Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2007 10:46:15 -0500
From: Chris <chris@hal3000.cx>
To: gopher@complete.org
Subject: [gopher] Re: Mozilla bugs about Gopher, and a dangerous one
Message-Id: <20070411104615.275a47eb@work1.hal3000.cx>
In-Reply-To: <evijud$35h$1@sea.gmane.org>
References: <evijud$35h$1@sea.gmane.org>
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Thanks for bringing these all to the list.

As for having the search engines stick to port 70.
First I disagree, thats not a gopher problem its a moz problem .
Second, it's not quite so easy.
After all, you see what I have on port 70, you keep going back to it.
If I moved my main off 70, you'd never see it so it would be a mute point ;)
Of course I could give each search engine a specific machine and  name (use resources) and do alot of virtual hosting, some of us are on a single IP. But virtual hosting is for apache, so maybe IPFW, by name to sub neted machine name, but better not do a port forward... 
There is,
scriptexec.ExecHandler
pyg.PYGHandler
gophermap.BuckGophermapHandler
virtual.Virtual
These are other ways (good ones) in combinations and then of course re write the search engines or write a script and pipe them (more resources used), Cameron wrote his own veronica2, pygfarm is a bit different.
I have the original jughead and veronica and the way they were usually handled is how I am handling them. for instance , from Jughead.Readme: (Copyright 1993, 1994)

######################################################################
Create a link file somewhere in your gopher data directory.  Mine looks like:
  Name=Search all UofU menus using jughead
  Numb=4
  Type=7
  Port=3000
  Path=
  Host=gopher.utah.edu
######################################################################

or Veronica README: (Copyright: 1993 University of Nevada)

######################################################################
11.	edit "/etc/services" to look something like:

veronica	2347
######################################################################

And that brings me back to... why? because Moz/Firefox is broken?
I understand you feel most people will be using Firefox. I also feel it should be fixed, or drop gopher from it's core and have the option to open lynx when a gopher:// address is used. Such as gopher has an option for a web page.
below is what shows up when going to an html page from gopher:


            Warning!!!!!, you are about to leave the Internet Gopher  x
      [8]x  Client and connect to an HTML Browser.  Use the Browser   x
      [9]x  Help if you are not familiar with its commands.           x
      [10x                                                            x
      [11x  Upon quitting from the Browser, you will be returned to   x
      [12x  the Internet Gopher Client.                               x
      [13x                                                           

I actually have always thought that was a great solution.
Do the same for going from a web browser who's developers dont want to support gopher, have a notice in xmessage or whatever you want, to pop up, click ok and the lynx browser or gopher or whatever you have set in your preferences starts, when it stops your back in your browser...of course I thought mosaic handled images in a cool way , so maybe im weird ;)

(and yes I did say drop gopher because imo if they dont want to support it and wont, then dont release stuff half way right, which is more than half wrong ie: going back to main after entering a search request on a different port or ending up on a completely different gopher when trying to get to one on another port)
Just my input. 
Chris


On Wed, 11 Apr 2007 14:22:37 +0200
Stegozor <stegozor@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> Hope you had a happy easter. As for me, I spent my time on Cameron's 
> Veronica 2 and on bugzilla.mozilla.org. I found some bugs and I'd like 
> to share my thoughts. Here comes the list.
> 
> 
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=351748
> (Remove UI for Gopher proxy settings)
> 
> This one - the most recent bug about the Gopher protocol - is pretty 
> dangerous. It is about removing the user interface for Gopher proxy 
> settings. Even worse, the last suggestion is: "let's keep it until we 
> completely remove Gopher support". IMHO, someone should definitely 
> defend the presence of Gopher in Mozilla codebase. Add yourself in the 
> CC list (don't vote for this one! ;), protest, do something... I was 
> about to do so, but I'm an eternal newbie and anything but a code wizard 
> so I think other people on this mailing list could do that much better 
> than me. It would be really stupid if the recently corrected Gopher 
> support was abandoned :(
> 
> 
> Well, here follow some other gopher related bugs filed in Mozilla's 
> bugzilla. Fortunately, their goal is to enhance Gopher support, not to 
> suppress it. All in all, there are not so many bugs for gopher, but 
> unfortunately, these bugs do not have many votes either. So my humble 
> suggestion is that you visit and vote for those who seem important to 
> you. Creating an account on bugzilla is easy and you won't get any spam 
> because of the comments you might leave, so go on.
> 
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=194220
> (Bug 194220 -- [meta] gopher)
> 
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=158888
> (implement better handling for gopher on non default ports)
> 
> This one deserves a remark. I've spent a lot of time since the last week 
> to find gopher sites for the gopher category of dmoz. When I landed on 
> gopher://gopher.hal3000.cx I tried the search engines. Unfortunately, no 
> matter what the query was, I was taken to the homepage of the gopher 
> each time I pressed Enter. I ended up thinking that this was another 
> unmaintained server. To be completely sure, I wrote a mail to Chris, and 
> then thanks to his explanations I discovered that this was a problem 
> with Firefox and the way it handles ports (Lynx works fine for 
> instance). Hence, a call to all gophermasters: as long as this bug is 
> not corrected, IMHO all gopher search engines should stick with port 70, 
> simply because Firefox is the browser newbies like me who land on 
> gopherspace will be most likely using, let alone the fact that it's 
> recommended on many gopher sites. Be newbie friendly, copy floodgap, 
> stick with port 70 whenever possible, and vote for this bug please.
> 
> 
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=83881
> (gopher: preference to shut off sorting)
> 
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=273459
> (most gopher-*.gif images are unused)
> 
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=202196
> (wrong protocol for host names containing "gopher")
> 
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=326034
> (Gopher module shouldn't try to interpret text into URLs)
> 
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=284558
> (GOPHER protocol support needs improvement (Save as "binary"))
> 
> Should this bug be reopened? I tried with .zip files at JumpJet, but I'm 
> not sure I did exactly what the bug report explains.
> 
> Finally, to have a look at all open gopher related bugs click on 
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=gopher
> There are less than 20 including those already mentioned, so don't be 
> afraid :)
> 
> -- 
> Feel free to correct my English ;)
> 
> 
> 
> 


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