[HN Gopher] Lagrange: A desktop GUI client for Gemini
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       Lagrange: A desktop GUI client for Gemini
        
       Author : 1vuio0pswjnm7
       Score  : 51 points
       Date   : 2021-11-20 20:03 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (github.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
        
       | olah_1 wrote:
       | The difficulty of hosting my own pages makes me prefer a system
       | like Nostr[1] where the user doesn't need any kind of account on
       | a specific server.
       | 
       | I could also post markdown files over that too.
       | 
       | [1]: https://github.com/fiatjaf/nostr
        
       | gcthomas wrote:
       | Lagrange is the best of the Gemini clients right now, if you are
       | looking for a GUI app. It launches in a fraction of a second,
       | which is blissful compared to launching a full-fat web browser,
       | and you get the lean, clean pages that Gemini offers, with no
       | need for extensions and adblockers, javascript or fancy frame-
       | based pages.. Although Lagrange does handle multimedia well, it
       | is focussed on making plain unicode text look beautiful.
        
         | mattkevan wrote:
         | Elaho [1] is a really nice Gemini browser for iOS. It's quite
         | enjoyable to fire it up once in a while and go down that
         | particular rabbit hole.
         | 
         | [1] https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/elaho/id1514950389
        
         | zepto wrote:
         | Diohsc is the other contender for best client, but for a new
         | user, Lagrange is best.
        
           | jinwoo68 wrote:
           | There's Elpher if you're on Emacs. It supports both gopher
           | and gemini.
        
           | gerikson wrote:
           | I prefer Amfora as a TUI client:
           | 
           | https://github.com/makeworld-the-better-one/amfora#amfora
           | 
           | But I'll give Diohsc a go!
        
             | zepto wrote:
             | I used amfora for quite a while before I found Lagrange and
             | Diohsc. It is a very good client, also probably the easiest
             | to use TUI client for starting out.
             | 
             | Diohsc takes a little getting used to, but once you start
             | using marks and the queue, it becomes very pleasant.
        
         | olah_1 wrote:
         | > with no need for extensions and adblockers, javascript or
         | fancy frame-based pages
         | 
         | Doesn't Gemini expose your IP address? Would it make sense to
         | bundle TOR with the app?
        
           | karmanyaahm wrote:
           | > Doesn't Gemini expose your IP address?
           | 
           | The server does receive it, just like with standard HTTP,
           | TCP, UDP, etc.
        
       | coffeecat wrote:
       | Can any Gemini proponents explain what its benefits are compared
       | to just adopting a minimalist subset of HTML? The goal of
       | bringing back the early web (hyperlinked text documents without
       | all the other junk) is great, but making it incompatible with
       | existing browsers makes it unlikely to grow beyond a small,
       | walled-off community of enthusiasts. Is that considered a feature
       | rather than a bug?
        
         | tjoff wrote:
         | See 2.5: https://gemini.circumlunar.space/docs/faq.gmi
         | 
         | Not sure how a subset would work in practice. Though I can
         | imagine a javascript gemini client (as perverse as it
         | sounds...) that could be used as a tunnel into the gemini world
         | in cases where you just want to look something up quickly
         | and/or don't have or want to install a proper client
        
           | coffeecat wrote:
           | > Not sure how a subset would work in practice.
           | 
           | What I'm imagining is a specification, defining which subset
           | of HTML should be included, together with a <meta> tag which
           | indicates a document's intention to be compliant with the
           | standard.
        
             | encryptluks2 wrote:
             | I'm imagining some form of YAML or similar frontmatter and
             | markup. A lot of markdown extensions really add a lot of
             | value. Like graphs, admonitions, diagrams, presentations,
             | tabs, mindmaps, etc. I am not particularly fond of XML. I
             | remember liking some of the ideas behind Pug/HAML etc and
             | wished that a browser would just render it natively.
        
           | kevin_thibedeau wrote:
           | No more perverse than the current state of affairs where you
           | have to run JS to retrieve text content, generate hyperlinks,
           | and image URLs.
        
         | zepto wrote:
         | It would be trivial for existing browsers to adopt Gemini if
         | they wanted to, so that's a moot point.
         | 
         | Some of the goal is to prevent it from being so easily infected
         | with tracking, malware, and other anti-user mechanisms.
         | 
         | Another goal is to make the presentation be truly a function of
         | the client, and not the server.
        
         | morsch wrote:
         | My question would be similar but different: what do you use
         | Gemini for, day to day? Do you read the news, or a dictionary,
         | or blogs? Or is it mostly the meta discussion of Gemini itself
         | (which would also be fine, I hasten to add)?
        
           | ByteJockey wrote:
           | Personally I trawl it (there's a couple of search engines)
           | looking for the weird stuff from the early internet that's
           | hard to find these days.
           | 
           | Is 90% of it crap? Sure, but 90% of everything is crap
           | (sturgeon's law), and it feels less corporate than the
           | current internet. Also people seem to be less angry (on
           | average).
        
         | Seirdy wrote:
         | If you click an "https://" link, you don't know whether or not
         | it'll work in your minimal browser. If you click on a
         | "gemini://" link, you know it'll work in your Gemini client.
         | 
         | Gemtext is easy to parse since a parser only has to read the
         | first characters of a line to know a line's semantic meaning.
         | Being line-oriented also improves a document's structure, as
         | it's easy to navigate with links getting their own line.
         | 
         | That's the rationale for using a different protocol scheme and
         | markup.
        
         | pmlnr wrote:
         | > benefits
         | 
         | A small community can have fun with it. Nothing else.
        
         | Karunamon wrote:
         | I think that's the point. With broad accessibility comes
         | catering to the lowest common denominator - ask anyone who was
         | online a couple decades ago about the eternal September.
         | 
         | One no-brainer thing that I wish Gemini would add is proper
         | footnote support. The reading experience is kind of a pain in
         | the ass if you can't quickly get back to where the note was
         | introduced.
        
         | gerikson wrote:
         | Pretty much, yeah. It's better seen as a souped-up Gopher than
         | a Web alternative.
         | 
         | I've been making a concerted effort to learn Gemini while still
         | keeping my head, and while I still think the idea fundamentally
         | is pretty useless, the people involved are generally nice to
         | hand out with.
         | 
         | https://portal.mozz.us/gemini/gerikson.com/gemlog/gemini-sux...
        
       | zenojevski wrote:
       | It doesn't support Gemini (just yet) but here's my ~~take~~
       | shameless plug at a modern, fully-featured graphical Gopher
       | client: https://github.com/zenoamaro/unnamed-gopher-client
       | 
       | I tend to spend hours browsing Gopherholes and Phlogs, but I tend
       | to lose track of where I am. So I implemented a navigation system
       | that I have yet to see in any other Gopher client (or web, for
       | that matter):
       | 
       | - _Drill-down Columnar Navigation._
       | 
       | It is heavily inspired by Finder's own column navigation, so if
       | you like that, you'll be at home.
       | 
       | In addition, it has other features that every modern browser
       | should have:
       | 
       | - A tabbed interface
       | 
       | - An omnibar with search capabilities (Using Veronica-2)
       | 
       | - Files and folders view
       | 
       | - Inline image previews with zooming
       | 
       | - Caching
       | 
       | I have many more ideas to contribute back to the Gopher ecosystem
       | without losing its essence (see the roadmap), so if you want to
       | contribute, send ideas, share your opinions, or just show
       | support, please let me know! I hope you like it!
        
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       (page generated 2021-11-20 23:00 UTC)