Bombadillo Updates
2019-10-05 10pm

I have not written anything in my phlogs lately. So I
have set out to remedy that. Sadly, I do not have too
much to say :-/ I added an update about my family over
on my colorfield.space phlog[0] and for my post here
have decided to write a brief update re: my gopher
client Bombadillo.

In my spare time I have been working on v2.0.0 of
Bombadillo. It is getting close to ready for release
and I am excited about it. Not only is this the
longest I have maintained a project... I use it all
the time and it solves a real world problem for me.
Which is awesome. It has also been awesome to have
regular contributions from two great developers:
asdf over at rawtext.club and jboverf over at
colorfield.space, as well as a few others
that have submitted issues or otherwise connected
to help make Bombadillo even better.

In support of v2.0.0 I have created some points
of connection:

gopher://bombadillo.colorfield.space

           and

http://bombadillo.colorfield.space

Both serve up mostly the same content so take your
pick of protocol.

Currently at the above URLs you will find:

- An welcome page detailing what Bombadillo is
 and how to get it
- A simple getting started guide
- A dev log

As features of 2.0.0 get finalized there will
eventually be a full manual for the client in
the user-guide section, rather than just a little
bit of getting started info.


So, version 2.0.0... what is different about it?

.A LOT.

Here are the completely new features:

1. Gemini support

  This is a big one. I am really psyched about
  all of the work a whole group of people has been
  putting in to the spec for the gemini protocol.
  I genuinely see this protocol as something that
  solves the problems of gopher without sacrificing
  the things I love about it.

  At present, the in development version supports
  the whole spec as it is currently written:

      - TLS (utilizing TOFU authentication)
      - Client certificates
      - Support for "gemini maps"
      - Ability to open non-text files
        in an appropriate program on your system
      - Support for redirects (asks user before
        following)


2. Local filesystem support

  This allows a few cool things. For one, you
  can use gemini as a basic pager. Two: you can
  save file paths as bookmarks, which has actually
  been pretty nice for things I often need to
  reference.


3. Telnet

  Telnet links are now supported (via gopher or
  directly typed). The client will start a subprocess
  for the telnet session and then resumes its normal
  workflow once the session has ended. There are
  a few buggy behaviors with this, but it works well
  for a good many use cases.


4. Improved Bookmarks

  You can now add a bookmark to any protocol that
  the client supports, which includes local files,
  gopher, gemini, telnet, and http/https. Web links
  will not open in Bombadillo, but they can be saved
  as bookmarks and when you navigate to them they
  will be opened in your default web browser (note:
  this is an opt-in setting that a user has to turn
  on).


5. Themes... sort of

  Bombadillo still uses your terminal's natural color
  settings. However, there is now a setting to toggle
  between "normal" and "inverse", allowing you to
  have a functional light mode and dark mode without
  Bombadillo taking over your color pallet.


6. A man page

  Bombadillo v2.0.0 will have a man page that ships
  with the source code, making help just that much
  easier to find (and less reliant on an outside
  server being up and reachable).


Lots of other great stuff is coming and there are a
good number of smaller features that have not been
touched on here (new screen drawing routine, new line
wrapping, lots more config options, ability to
configure your own defaults, new commands).

Anyway, enough rambling. Just thought I'd give an
update. Check out the new pages if you like. The
`develop` branch of the repo[1] has a good number
of these changes, so feel free to pull and build
it if you'd like to give it a trial run (as a
pre-release version, fair warning that there may
be bugs... but my guess is you should have a pretty
smooth experience).

I promise: next time I post here it wont be about
gopher, gemini, or a software project related to
them!


Oh! Lastly, and semi-unrelated: I've been playing
around with awk. What a fun little language!!


[0] gopher://colorfield.space/~sloum/phlog/
[1] https://tildegit.org/sloum/bombadillo

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