# Twin Peaks
Over the weekend I wanted something to do so I made a graphical Gemini client.
=> https://github.com/InvisibleUp/twinpeaks/releases
It was just something I threw together in C# (because C# is the easiest thing
to throw GUI stuff together with). But it's still pretty neat. Almost. There
was this one bug with the RichTextEdit box that has the output. With it, hyper-
links only work *sometimes* unless the hyperlink text is equal to the URL. So,
whatever. I'll probably replace that with an HTML view or something. Whatever
works.
It was surprising how easy that was to put together. You just make an SSL
connection (again, surprisingly easy; i thought that would have been a nightmare
of grueling proportions but nah, just a few function calls!), and then you get
text. Then you parse the first line, do stuff with that, and then format the
rest of the document all pretty-like. And tada! It's a working Gemini client.
There are a few more features I want to add to this. Proper link display, for
one. But also, customization options. Custom homepages, colors, etc. And also
support for additional protocols, like Gopher, or opening webpages externally.
And support for file formats besides text/gemini. But really, for something I
made in 2 days, this is completely and absolutely usable. And that's amazing.
Try doing that with HTTP.
On a semi-related note, welcome back Somnolescent to the Gopher-sphere.
=> gopher://gopher.somnolescent.net
I really like your gopherhole, not gonna lie. It has a lot of content on it.
And a search box! Our Gemini... capsule? has a lot of stuff on it too, but we
are, first and foremost, a bunch of HTML jockeys, so naturally our text-based
web presence is going to be a little lacking.
One thing that mildly irks me about the text-based small web is that there's
this sort of implicit understanding that the only true content is text content.
And, like, no. There's some really cool artsy stuff that *needs* more than just
plain text to express. Here's one:
=> https://roseknight.org
I like Gemini, a lot. It's Gopher, but much much better. It's less jank, it has
error codes and MIME types and SSL and all that good stuff. But, inherently, it
IS still just text. And that's fine... if you primarily deal with text. But once
you start introducing graphics into a system, a two-day weekend job starts to
take much, much longer. CSS started with the purest of intentions, and now look
at where it's at.
I don't know how to solve this problem. I'm not sure if this problem even should
be solved. I guess it's just something I'm thinking about...
gemini://park-city.club:1965/~invis/phlog/023-twin-peaks.txt