Internet Gopher User's Guide
Editor
Paul Lindner
DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY
COPYRIGHT NOTICE
Copyright (C) 1993 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota.
All rights reserved.
Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute the Gopher
software for non commercial purposes and without fee is hereby
granted, provided that the University of Minnesota copyright
notices and this permission notice appear in all copies, and that
the name University of Minnesota not be used in advertising or
publicity pertaining to this software and documentation without
specific, written prior permission. The University of Minnesota
makes no representations about the suitability of this software
and documentation for any purpose. It is provided 'as is' without
express or implied warranty.
Commercial use of Gopher requires specific permission from the
University of Minnesota; contact the internet gopher development
team at <
[email protected]> for further information.
Printed in the U.S.A.
TRADEMARKS
Internet Gopher is a trademark of the University of Minnesota.
UNIX is a registered trademark of UNIX system Laboratories, Inc.
All other products or services mentioned in this manual are
covered by the trademarks, service marks, or product names as
designated by the companies who market those products.
ISNB 0-000-000000-0
ABCDEFGHIJ-DO-89
CHAPTER 1 Introducing Gopher
Introduction
What is the Internet Gopher?
Types of Information
Finding Information
Some Example Information
Using this Manual
Platforms Supported
Conventions used in this Manual
Support Questions?
CHAPTER 2 Getting the Internet Gopher Software
Getting the Software
Subsequent Retrievals
CHAPTER 3 TurboGopher
Overview
Requirements
Getting Help
Navigating Gopherspace
Alternate Views
Connecting to Terminal-based Services
Advanced Navigation Features
Authenticated Servers
Bookmarks and Bookmark files
Item Attributes
Canceling Slow Network Operations
Starting and Configuring TurboGopher
TurboGopher Options
Miscellaneous
For Experts
CHAPTER 4 PC Gopher III
System Requirements
How to Obtain the Software
Installation
Installing the Gopher Software
Configuring Gopher
Application Configuration
Network Configuration
Advanced Network Configuration Options
Gopher and Command Line Switches
The Gopher User Interface
Using Gopher
Help!
Acknowledgments
CHAPTER 5 The UNIX Gopher Client
Overview
Requirements
Starting the UNIX Gopher Client
Navigating Gopherspace
Special Items
Advanced Navigation Features
Bookmarks
Saving and Downloading
CHAPTER 6 Installing the Unix Gopher Distribution
Overview
Requirements
Compatibility
NeXT Indexing
WAIS Indexing
Preparing to Compile the Distribution
Other Optional Features
Special Modifications for Compatibility
Compiling and Installing the Distribution
Testing
CHAPTER 7 Configuring the Unix Server
Overview
Requirements
What is gopherd?
First Steps
Adding Information to the Server
Starting the Gopher Server
Optional Features for the Gopher Server
CHAPTER 8 Go4gw - The Gopher Gateway
Overview
Requirements
Installation
Writing New go4gw Gateways
CHAPTER 9 Common Questions
Overview
CHAPTER 1 Introducing Gopher
This chapter describes how you can use the Internet Gopher system
to easily pub lish and retrieve information on a network.
Introduction
The internet is a wide vast place with many resources available.
Searching, finding and retrieving these resources has been
difficult in the past. The Internet Gopher was developed to let
an average user access these resources quickly and simply.
What is the Internet Gopher?
All over the world, data is stored on computers, many of which
are connected by the Internet, a confederation of computer
networks. With Internet Gopher you can easily access publicly
available information stored on many of these connected
computers.
Gopher combines features of electronic bulletin board services
and databases, allowing you to either browse a hierarchy of
documents, or search for documents that contain certain words or
phrases.
The Internet Gopher software was conceived at the Computer and
Information Ser vices department of the University of Minnesota.
Software developed at the Uni versity of Minnesota is freely
distributable for non-commercial puposes.
Types of Information
Gopher supports a diverse range of data, all of which can be
accessed by a simple keystroke or click of the mouse. Here are
some of the most popular data types:
Directories
The most basic information type in gopher is a directory. A
directory is a list of documents. Directories allow easy browsing
of information. Items can be organized into specific areas,
making it easy to find the information you need.
In addition, a special type of directory called a "link" allows
gopher to reference directories on a different computer. This
allows gopher to traverse a hierarchy of information residing on
multiple machines. These links are transparent, you won't notice
that you're connecting to another machine.
Text Files
Most of the information in gopher is stored in ASCII text files.
These files can be used with most popular computer applications
Search Items
This is a special kind of directory. You can specify any number
of keywords to a search item. Only those documents that match the
given criteria will show up in the resulting list.
Telnet Sessions
This item type is a reference to a public telnet connection.
Selecting one of these items will connect you to a system using
terminal emulation.
Phone Books
This document type is a special version of the search item based
upon the Ph/Qi server developed at the University of Illinois.
The phone book search allows you to search on certain fields of a
database, such as name, phone number, or address.
Multimedia
Gopher supports a number of multimedia file formats including
images, audio and video file formats. Images such as weather maps
are available. Audio data, including the presidential debates is
available. Movies in Quicktime and MPEG are avail able.
Formatted Text
Some Gopher servers will allow you to view documents in formats
other than text. Postscript is one of the most popular formats
for this "Rich Text."
Finding Information
When using Gopher, looking for information located in other
continents is as easy as looking for information residing on a
computer in the next room. When using Gopher, you begin at the
first or root level of your home Gopher Server. From there you
can choose between two methods or locating information: browsing
and searching.
Browsing
You may want to follow the paths in Gopher from level to level
until you find the data you're looking for. From the first level,
you can choose a topic, which leads to another level, and
another, until you finally come to an item that looks
interesting.
Some Example Information
For instance at the University of Minnesota, you might look for a
salmon recipe by looking in the Fun & Games directory, then in
the Recipes directory, and then in the Seafood directory until
you see an item with salmon in its title.
Searching
Alternatively, you may want Gopher to do the work for you by
using a search item. For instance, at the University of Minnesota
you could select a search item called Search Recipes. A message
prompts you to type in the words you're looking for; you type
salmon. The server searches the text of a collection of items and
lists the ones that have the word salmon in them. You can then
examine these items until you find one that contains a recipe
that strikes your fancy.
Additionally, some search items will let you specify a complex
search expression for your query. If you only had sugar, eggs and
chocolate chips, you could search for items that contained all of
these words by specifying sugar and eggs and "choc olate chip" to
the Search Recipes item.
Some Example Information
We think the easiest way to get a grasp of the information inside
of GopherSpace is to try it. However, for your listing pleasure
we have a lisitng of some of the more popular information:
* Weather Forecasts and current conditions for the United States
and Canada.
* Recipes
* Movie Reviews.
* Computer Questions and Answers.
* Weather Maps.
* Movies of Chemical reactions.
* E-mail addresses and phone books for most major institutions
* Newspapers and USENET news.
* Full electronic versions of many of the major classics,
Shakespeare, Moby Dick, etc.
* Library Catalogs from around the world.
* And many many more!
Using this Manual
You do not need to read this entire manual to use the Internet
Gopher. Most likely, you will only need to read the chapters
about the Internet Gopher client for your software.
If you wish to publish information you will want to pay attention
to the chapters referring to the Internet Gopher servers for your
system.
The First Steps
See "Getting the Internet Gopher Software" on page 15 for
information about retrieving and installing the necessary
software. Then read the chapter appropriate for your system.
Common Questions
It's a good idea to read through the"Common Questions" on page
93. This chapter contains answers to the most frequently asked
questions about the Internet Gopher - from installing it to
serving data.
As Needed
Chapters x and x may be consulted when you blah blah blah. For an
interesting history discussion refer to Chapter X - Growing
Gopher.
Platforms Supported
The Internet Gopher works on a number of platforms and operating
systems. The operating system for all of the following must have
TCP/IP networking support and a connection to a network.
Gopher Clients
Clients to access data are available for the following platforms:
* Macintosh
* DOS
* Microsoft Windows
* Unix, full-screen, emacs and Xwindow
* VMS full screen.
* NeXTstep
* OS/2
* VM/CMS
* MVS
Gopher Servers
Servers to publish information are available for the following
platforms:
* Unix
* VMS
* Macintosh
* VM/CMS
* DOS
* MVS
Conventions used in this Manual
[not applicable for ASCII version]
This manual uses these conventions:
* The Courier font is used to to show sample output of textual
clients. Bold Courier is used whenever you have to enter text or
commands.
* In reference to the Unix Server, gophertop refers to the
directory where the gopher source code is installed.
* Figure boxes are used to show usage.
Support Questions?
We hope you enjoy using Gopher and that it helps you in you to
access and publish data quickly and easily.
If you have questions or comments, please send us electonic mail
at
[email protected]. Or send paper mail to the
following address:
Internet Gopher Development Team
100 Union Street SE #152
Shepherd Labs - University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, MN 55455
Or fax us at +1 (612) 625-6817.
CHAPTER 2 Getting the Internet Gopher Software
This chapter will show you how to get the Internet Gopher
software. You should only need to read the first section "Getting
the Software" on page 15 and the sec tions appropriate to your
platform.
Getting the Software
You will need to retrieve the Internet Gopher Software from the
software repository at the University of Minnesota. Follow these
instructions to do so.
The First Retrieval
Most of the software for the Internet Gopher is available on the
machine boombox.micro.umn.edu. This machine is on the Internet
network. To retrieve the software for the first time you'll need
to use an FTP client on a local machine con nected to the
internet.
FTP, the file transfer protocol, is a quick, reliable and widely
popular means of transferring files across the Internet.
FTP clients come in many varieties. On a Unix or VMS system the
command is called ftp. On the Macintosh there are two ftp
applications, Fetch, and Xferit. NCSA has developed a version of
ftp for the IBM-PC called `ftp'. Refer to your local network
administrator if you don't have an ftp client.
Once you connect to the boombox server you will want to change to
the directory
/pub/gopher
The different portions for gopher are in this directory. The file
00README con tains descriptions of each directory. Refer to Table
1, "Available Gopher Software," on page 16 for a breakdown of the
contents of each directory.
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
TABLE 1. Available Gopher Software
Directory Description:
Mac_server Gopher server for the Macintosh
Macintosh-TurboGopher A graphical Gopher client for the
Macintosh
NeXT A graphical Gopher client for NeXTstep
PC_client A graphical Turbovision based client for PCs
running DOS and using the Clarkson/Crynwr
packet drivers
PC_server Two PC Gopher server implementations, one
based on Phil Karn's NOS, another using
Clarkson/Crynwr packet drivers.
Rice_CMS A Gopher server and client for VM/CMS systems
written at Rice University.
Unix Gopher for Unix. Includes a Gopher server, full
screen client, Xwindow client, and an emacs
client.
VMS Gopher for VMS. Includes a Gopher server and
full screen client
VieGopher A Gopher Server and client for VM/CMS written at
Vienna.
gopher_protocol Descriptions of the Gopher network Protocol
are stored here.
incoming Submitted untested gopher software.
mvs A Gopher server and client for MVS.
os2 A Gopher client for OS/2.
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
Getting the Software
Each directory contains gopher for a specific platform. You
should retrieve the soft ware from the specific directories that
are compatible with your hardware and oper ating system. There
are README files inside of each directory that will help you
decide which files to transfer.
Once you find a file that interests you.you should use the GET
function of your FTP client. This usually means typing "get
filename", or clicking on the appropriate file with your mouse..
Some clients, notably Unix, VMS, and IBM-PC will reqire you to
specify a binary "transfer mode." You can set this mode by typing
binary at the ftp> prompt.
Refer to Figure 1, "Using FTP with Unix," for an example ftp
session to boombox.micro.umn.edu
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
FIGURE 1. Using FTP with Unix
% ftp boombox.micro.umn.edu
Connected to boombox.micro.umn.edu
220 boombox FTP server (Version 4.1 Tue Apr 10 05:15:32 PDT 1990)ready.
Name (boombox.micro.umn.edu:lindner): anonymous
331 Guest login ok, send ident as password.
Password:(TM)
230 Guest login ok, access restrictions apply.
ftp> cd /pub/gopher/Unix
250 CWD command successful.
ftp> binary
200 Type set to I.
ftp> get gopher1.12.tar.Z
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for gopher1.12.tar.Z (306512 bytes)
226 Transfer complete. 306512 bytes received in 2.4 seconds (1.3e+02 Kbytes/s)
ftp> quit
%
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
Subsequent Retrievals
Things get easier after the first retrieval. You don't have to
use the arcane ftp command to get the Gopher software, you can
use Gopher itself.
You will want to familiarize yourself with your gopher client
before doing this though. See the chapters that follow to find
out about clients.
You can use your Gopher client to connect to the software
repository at
boombox.micro.umn.edu
And choose the files, just as you would with ftp. However, now
you can just select the software you want from the menu instead
of typing commands to retrieve the file.
CHAPTER 3 TurboGopher
TurboGopher is a Gopher client for the Macintosh. The following
chapter contains information on using, configuring and
administrating the TurboGopher application.
A Websters definition is:
TurboGopher n. 1. A small rodent with a turbocharger strapped on
its back to increase its speed and ferocity. 2. (Amer. colloq.)
Native or inhabitant of Minnesota after consuming three double
espressos. 3. (Amer. colloq.) An Olympic sprinter who runs
errands, does odd-jobs, fetches or delivers documents for office
staff. 4. (computer tech.) Speed-optimized Macintosh software
following a simple protocol for tunneling through a TCP/IP
internet; network speed is achieved by using turbo charged
software; incoming bits spin the turbine that pumps out the
outgoing bits.
Overview
TurboGopher is a Macintosh application that we believe is
(still!) the fastest Macin tosh Gopher client available. Beyond
optimizing TurboGopher for raw speed while fetching documents and
directories, we turbocharged the user interface by displaying
information as soon as possible... you can read the first part of
a document or directory while the rest is being fetched. This
version of TurboGopher also supports many of the Gopher+
extensions to the original Internet Gopher protocol.
In spite of the design goal to run fast as possible, TurboGopher
is a good Mac citizen: it shares time with other applications.
You can put TurboGopher in the back ground to fetch lengthy items
in the background while you work in another application in the
foreground.
Requirements
You will need a copy of the TurboGopher application, if you
haven't retrieved this yet refer to"Getting the Internet Gopher
Software" on page 15. You will also want to retrieve the "helpler
applications." These applications will allow you to connect to
telnet sites, view graphics, etc.
TurboGopher requires a Macintosh running a system 6.0.7 or later.
We highly reccomend using System 7 or higher. Without it you
won't be able to automatically launch the "helper applications."
You should have at least one megabyte of memory, more if you're
using Multi finder or System 7.
You will need a correctly configured copy of MacTCP and a network
connection. If you don't have MacTCP you can get it from the
Apple Programmers and Developers Association (APDA). MacTCP is a
licensed product, it is not free.
Getting Help
The information in this chapter can also be found by picking the
menu item "Help" from the "Gopher" menu of TurboGopher.
In addition to this information you are reading right now, if you
are using System 7 (and we strongly recommend that you do), some
Balloon Help is available in Tur boGopher. See your Macintosh
System 7 documentation for information on using Balloon Help.
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
FIGURE 2. TurboGopher-Top Level
not available in ASCII version
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
Navigating Gopherspace
To navigate through gopherspace, double-click on any interesting
items to open (fetch) them. If you double-click on a file,
TurboGopher will fetch and display the file. Opening a folder
will let you view its contents. Double-clicking on the ques
tion-mark (Search) icons will let you search a database. On most
gopher servers these databases are full-text indexes of a
collection of information. Full-text index means that every word
in every document is considered a keyword. The best way to search
a gopher full-text database is specify the words for which to
search when TurboGopher presents you with a dialog box. The
results of the search are returned as a list of documents
containing those words.
Phone Books
If you double-click on the phone-book icons you can search
electronic phone books. Phone book databases are structured in
the sense that they have fields (i.e. a name field, an address
field, and a phone number field). The simple phone-book lookup
dialog assumes that you want to search for someone by name. Click
on the `More Choices' button if you wish to specify exactly which
fields to search in, when you formulate a query. The result of
the query is displayed in a document.
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
FIGURE 3. TurboGopher- Phone Book Search
not available in ASCII version
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
Software Archives
Disk icons represent archived Mac software or documents that you
can fetch; these items will be saved to your hard disk. Such
items are often stored in compressed form to save space. You need
to have certain Mac utilities to `uncompress' such items. The
most common such utilities are StuffIt and Compactor. Both may be
obtained from the Info-Mac archives with gopher. If you are
running System 7 and TurboGopher retrieves an item that needs to
be `unstuffed' or `uncompacted', it will ask you if it should
open them via Finder and the appropriate decompress util ity. We
recommend that you use CptExpand and SitExpand for your
decompress needs; both of these are available with the
TurboGopher software distribution as well as from the Info-Mac
archives.
Items that are specific to MS-DOS are seen as documents with a
tiny `PC' embla zoned on them; similarly items specific to UNIX
show up as documents with a tiny `UX' on them. You can retrieve
either of these kinds of items if you like. TurboGo pher will ask
you if you wish to save them to your disk. You may not `view'
these items as text. In fact it will probably make very little
sense to fetch such items unless you intend to further transfer
them later from your Mac to another kind of computer, or if you
have some special tools on your Mac that will allow you to use
these kinds of items.
Pictures
Items appearing as documents with a starburst on them are
probably graphics or picture files (typically in GIF, JPEG, or
PICT format). TurboGopher will transfer such files, save them on
your disk, and optionally launch a picture-viewing applica tion
if you wish to view the picture.
Alternate Views
Gopher+ server may store more than one representation of a
document (an image, text, sound, video, etc. ). If more than one
view of a document is available, you can select between the views
by choosing the `Get Alternate Views' item from the Gopher menu.
When alternate views are available, an alternate view window will
be displayed with descriptions of the views.
For many alternate views of documents, TurboGopher will save a
copy of the item to your Macintosh's disk, and then (under System
7) ask the Finder to launch a helper application to actually
display the item. You can configure which applica tions should be
used as TurboGopher helpers; to do this see the section on
configu ration options.
Connecting to Terminal-based Services
Opening the `terminal' icons will make TurboGopher launch NCSA
Telnet (or TN3270 if appropriate) and start a terminal session to
a terminal-based information system. Typically these are library
catalogs or other such services. Note that for this to work, you
need to have Telnet or TN3270 installed on your Macintosh. If you
are still running System 6, TurboGopher will only save a Telnet
session file rather than launch Telnet; this is another good
reason to run System 7 on your Mac.
Following the Macintosh guidelines, TurboGopher starts out
displaying text in the standard application font. The Font and
Size menu items let you change font appearance for documents and
lists. TurboGopher will attempt to display phone book lookup
results in a monospaced font (Monaco), effectively ignoring your
font selection. It IS possible to change the font of a phonebook
results lookup window after it has been opened; however things
will not line up correctly and generally look icky.
Advanced Navigation Features
If you double-click on a folder while holding down the Option
key, TurboGopher will re-use the current window instead of using
a new one to display the folder con tents. Some folks like to do
this to prevent screen clutter and keep from having too many open
windows.
You may use the up and down arrow keys on your keyboard to move
up and down lists in windows. The Enter or Return key opens an
item (and is equivalent to dou ble-clicking on an item). Use of
the arrow keys is not supported on the Mac Plus.... (sorry).
You may also type the first letter (or first few letters) of an
item name in a list and TurboGopher will highlight the first item
it finds that matches (sort of like the Finder does in list
views). The Find menu item is available to locate an item in a
list: just type a string in the Find dialog. Find can also be
used to search for text in open document windows, by the way.
To delete any item in any list window, click once on the item to
select it. Then choose `Delete Item' from the Gopher menu.
TurboGopher remembers the last full-text index search (item with
question-mark icon) you used. If now you hold down the Option key
and double-click on a word in a document window, TurboGopher will
query that search service for all documents containing the word
you selected. You must use a search service before this pseudo
hypertext capability is accessible (TurboGopher needs to know
which search ser vice to use in your hypertext query).
The Recent menu lets you go back to any directory window you have
viewed during your Gopher session. The left and right arrow keys
may be used to go to previ ous or next windows; they are
equivalent to traversing the recent menu upwards or downwards.
Note that the Recent menu only remembers directory windows you
visit. Document or phone-book lookup windows are not listed.
If you close a window by clicking in its close box while holding
down the Option key, then (like Finder) TurboGopher will close
all open windows.
If you click in the close box while holding down the Shift key,
then the cache of information about that window will be released.
So the next time you open this window from the recent menu,
TurboGopher will have to fetch the contents over the net once
more.
Of course, if you hold down both Option and Shift keys then all
windows are closed and all caches released. Caches are explained
below.
For the terminally curious, if you hold down the Shift key while
single clicking on an item in a list, TurboGopher will display
the item's Gopher selector string, host name, port number and
Gopher+ baggage in the status pane. This is a quick peek. If you
want to copy-paste this information, use the Get Attribute Info
menu item found under the Gopher menu; the information you want
is in the +INFO attribute (the first line).
If wish to fetch an item that is a Macintosh file (binhexed file,
shows up with the icon of a disk), but don't want TurboGopher to
automatically dehex it as it fetches, you may force TurboGopher
to fetch the document as a raw, unprocessed file. To do this,
hold down the Control key while you double-click on the item. For
folks using DownLine or other applications for de-binhexing and
de-archival, this is one way to do what you want.
Authenticated Servers
TurboGopher now supports AdmitOne Authentication for Gopher+
servers that restrict access to information on a per-user basis.
When you attempt to open a direc tory that has such access
restrictions, TurboGopher will prompt you for your user name and
password on the restricted-access server. TurboGopher and the
server negotiate to establish a valid ticket, and subsequent
requests to the server use a new ticket for each request. This
means that your password is never sent over the net work, and
that you only have to enter your password to get the initial
authorization.
Bookmarks and Bookmark files
If you formulate a search or find a folder you would like to come
back to quickly later, you can use the Set Bookmark menu item to
save your place. Set Bookmark saves a reference to a folder,
file, search, terminal session... in fact any Gopher item. If
nothing is selected in the front list window, a bookmark is made
for a folder representing the window. Try it, it's easier to do
than to say.
Bookmarks are placed in a special Bookmarks window. Use the Show
Bookmarks menu item to open the Bookmarks window. Bookmarks are
remembered even after you quit TurboGopher; contents of the
Recent menu are however forgotten. It might be useful to consider
the Bookmarks window to be a special kind of `work sheet' or
`construction area' for you to build your own scratch-pad of
useful gopher resources.
You can save your Bookmarks window or ANY list window or ANY
selected item as a Bookmark file (`Save as Bookmark FileI' menu
item). Bookmark files are small and may be exchanged with other
Gopher users if you wish.
The `Import Bookmarks' menu item lets you read a Bookmark file
right into your Bookmarks window. The `Open Gopher Bookmark File'
menu item on the other hand, places the contents of a bookmark
file in a window of its own. The latter is equivalent to
double-clicking on bookmark files from the Finder. If you launch
Tur boGopher by double-clicking on a bookmark file, it will not
immediately connect to the Home Gopher server, but will open the
Bookmark file instead. So you may use bookmark files as custom
Home Gopher servers.
Item Attributes
More sophisticated Gopher servers (referred to as Gopher+
servers) can provide you with information about any selected
item, much like the Finder's Get Info menu lets you get
information about a Mac item.
Use the `Get Attribute Info' menu item of the Gopher menu for
this.
Canceling Slow Network Operations
TurboGopher executes most requests in a few seconds. A document
or directory is displayed as it is received. However, if a server
is especially slow or busy or if you have started to fetch what
appears to be a very long and uninteresting document or
directory, you may cancel the fetching process by closing the
document or directory window. Once you have closed the window,
TurboGopher assumes that it does not need to fetch the remainder
of the item. Note that when you fetch a file that is saved to
your Mac disk, TurboGopher displays a window with the status of
the fetch. Again, to cancel the fetch operation you can simply
close the window.
A more extreme method for canceling a network operation is to
choose the Cancel All Requests item from the Gopher menu (or by
holding down the command key and typing a period). If you open a
file or folder by double-clicking while holding down the Option
key (to conserve screen space as described earlier), TurboGopher
will also cancel the running network transaction if one is
outstanding; and this is in fact exactly what you want over low
speed connections such as SLIP. Both these features make
TurboGopher seem faster and more responsive over SLIP links.
TurboGopher runs happily in the background (if you wish to fetch
something very large or from a very slow server). You may also
fetch an item (file or directory) while another one is still
being fetched, since TurboGopher supports multiple con current
streams. Command-Period will cancel all active streams.
Starting and Configuring TurboGopher
The `Start Gopher' item under the File menu opens a window
containing the initial directory fetched by connecting to your
home Gopher server. TurboGopher is pre configured to connect on
startup to one of the University of Minnesota's Gopher servers.
You may change your home Gopher server by using the `Configure'
item under the Setup menu. To do this you need the full Internet
domain name and port of the desired primary server. You can
configure TurboGopher to use one of two alternate primary
servers. This distributes the load for a campus over two
different (but equivalent) primary servers and it prevents a
single point of failure. TurboGopher will randomly try one of the
two and then try the other if the first is down. If you don't
understand this, you don't have to bother with it or with the
Another Gopher item under the File menu.
TurboGopher attempts to speak Gopher+ to all Home Gopher servers,
and then backs off if it sees that the server does not have
Gopher+ style items. This is a bit presumptuous, and it confuses
some servers. These servers should be revised in the future so
they don't confuse so easily. If configured to connect to a Home
Gopher server and nothing is displayed, you may want to try using
the `Another Gopher' item under the file menu and making sure
that the gopher+ check box is NOT checked.
TurboGopher Options
You can use the Options item under the Setup menu to customize
some behaviors of TurboGopher. The Single Directory Window
checkbox makes TurboGopher recycle its windows whenever you open
a new directory (and not just when you hold down the Option key).
Use the ISO Latin-1 checkbox if you need to use Latin/Romance
language charac ters. Many sites in Europe have a need for this
to display their national characters. If you visit European
gopher servers and the accented characters don't display cor
rectly, you may want to choose this option.
The Extended Directory listings checkbox is disabled; it's for a
future feature.
If you visit Gopher servers with Japanese or Chinese documents,
and you use a Jap anese or Chinese font while running System
7.1's WorldScript, Gopher will display Japanese SJIS (MS Kanji)
or traditional Chinese characters (BIG-5).
When you save documents, TurboGopher normally saves them as
MacWrite II TEXT documents (we like MacWrite II). If you'd rather
save them as TEXT docu ments of your favorite word processor or
editor, use the appropriate `Set' button in the Options dialog to
select the word processor of your choice.
With Gopher+ servers, items may be available in a number of
alternate views. When fetched, these alternate views are
typically saved as a file to be viewed by a Mac application. If
you are a network/macintosh cowboy, you can change the Mac
application and Mac filetype associated with a Gopher+ alternate
view.... this changes the helper application that TurboGopher
asks the finder to launch to view the document. Double-click the
view in the list and you will be presented with a dialog in which
you can select the application to be used as a TurboGopher
helper.
By the way, you won't be able to do this if you're running System
6...
Miscellaneous
TurboGopher saves or caches the item lists for all visited
directories (even when windows are closed). Since these lists
don't ever have to be fetched from the server again, this
dramatically increases speed when choosing any item from the
Recent menu. If TurboGopher runs out of memory it will first
inform you and then auto matically release the caches for closed
windows.
As mentioned earlier, you may selectively release a directory's
cache by closing the window while holding down the Shift key if
you wish more control over memory.
TurboGopher stores what it needs in a file called TurboGopher
Settings; this lives in the Preferences folder, which is found in
your System Folder. If you drag this file out from the
Preferences folder and place it in the same folder as
TurboGopher, it will still be found and used.
For Experts
This section describes features of TurboGopher that either
network administrators or Gopher weenies would want to know.
Waking up TurboGopher.
When TurboGopher starts up, it looks for the TurboGopher Settings
file first in its own folder, and failing that in the Preferences
folder. If it finds the TurboGopher Settings file, it uses the
settings and resources (more on this later) it finds inside. If
it cannot find the file, it creates a new one in the Preferences
folder based on its internal defaults (more on this later too).
If there are any bookmarks the user had set in the Bookmarks
worksheet window, the Bookmark worksheet window is opened.
If the user had deleted all bookmarks, the Bookmarks window is
not opened (the contents of the Bookmark worksheet window are
remembered via the Settings file).
Next TurboGopher looks to see if the user has launched it by
double-clicking on a Bookmark file (or by dropping a Bookmark
file on it under System 7). If this is so, the contents of the
Bookmark file (more on format later) are read and placed in a
list (directory) window; in this case TurboGopher will not make a
connection immedi ately to the Home Gopher Server.
If TurboGopher was launched directly (not via a Bookmarks
document) then it con nects to the Home Gopher Server, retrieves
the contents of its top directory, and places this in a list
(directory) window. At this point, TurboGopher is fully up and
running. Next we need to describe the various parts alluded to
above.
The Home Gopher Servers
Out of the box, TurboGopher comes preconfigured to connect AT
RANDOM to one of the two primary gopher clones (gopher.tc.umn.edu
or gopher2.tc.umn.edu; the former is also known to old Gopher
folks as gopher.micro.umn.edu) at the Uni versity of Minnesota.
It must be emphasized that these are NOT a primary and sec ondary
server: they contain exactly the same information and changes
made to one are automatically propagated to the other. If the
first connection attempt fails, Tur boGopher will try the next.
This has two purposes. First, initial connections are very
reliable for users and since we serve as the world's
Gophermeisters, this is good. More importantly for us, the
randomization ensures that users will spread the load over our
two small, economical, primary servers (Mac IIci's). If your
campus' primary Gopher server experiences heavy use, we suggest
you make a clone too.
The user may of course reconfigure for only one primary server.
TurboGophe
