Link formatting tests
I’m considering tweaking the link layout/format generated by
my Asciidoctor text converter. Here’s a few options.
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Option 1. Inline links
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I’ve seen this style on one Gopher hole, and I found it
quite interesting.
DIR This is a test of ›inline links‹. Here's
DIR ›another link‹. It starts on another line because Gopher
can't do two links on a single line.
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Option 2. Semi-inline links
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This is a variation of option 1, placing each link on a line
of its own.
This is a test of
DIR semi-inline links
. Here's
DIR another link
.
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Option 3. References with links below paragraph
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I’ve seen this on one Gopher hole. It’s pretty nice too.
This is a test of link references[1] with links below the
paragraph. Here's another link reference[2].
DIR [1]
DIR [2]
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Option 4. References with links at end of page
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This is a test of link references[1] with links at the end
of the page. Here’s another link reference[2].
All links are under <<References>> at the end of the page.
* * *
Currently pages are converted using option 4.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
NOTE : The converter doesn’t currently create actual
: Gopher links but a plain text list of URLs (I’m
: manually formatting all links on this page for
: demonstration purposes). This is because I
: initially wrote the converter to generate plain
: text files. I’m looking into generating a gopher
: map (using the plain text converter as a base)
: which shouldn’t be too difficult.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Option 1 looks nice, but it may be a challenge to implement
(with proper indentation and line-wrapping, especially when
there are two or more links in a line).
Option 2 looks so-so, and it may also be a challenge
(similar issues as option 1). The reward:effort ratio of
this option looks too low to me.
Option 3 still looks nice (almost as nice as option 1 or
nicer in some ways, and definitely nicer than option 2) and
should be fairly easy to implement. In fact it’s probably a
small tweak to the current link formatting (option 4).
In option 3 and 4 each link in the list may also include the
URL like so:
DIR [1] gopher://asciz.com:70/1/projects/gopher/tests/link-formatting
DIR [2] gopher://asciz.com:70/1/projects/gopher/tests
Or they may include the link text like so:
DIR [1] link references
DIR [2] another link reference
Then again, I’m kind of leaning against formatting documents
as gopher menus. My menus so far (except for this one) are
all basic lists of links (i.e., the sort of thing you expect
to see in Gopher) with some info text above/below some of
the links and some headings and ASCII art sprinkled in, so I
may just leave my converter alone (of course, even in plain
text files I can still move reference lists to below the
paragraphs links appear in, as in option 3, and I might do
that).
In my menus I currently use passthrough blocks to insert GPH
links (I’m using the geomyidae GPH gopher map format), and
they are easy enough to maintain. A passthrough block looks
something like this:
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
++++
[1|Link to current page|.|server|port]
[1|Home||server|port]
++++
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
A passthrough block makes sense because it’s intended to
pass through whatever is inside it uninterpreted to the
generated output, which is what we want.
That block produces Gopher links like this (after it passes
through the GPH filter):
DIR Link to current page
DIR Home
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References
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(NB. This is for option 3.)
DIR [1]
DIR [2]