With an old protocol comes new jargon, some of which might trip you up at first even if you're an avid Web user. Thankfully, Gopher is nothing to fear once you're acquainted to it; many of its concepts (such as selectors) have a direct counterpart in webpages (in this case, links). Still, if you need a reference, I've got you covered.
- Globbing
- A feature supported by some modern Gopher servers where a wildcard can be used as a selector, meant to make listing a large number of files in a menu far easier.
- Gopher
- A document retrieval protocol developed at UMN in 1991. Intended to be a very simple, structured way to download files and bridge the gap between contemporary internet systems at the time such as FTP and CCSO, Gopher maintains a small but enthusiastic following today.
- Gopher+
- An enhanced version of the Gopher protocol that stores additional selector metadata that enhanced clients can read and tolerant basic Gopher clients can skip over. Gopher+ never gained much traction and I know of no clients or server packages in historical or common use.
- Gophermap
- A simplified format for writing Gopher menus, adopted by most modern Gopher servers. For ease of writing, a Gophermap allows the omission of some selector information, which the server will fill in when sending data to a client.
- gopherd, the original Gopher server software, used .link and .cap files to set information about selectors; Gophermaps have subsumed their functionality entirely.
- Jugtail
- A Gopher search engine that searches for text per-server. Originally named "Jughead" in keeping with the Archie theme, trademark issues necessitated the updated version to be redubbed Jugtail instead.
- Menu
- A list of selectors and the primary way of interacting with Gopher servers. Gopher menus are often written using gophermaps which are simpler and easier than the full menu syntax.
- Phlog
- A "Gopher log", analogous to blogs on the Web. Some users keep phlogs by way of manually updating a menu with dated text files or by writing software to make a blog's entries available as text files.
- Selector
- An item in a Gopher menu; less accurately, these are called "links". A selector can either be used to show plain text or point to a file, another menu, a remote Gopher server, or a remote server for another protocol, such as a CCSO or Telnet server.
- Veronica
- Another Gopherwide search engine; unlike Jugtail, Veronica cursorily searches the whole of Gopherspace rather than full-text through specific servers. Veronica is named to match Archie, the search system for FTP. While the original Veronica no longer exists, Veronica-2 is a reimplementation by Floodgap that's still actively maintained.
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The information I've provided above is provided as-is. Errors may be present. You can contact me at mariteaux@somnolescent.net for corrections.
Last updated 7/17/2020.