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beginners.txt - gopher-tutorials - The gopher tutorials project. |
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git clone git://bitreich.org/gopher-tutorials/ git://enlrupgkhuxnvlhsf6lc3fziv5h2hhfrinws65d7roiv6bfj7d652fid.onion/gopher-tutorials/ (git://bitreich.org) |
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beginners.txt (2748B) |
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1 Hello dear reader, |
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2 |
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3 if you have heard about gopher and want to explore its space but feel |
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4 lost about how to achieve that, this text is for you. We will assume |
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5 that you have no technical skill so everyone can read this. |
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6 |
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7 Gopher is the name of a protocol for sharing text, images or any kind |
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8 of file. A network protocol is a set of rules which allow to create a |
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9 common service for different people, everyone needing to respect |
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10 thoses rules to be able to communicate with each other. Some people |
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11 writing code (called Developers) will write "Clients" software for the |
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12 end-user and others developers will write "Servers" software which |
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13 will allow to publish content. The gopher protocol is so simple that |
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14 anyone with basic knowledge of computer science can write its own |
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15 client or server easily. Using gopher implies to understand the |
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16 protocol itself, but we promise it's really easy. |
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17 |
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18 Gopher is an enjoyable way to browse informations. Every gopherhole |
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19 [that is the name given to someone's gopher content] looks like |
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20 another one. There is no way to customize a gopherhole display except |
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21 from the text. While this can look a bit harsh, this makes gopher |
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22 universal. If you know how to browse one gopherhole, you will know how |
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23 to browse all others because the way to do it is consistent. |
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24 |
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25 So, let's speak about how gopher works. First, gopher requires 3 |
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26 informations if you want to get content. You will need a remote |
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27 address to connect to [it's called an hostname, like "floodgap.com"], |
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28 the data type and a path to the data. The url looks like this : |
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29 |
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30 gopher://hostname/type/path |
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31 |
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32 The most important type is the type 1, which is the gopher menu |
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33 type. A gopher menu is an index made of differents lines, each line |
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34 having a type field to know what kind of data it leads to. It will |
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35 allow you to browse from menu to menu or from a menu to a content |
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36 (image, text, music, archives...). |
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37 |
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38 Here is the list of the most used data types allowed on gopher, the |
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39 complete list is defined in a document named RFC 1436 which defines |
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40 the gopher protocol : |
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41 |
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42 - type i is a line of text in the menu, it's not a link |
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43 - type 0 is a link to a text document |
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44 - type 1 is a link to another gopher menu |
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45 - type 3 means an error |
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46 - type 7 (search) asks a text input and lead to another menu |
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47 - type 9 is a link to a binary file (data archives, music...) |
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48 - type g is a link to a GIF file (animated picture) |
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49 - type I is a link to an image file |
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50 - type h is a link which lead to use another protocol (irc, http...) |
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51 |
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52 Only the types menu and search can lead to another content. Asking |
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53 another type will lead to downloading a file. |
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54 |
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55 Now that you are ready to browse the gopher space, we recommend you to |
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56 read the others tutorials about the gopher client software you would |
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57 like to use. |
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