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As someone that considers images to be really important to most things I’m interested in, that completely sucks. As does Gemini for that matter. Otherwise I do

As someone that considers images to be really important to most things I’m interested in, that completely sucks. As does Gemini for that matter. Otherwise I do actually quite like the idea of a protocol that is styled by the user agent, not the creator.

anthk 2y ago
A lot of Gemini clients will inline the images, such as Lagrange. Not an issue as you would have with Gopher.
- thejohnconway 2y ago
  A lot… but what percentage? I’d want a protocol that recognised the semantic relation of images to text, and clients should follow that.
  - anthk 2y ago
    With Gemini, even with terminal clients you can open the inlined images in a typical blog on a gemini capsule with a fast external viewer, such as sxiv with you just can fullscreen with 'f' and q with 'q'. In the case of gopher, it's either a directory with a gophermap, or a text file with the content. You can't have two at the same time. Using a gophermap directory as a fake text post it's a bit of a hack abusing the 'i' item, and it can look really bad on some older clients.
082349872349872 2y ago
> the idea of a protocol that is styled by the user agent You mean a markup language styled by the user agent? And it could be served by a stateless request protocol, so all requests are equivalent? We could call them JCML and JCTP, I guess...
- thejohnconway 2y ago
  You’re being snarky, but here’s a serious answer. I don’t see what relevance statelessness has to do with it, so I’ll leave that aside. The ‘problem’ with HTML is that it’s lacking a lot of features we now realise we want, and at the same time is flexible enough with CSS and JavaScript for people to solve them in their own ways. This had led to a proliferation of approaches, and stuff can’t be automated or make accessible reliably. It also makes creation more complicated than it needs to be.
  - 082349872349872 2y ago
    Fair enough, my apologies (and I'll leave the other aside too). I guess where we differ is not in the identification of the problem, but you think an improved markup language might be a solution, and I think any solution would necessarily be more social than technical?
    - thejohnconway 2y ago
      It would be both. Technical solutions are social solutions. A new language could be part of the solution. I don’t think it’s going to happen, by the way, I’m just identifying the problem as I see it, and why I don’t think HTML, Gopher, or Gemini going about solving it in the right way.

anthk 2y ago

A lot of Gemini clients will inline the images, such as Lagrange. Not an issue as you would have with Gopher.

thejohnconway 2y ago
A lot… but what percentage? I’d want a protocol that recognised the semantic relation of images to text, and clients should follow that.
- anthk 2y ago
  With Gemini, even with terminal clients you can open the inlined images in a typical blog on a gemini capsule with a fast external viewer, such as sxiv with you just can fullscreen with 'f' and q with 'q'. In the case of gopher, it's either a directory with a gophermap, or a text file with the content. You can't have two at the same time. Using a gophermap directory as a fake text post it's a bit of a hack abusing the 'i' item, and it can look really bad on some older clients.

082349872349872 2y ago

> the idea of a protocol that is styled by the user agent You mean a markup language styled by the user agent? And it could be served by a stateless request protocol, so all requests are equivalent? We could call them JCML and JCTP, I guess...

thejohnconway 2y ago
You’re being snarky, but here’s a serious answer. I don’t see what relevance statelessness has to do with it, so I’ll leave that aside. The ‘problem’ with HTML is that it’s lacking a lot of features we now realise we want, and at the same time is flexible enough with CSS and JavaScript for people to solve them in their own ways. This had led to a proliferation of approaches, and stuff can’t be automated or make accessible reliably. It also makes creation more complicated than it needs to be.
- 082349872349872 2y ago
  Fair enough, my apologies (and I'll leave the other aside too). I guess where we differ is not in the identification of the problem, but you think an improved markup language might be a solution, and I think any solution would necessarily be more social than technical?
  - thejohnconway 2y ago
    It would be both. Technical solutions are social solutions. A new language could be part of the solution. I don’t think it’s going to happen, by the way, I’m just identifying the problem as I see it, and why I don’t think HTML, Gopher, or Gemini going about solving it in the right way.