Using the Overbite Add-ons for Gopher and CSO/ph/qi and Inline Viewing
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Whenever you surf to a URL starting with gopher://, Overbite is activated and
takes over in your current browser window. That means whenever you enter a
Gopher URL in the address bar or click a link, your browser will notice that
you are making a Gopher request and hand Overbite the URL for processing;
Overbite will then access the gopher server for your browser and translate the
gopher menu or request into something your browser can understand. To you,
the user, it will integrate seamlessly into your normal browsing experience.

You can view gopher resources in tabs like any web page, and you can bookmark,
print or even download them for storage and reference later. Overbite
transparently makes them look like any other resource to your browser.

--- What is a Gopher menu? ---

Gopher is organized around the idea of "menus" and other resources. Like
any other computer-based menu, Gopher presents you with a list of choices
or documents relevant to a particular topic, and lets you select from them
to download either another menu, or a specific file or resource.

Menu entries have a little icon next to them which is a representation of
their "item type." This tells Overbite how to translate the data, or if
translation should even be done. Overbite can handle or translate plain text
documents, gopher menus, BinHex or UUencoded files, ZIPped files, GIF, JPEG
and PNG images (along with many other image types), many sound and movie
file types and PDF and HTML documents. It can also facilitate you linking to
other resources, even web pages, from a Gopher menu, as well as connecting
to hosts via Telnet or using a search facility. If Overbite doesn't know what
type of resource it is, it will use a generic blank icon. You can hover your
pointer over an icon if you don't know what it means.

To select an option from the menu, simply click on it like any other link.

This is functionally similar to but technically different from the World Wide
Web in which the distinction between a document and a menu is blurred -- most
documents are both. In Gopherspace, few documents are "menu-ified" --
instead, you have a menu that you select a terminal document from, much as
you selected this particular document from the manual menu page. Some
resources like this one are actually virtual files served by a database that
to Overbite and to your client look just like any other file.

All Gopher sites have a "root" or main directory, just like your hard drive
would, and it generally is of similar importance. Sometimes it is more
complex to navigate back to where you were, or you may start in the middle
of a group of menus and want to go to the top.

Whenever you are *not* in the root, a "U-turn" icon will always appear at
the top right which you can click to immediately go to the "root" menu for
the server you are accessing. This only appears on menus, but a button for
this feature also appears on terminal documents.

Certain servers that support the CAPS convention also allow you to move up
to the parent menu directly. This "up" icon only appears on menus, but a
button for this feature also appears on terminal documents. If the server
does not support CAPS, the button will either disappear or take you to
the root menu.

You can also enter the root URL in the location bar. This will always be
gopher:// followed by simply the host name (and the port number, if it is
not the default 70). For example, this server's root is

       gopher://gopher.floodgap.com

When you are in a menu, the relevant portion of the URL will also be displayed
at the top left.

--- Inline viewing ---

Some documents and images can be seen right from the menu so you don't have
to leave it. If the item has a + next to it on the left, you can click the
plus icon and Overbite will embed the document or image right into the menu.
The plus icon will become a - (minus), and you can click on that to hide it
again.

Documents take up about 1/3rd of your window's vertical size. You can scroll
through the document if it is too big to fit in the frame, or click the link
as usual to view the document by itself in your browser.

Images are automatically scaled to fit your window's horizontal size (after
they load). You can click on the image to view it by itself in your browser
and scroll or zoom as appropriate.

* If you use an extension that blocks JavaScript such as NoScript, this can
 interfere with inline viewing. See the troubleshooting portion of this
 manual for workarounds. You can still click on links normally to get around.

--- Searching and interacting with Gopher applications and CSO/ph ---

Some Gopher sites will request information from you, such as search engines or
dynamic toolkits. A menu item that needs information from you will appear with
a magnifying glass icon.

The magnifying glass icon is also displayed for menu items that connect to a
CSO system, such as a phonebook application or directory.

When you select such an item, a requester will appear asking you for parameters
to send to the service, such as keywords or arguments for the remote
application. Enter these keywords as appropriate for your purpose. Your
request will be sent in the clear. If you do not want to send the parameters,
click Cancel to abort the request.

CSO/ph/qi searches are only supported as queries, and are turned into requests
with the template ``query [your parameters] return all''. Usually ``[your
parameters]'' are search keywords. However, if you want to specify your
request exactly and precisely, if your parameters start with ``query'' followed
by a space then Overbite will assume you are giving an explicit query and will
pass it verbatim except to close the connection at the end with ``quit''. You
are responsible for making sure that your query is valid, and all queries are
sent in the clear. Overbite does not currently support sending authentication
information.

Search servers can also be "inlined," in which case a form appears you can
type in. Simply type and press RETURN to send information to the server.

--- Web URLs ---

Overbite supports the hURL: and GET methods of designating non-Gopher URLs.
These become links to the URL specified, which is usually a Web page. These
menu items appear with a globe icon, and should be treated like any other web
link. Like any web link, if you hover your pointer over it, you can see where
it connects in the status line at the bottom of your browser window.

Overbite, for your safety, will suppress hURLs that attempt to perform
certain unsafe operations. However, like any web site, you should only
connect to links that you trust or expect.

Occasionally a site may use a hURL as a springboard in a direct link. This
practise is potentially unsafe and is not encouraged. To ensure you are not
redirected to a site you do not trust, you are asked to confirm any directly
linked hURLs before proceeding to the site the hURL references.

--- Telnet and TN3270 ---

Some menu items may be connections to a remote host using Telnet or a similar
protocol. These items appear with a small computer icon as their item type.
Overbite does not manage or make these connections. Your browser may need to
be configured to enable use of a Telnet client, such as Microsoft Telnet or
Mac OS X's Terminal.app. Refer to your documentation.


Enjoy Gopherspace!

