Linkification in Gopher clients (Part 2)
========================================

So the TL;DR of my previous post was:

* Gopher clients present content as plain text files that might
  contain URLs

* Gopher clients should extract these URLs and make further
  navigation easier

(The rest is just about justifying why this is not a bad thing).

~ Linkification in Gopher clients:
gopher://sdf.org/0/users/r0/phlog/2021-12-14_Linkification_in_gopher_clients.txt

The (minor) problem with my post
--------------------------------

I have since realised an issue with my 'new' idea. It started with the
first reply I got from Luke Emmet, the author of GemiNaut (a Gemini
and Gopher client).

 ``
  My client GemiNaut does its best to link up URLs it finds within the
  content, particularly at the end of the file, which seems to be the
  convention. It will even go as far as making the square bracket
  citations (e.g. "[1]") clickable, if these are used by the author.


~ GemiNaut homepage:
gemini://gemini.marmaladefoo.com/geminaut/

Following that I was (today) playing with Solderpunk's VF-1 Gopher
client again. To remind myself of how it works, I typed "help".
Then... I suddenly noticed the "links" command.

Let's see what that does shall we?

    VF-1> help links
    Extract URLs from most recently visited item.

(I tried it out to be certain and sure enough it works precisely as I
argued it should.)

~ VF-1 (Github):
https://github.com/solderpunk/VF-1

~ VF-1 (Download via Gopher):
gopher://zaibatsu.circumlunar.space:70/0/~solderpunk/files/vf1.py

In short succession I have realised that at least two clients already
do what I was arguing they should do. Maybe the problem is not with
Gopher clients but rather with me... for not researching more
thoroughly first. XD

-But perhaps not terrible advice-

That said, if you do use a client that doesn't provide any easy way to
navigate links in plain text, I suggest you try one that does. And if
you are the author of a client that doesn't do this, read my original
post for why I think you should add support.

* * *