I have been enjoying the widespread 
discussion of the gopher protocol. I 
really don't have much to add to the 
discussion. I like plain text. In my 
first phlog entry, I mentioned that I 
enjoy the absence of hyperlinks. I like 
that the form of plain text documents 
makes no demand of me other than to 
follow the ideas and arguments of the 
author. I also quite enjoy the odd sense 
of solitude and quiet provided by the 
terminal, but I've written about that 
elsewhere too.

It was surprising to learn that I could 
be mimicking the essentials of gopher 
via the web. When Solderpunk mentioned 
it in his most recent phlog entry, I 
immediately created a couple of text 
files in a folder inside my html 
directory at www.circumlunar.space, just 
to see how it would work. I knew about 
the automatically generated file lists 
produced by web servers, but I didn't 
realize that the .txt file extension 
would allow me to serve text files. That 
may change the way I use my web space 
completely.

       *          *          *

I have an Android phone that I use as a 
small tablet when I'm at home. For the 
last few months, I have been using 
Diggie Dog as my Gopher Client. But a 
few days ago, I decided to try out 
Pocket Gopher, only to discover that 
there was a bug in the current version 
at F-Droid (1.2.5) that prevents it from 
installing correctly. The previous 
version (1.2.4) does work. Meanwhile, a 
user at Github, Low012, has forked the 
app, fixed the bug, and submitted a pull 
request, but his fix -- which was 
submitted two months ago -- has not been 
adopted yet. So I decided to download 
the source code and build Low012's 
version 1.2.5.

Then.... once I had the app open in 
Android Studio, I thought, I'd really 
like to make some changes.... 

One thing that I didn't like was the 
bookmark font size, which was rather 
large. So I reduced it. I also thought 
that I might change the colour scheme. 
There was a webOS app called 'Forums' 
that I used to use all the time years 
ago. I really liked its design, so I 
found the base colour used in that app 
and re-styled Pocket Gopher in an homage 
to Forums. Lastly, I decided to change 
the app icon, which is a rather generic 
android robot, to Solderpunk's Port 70 
sticker design, which I really like (I 
wrote to Solderpunk for permission). I 
think the result is quite nice, but your 
tastes may differ.

I don't consider the changes to 
constitute a fork, although I may fork 
the app in the future to provide myself 
with an easy way to integrate any 
updates. But really, it's just a 
restyled version of Pocket Gopher. The 
app is licensed under the "unlicense," 
which permits the modification and 
redistribution of the binary and/or the 
source code, so I've put it in a GMX 
share for anyone who wants to use it. 
You can find it at:

https://c.gmx.com/@562929122364364709/uG3QwCi2Rjy76LetnlBPgQ

The folder password is: gopher

If you install the app, be aware that it 
will overwrite your existing Pocket 
Gopher bookmark file and you'll lose 
your bookmarks. If your device is 
rooted, you can save the file elsewhere 
and then restore it afterward. It is 
located at:

/data/data/com.gmail.afonsotrepa.pocketgopher/files/bookmarks

It's just a text file, so it's also 
handy to know the location so that you 
can edit the file to reorganize your 
bookmarks.