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publishing-guideline.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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publishing-guideline.txt (3117B) |
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1 This document will give you a few hints about publishing through |
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2 gopher. |
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3 |
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4 Line length |
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5 =========== |
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6 |
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7 The rendering of content is client specific. However most clients |
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8 will present the user with a text based interface, so you should be |
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9 conservative on the maximum line length in your menus. As clients |
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10 will add a couple of characters to mark item types, a line width of |
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11 69 characters is recommended. |
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12 |
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13 The menu |
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14 ======== |
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15 |
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16 The main entry point and user interface between your readers and your |
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17 content is the gopher menu item (item '1' as you may recall). The |
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18 selectors in a menu will define the information hierarchy. Choose a |
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19 flat hierarchy if you can so readers will get to the content easily |
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20 and without traversing too many menus. |
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21 |
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22 Use helpful item descriptions for your selectors, this will aid both |
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23 human and nonhuman readers: indexers will most likely index menu |
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24 items only. Be as specific as possible. If it is a binary item type |
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25 hint at its intended format, so your readers will know what to |
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26 expect. Using a useful filename scheme for selectors is also helpful. |
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27 |
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28 You may decorate your menus with informational items (item 'i'). |
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29 Clients will display them as is without additional tags. Around the |
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30 gopherspace a lot of ASCII art is used to create a pleasant |
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31 appearance of a gopher site. Some services also include explanations |
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32 for the specific menu, and use 'i' items for grouping selectors. |
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33 |
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34 There are clients that do not offer a 'back' button. Be kind to those |
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35 users and provide navigational selectors in your menus. Make the |
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36 journey through your gopher space easy! |
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37 |
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38 On your travels through gopher sites, you will encounter gopher sites |
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39 that use menu and informational items to mimick a page with embedded |
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40 links. There is an ongoing dispute whether this is good style. We do |
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41 not recommend this style as it delutes the meaning of the menu item. |
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42 For starters you should stick to single file items to store your |
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43 content. Once you gain more experience with publishing content in |
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44 gopher you can always change your mind later! |
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45 |
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46 Selector hierarchy |
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47 ================== |
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48 |
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49 By design a gopher site should present a hierarchy of content |
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50 selectors to the user. These mimick a file system by intention. |
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51 However this does not need to mtch the real hierarchy of your storage |
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52 filesystem. An example: |
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53 |
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54 Alicia has a gopher blog (aka 'phlog'). She writes daily posts. To |
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55 make it easy on her users she has a menu item on the phlog/ selector |
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56 that presents the latest 5 posts and a selector to an archive menu |
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57 linking to all her posts. On disk however both the menus and the |
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58 articles reside in the same directory. A script creates the |
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59 selectors in the menu files and rotates them. The post files however |
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60 remain untouched and their selectors will not change over time. This |
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61 means that external links to her post will still be valid later. |
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62 |
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63 Site generators |
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64 =============== |
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65 |
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66 The easiest creation of content is done manually. If you would like |
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67 to automate some task then there are site generators. Most of these |
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68 consists of a collection of shell scripts you can adapt to your |
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69 needs. Search veronica for cl-yag or burrow for starters. |
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