I found that the Gopher protocol supports non-canonical HTML types:
It's interesting; does it also support CSS, JavaScript, and other modern technologies by the way?
Additionally, I can't find any browser (except Lagrange) to test the native behavior of this protocol. Could anyone recommend something for Linux?
Jun 17 · 4 months ago
7 Comments ↓
I implemented a very rudimentary gopher support in vimini, mainly for menues and text documents. What do you mean it supports non-canonical HTML types?
bombadillo does gopher quite well, lynx is great, offpunk has some support as well. On the "graphic" side, dillo with a plugin can do gopher as well. There are some options, these are the ones I more or less tried
It would be possible to use inline CSS and JavaScripts (like any other HTML file), although clients will not necessarily support these features, even if they support HTML (which not all Gopher clients will). Forms are unlikely to work unless the submission URL uses HTTP, which makes the use of Gopher not useful for HTML forms.
I do not recommend using HTML in Gopher unless it is a file that is already HTML and needs to be HTML for some reason, or if the HTML file is only used to redirect to another protocol (in this case, the selector string should start with "URL:"; any client that recognizes this convention will not need to load the HTML file to do this). I would think that Gopher clients that do not also support HTTP are unlikely to support HTML, so it is unlikely to be useful.
@zzo38 hm, you have a point.
Sometimes I want something more than plain text, so I'm considering nex+html or gopher+html. However, the HTTP protocol provides insecure headers, and there are many options I should adjust in about:config.
I want something in between Gemini privacy and web pages. Gemtext looks too boring and is visually hard to read for extended periods. Plus I miss inline links there. I don't know what to do now.
If it is visually hard to read, that is not necessarily the fault of Gemini itself; the receiver can decide how to display the file. You can serve HTML from any protocol that can serve files if you really want to do. (I did make up Scorpion protocol/file-format to be between Gemini and "WWW as it should be if it was designed better", but it is probably not what you wanted, because it does not have inline links and styles either.) I do agree that WWW is too messy though, and also that web browsers are designed badly too (even though some of the specifications could be implemented in ways which are less bad).
Gemini has a good concept, but I have a personal issue with it. I find that the navigation feels like a trip back to the times of communism, where everything is the same.
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