is fully supported.
As the default protocol, any url that is not prefixed with the
scheme section of a url (gopher:// for example) will be treated
as gopher urls.
gemini Gemini is supported, but as a new protocol with an incomplete
specification, features may change over time. At present Bom‐
badillo supports TLS with a trust on first use certificate pin‐
ning system (similar to SSH). Gemini maps and other text types
are rendered in the browser and non-text types will be down‐
loaded.
finger Basic support is provided for the finger protocol. The format
is: finger://[[username@]][hostname]. Many servers still sup‐
port finger and it can be fun to see if friends are online or
read about the users whose phlogs you follow.
local Local is similar to the file protocol used in web browsers or
the like, with a smaller set of features. Users can use the lo‐
cal scheme to view files on their local system. Directories are
supported as viewable text object as well as any files. Wild‐
cards and globbing are not supported. Using ~ to represent a
user's home directory, as well as relative paths, are sup‐
ported. The color theme has no effect on this protocol and all
terminal escape sequences will be rendered to the screen liter‐
ally.
telnet Telnet is not supported directly, but addresses will be fol‐
lowed and opened as a subprocess by whatever telnet client a
user sets in their settings (defaulting to telnet). In some
cases this behavior may be buggy.
http, https
Neither of the world wide web protocols are supported directly.
bombadillo can be configured to open web links in a user's de‐
fault graphical web browser. It is also possible to display web
content directly in bombadillo using lynx, w3m, or elinks ter‐
minal web browsers to render pages. Opening http/https links is
opt-in only, controlled by the webmode setting.
Opening links in a default graphical web browser will only work
in a GUI environment.
Displaying web content directly in bombadillo requires lynx,
w3m or elinks terminal web browsers are installed on the sys‐
tem.
COMMANDS
KEY COMMANDS
These commands work as a single keypress anytime bombadillo is not
taking in a line based command or when the user is being prompted for
action. This is the default command mode of bombadillo.
b, h Navigate back one place in your document history.
B Toggle the bookmarks panel open/closed.
d Scroll down an amount corresponding to 75% of your terminal
window height in the current document.
f, l Navigate forward one place in your document history.
g Scroll to the top of the current document.
G Scroll to the bottom of the current document.
j Scroll down a single line in the current document.
k Scroll up a single line.
n Jump to next found text item.
N Jump to previous found text item.
q Quit bombadillo.
R Reload the current page (does not destroy forward history).
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0
Quick navigation to the first 10 links on a page. The 0 key
will navigate to the link numbered '10', all other numbers nav‐
igate to their matching link number.
u Scroll up an amount corresponding to 75% of your terminal win‐
dow height in the current document.
/ Search for text within current document. / followed by a text
query will highlight and allow navigation of found text. / with
an empty query will clear the current query.
<tab> Toggle the scroll focus between the bookmarks panel and the
document panel. Only has an effect if the bookmarks panel is
open.
<spc> Enter line command mode. Once a line command is input, the mode
will automatically revert to key command mode.
: Alias for <spc>. Enter line command mode.
LINE COMMANDS
These commands are typed in by the user to perform an action of some
sort. As listed in KEY COMMANDS, this mode is initiated by pressing :
or <space>. The command names themselves are not case sensitive,
though the arguments supplied to them may be.
[url] Navigates to the requested url.
[link id]
Follows a link on the current document with the given number.
add [url] [name...]
Adds the url as a bookmarks labeled by name. a can be used in‐
stead of the full add.
add [link id] [name...]
Adds the url represented by the link id within the current doc‐
ument as a bookmark labeled by name. a can be used instead of
the full add.
add . [name...]
Adds the current document's url as a bookmark labeled by name.
a can be used instead of the full add.
bookmarks
Toggles the bookmarks panel open/closed. Alias for KEY COMMAND
B. b can be used instead of the full bookmarks.
bookmarks [bookmark id]
Navigates to the url represented by the bookmark matching book‐
mark id. b can be entered, rather than the full bookmarks.
check [link id]
Displays the url corresponding to a given link id for the cur‐
rent document. c can be used instead of the full check.
check [setting name]
Displays the current value for a given configuration setting. c
can be used instead of the full check.
delete [bookmark id]
Deletes the bookmark matching the bookmark id. d can be used
instead of the full delete.
help Navigates to the gopher based help page for bombadillo. ? can
be used instead of the full help.
home Navigates to the document set by the homeurl setting. h can be
entered, rather than the full home.
jump Navigates to the previous page in history from the current
page. Useful for keeping the current page in your history while
still browsing. j can be used instead of the full jump.
jump [history location]
Navigates to the given history location. The history location
should be an integer between 0 and 20. j can be used instead of
the full jump.
purge *
Deletes all pinned gemini server certificates. p can be used
instead of the full purge.
purge [host name]
Deletes the pinned gemini server certificate for the given
hostname. p can be used instead of the full purge.
quit Quits bombadillo. Alias for KEY COMMAND q. q can be used in‐
stead of the full quit.
reload Requests the current document from the server again. This does
not break forward history the way entering the url again would.
r can be used instead of the full reload.
search Queries the user for search terms and submits a search to the
search engine set by the searchengine setting.
search [keywords...]
Submits a search to the search engine set by the searchengine
setting, with the query being the provided keyword(s).
set [setting name] [value]
Sets the value for a given configuration setting. s can be used
instead of the full set.
version
Shows the current Bombadillo version number.
write .
Writes the current document to a file. The file is named by the
last component of the url path. If the last component is blank
or / a default name will be used. The file saves to the direc‐
tory set by the savelocation setting. w can be entered rather
than the full write.
write [url]
Writes data from a given url to a file. The file is named by
the last component of the url path. If the last component is
blank or / a default name will be used. The file saves to the
directory set by the savelocation setting. w can be entered
rather than the full write.
write [link id]
Writes data from a given link id in the current document to a
file. The file is named by the last component of the url path.
If the last component is blank or / a default name will be
used. The file saves to the directory set by the savelocation
setting. w can be entered rather than the full write.
FILES
bombadillo keeps a hidden configuration file in a user's XDG configu‐
ration directory. The file is a simplified ini file titled .bom‐
badillo.ini. It is generated when a user first loads bombadillo and is
updated with bookmarks and settings as a user adds them. The file can
be directly edited, but it is best to use the SET command to update
settings whenever possible. To return to the state of a fresh install,
simply remove the file and a new one will be generated with the bom‐
badillo defaults. On some systems an administrator may set the config‐
uration file location to somewhere other than the default setting. If
you do not see the file where you expect it, or if your settings are
not being read, try :check configlocation to see where the file should
be, or contact your system administrator for more information.
SETTINGS
The following is a list of the settings that bombadillo recognizes, as
well as a description of their valid values.
configlocation
The path to the directory that the .bombadillo.ini configura‐
tion file is stored in. This is a read only setting and cannot
be changed with the set command, but it can be read with the
check command.
defaultscheme
The scheme that should be used when no scheme is present in a
given URL. gopher, gemini, http, and https are valid values.
geminiblocks
Determines how to treat preformatted text blocks in text/gemini
documents. block will show the contents of the block, alt will
show any available alt text for the block, both will show both
the content and the alt text, and neither will show neither.
Unlike other settings, a change to this value will require a
fresh page load to see the change.
homeurl
The url that bombadillo navigates to when the program loads or
when the home or h LINE COMMAND is issued. This should be a
valid url. If a scheme/protocol is not included, gopher will be
assumed.
savelocation
The path to the directory that bombadillo should write files
to. This must be a valid filepath for the system, must be a di‐
rectory, and must already exist.
searchengine
The url to use for the LINE COMMAND search. Should be a valid
search path that terms may be appended to.
telnetcommand
Tells the browser what command to use to start a telnet ses‐
sion. Should be a valid command, including any flags. The ad‐
dress being navigated to will be added to the end of the com‐
mand.
theme Can toggle between visual modes. Valid values are normal,
color, and inverse. When set to inverse, the normal mode colors
are inverted. Both normal and inverse modes filter out terminal
escape sequences. When set to color, Bombadillo will render
terminal escape sequences representing colors when it finds
them in documents.
timeout
The number of seconds after which connections to gopher or gem‐
ini servers should time out if the server has not responded.
webmode
Controls behavior when following web links. The following val‐
ues are valid: none will disable following web links, gui will
have the browser attempt to open web links in a user's default
graphical web browser; lynx, w3m, and elinks will have the
browser attempt to use the selected terminal web browser to
handle the rendering of web pages and will display the pages
directly in Bombadillo.
BUGS
There are very likely bugs. Many known bugs can be found in the issues
section of bombadillo's source code repository (see links).
LINKS
bombadillo maintains a presence in the following locations:
Source Code Repository
https://tildegit.org/sloum/bombadillo
Web Homepage
http://bombadillo.colorfield.space
Gopher Homepage
gopher://bombadillo.colorfield.space
AUTHORS
bombadillo was primarily developed by sloum, with kind and patient as‐
sistance from ~asdf and jboverf.
27 OCT 2019 bombadillo(1)