Subject: [gopher] Re: Gopher for GNOME...
From: Stefan Rieken <StefanRieken@SoftHome.net>
To: gopher@complete.org
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Date: 07 Jan 2001 01:02:03 +0100
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On 05 Jan 2001 13:40:19 -0500, David Allen wrote:

> It just seems to me that at that point you might be
> moving towards a browser in development, and if that's the case, why
> not just use a browser?

Nautilus _is_ a browser. That is, you can view stuff in all different
formats including HTML, and enter URLs (define "browser" :-). That is
the missing link you are looking for, I guess.

It would be even so simple (at least in theory), that if I provided a
Gopher+ module for the GNOME Virtual File System, and did that well, I
wouldn't have to worry about the presentation part at all. Given a
directory, Nautilus would display a directory. Given an HTML file,
Nautilus would display a HTML file.

OK, for the overkill, a little layer diagram:


+----------------------------------+---------------------+
|Nautilus file type view components|Other progs using VFS|
+----------------------------------+---------------------+
|GNOME Virtual File System (works with generic URLs)     |
+--------------------------------------------------------+


The VFS handles all icky protocols and provides a generic interface to
them to application programmers. To Nautilus there is no difference
between local files and external stuff, protocols etc.

I guess the bottomline is that the difference between browsers and
shells is going to fade (at least if you got to believe Eazel, M$ and
Apple, but at least you're in charge of your own computer today, if you
don't like that kind of user experience :-). All _I_ know is that it
will save me handling views for all these thousands of MIME types and
other generic stuff. Thanks to Nautilus, I'd have my personnel
implementing these parts ;-) and I can concentrate on the protocol.

OK, that's in theory. For now, I only have this standalone app, that's
right. And indeed, it doesn't support one darned view other than
plaintext :-)

Greets,

Stefan