For most people, 1.0 gophermap, is enough. In short, you
need a file called "gophermap" as it is the index.
0.0 mkgopher
One way to start the journey by typing mkgopher on SDF. You
type help to see commands and a brief description. Not on
SDF? See appendix at the bottom.
1.0 gophermap
The lowest hanging fruit for someone who is new is that you
need a file called "gophermap" in order to do any of the
customization and/or decoration that you are seeing from
people's gopher holes. The client programs look for a
gophermap as the index.
I see too many attempted gopher holes where it is clear
someone got started, maybe even put in a test file, but
never changed the gophermap, so they have that same template
that doesn't really work. I imagine that at least in some
cases there are some earnest attempts to tinker before they
give up.
.. So hopefully what I have written so far has helped a
few more real gopher holes come into being.
1.1 connect files and sub-directories to the gophermap
Okay, now you're changing your gophermap and people can
actually see what you're doing. Next, let's start
building up the content in your gophehole up with files
and directories.
Again, you can play around with mkgopher and "help" to
learn how to make the content. However, I recommend that
you move past that phase as soon as you are comfortable with
the basics of UNIX commands, a topic that will covered in
part 3.0 of this document.
In any case, once you have files and directories that you
want others to see you use the following format:
"<number"><what you want them to see> <tab> <path>"
An example:
"0phlog is go! /users/candide/phlog1.txt"
For text files the number is 0, and for directories the
number is 1.
And inside of a directory you can have a file named
gophermap, which you can use to customize and/or decorate.
2.0 chmod
This one is for people who are UNIX/Linux newbies as well as
being new to gopher -- a category I was in myself not too
long ago.
By default, the stuff you make isn't something people can
see. If you point to a file with the default settings the
client will read out:
error: Access denied!
I was frustrated by this a few times myself. At some point
you have to use the chmod command on the file to make it
open to the world.
chmod 754 <file name>
3.0 mkgopher to leave mkgopher
I think mkgopher can be a good teaching tool if are a total
noob, as I once was. The limited universe it offers you
gives quick feedback and helps set up some of the tinkering
and persistence skills that you need for any project of
even modest size.
But eventually you are going to want more abilities than
mkgopher can provide.
For one, "edit" on mkgopher leads you to Pico. Even Nano
has more functionality, including the ability to see
columns when you hit ctl+c.
I may add to this list in the future, but here are a few
of my favorite UNIX things:
rm
Nice to be able to remove files.
aspell -c
You can spell check from the command line . . . !
wc
You can get the word count from terminal.
fold
Here's the code I use to wrap the text at 60 columns,
particularly useful when I am making things over to my
Project GophPort:
fold -w 60 -s <theFile.txt>
============================
** SDF appendix.
============================
I put this as an appendix because I just assume the way most
people will see this document is when they are wanting to
begin a gopherhole themselves, so they are looking around at
ones that already exist -- seeing mine because I add content
pretty frequently, which bumps my gopher hole to the top.
I suppose, however, that someone might be looking in from an
html proxy or something like that.
If you are not a member of SDF, I recommend you join. Not
only is the gopher hosted, but you get an email that doesn't
ask for your phone number and isn't tied to a surveillance
project.
And, yeah, you really do have to pay. I sent in $40 when it
came time to verify my account, and I will donate again in
the future because I simply believe in this project and I've
seen where free has gotten us with the rest of the internet.
I don't know if sending $1 will unlock everything you need.
If someone has personal experience, please drop me a line
and I'll update this document.
<My handle> at sdf.org
