how to submit multi-line long form text to gemini?

[Mansfield]

(Sorry I'm late in responding to this.)

I also care quite a bit about supporting non-technical users - especially
in helping them manage their own content.

I've shared some thoughts in-line below.

On Fri, Jul 9, 2021 at 6:05 AM David Messer <davx8342@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hey folks,
>
> I've literally been in a whirlwind of joy for a couple of days now after
> stumbling on a Gemini link on the Monome Norns forum. I love the
> minimalism, I love the simplicity, and it started me thinking about what I
> could do with Gemini.
>
> I've been looking at ideas for community projects but the thing about that
> is I need a means for non-technical users to be able to contribute.
>

For me, I wanted a single download/install - a single client that could
read *and* write. I kept my client super simple though... both to ease
implementation and to try to keep with the ethos of Gemini.


> Am I correct in saying that as it stands there is no built-in way for
> users to submit content via a multi-line free text field and that it
> completely relies on secondary means to get content onto the system running
> the Gemini server?
>

There is no officially supported status code to request anything other than
a single line of input shorter than 1024 characters.

The client I wrote added a status code that allowed for the server to
supply the entire page to the client and set up accepting an entire page as
part of a request sent from a client. I've sent several emails in this
group that talk through the details of an implementation. My server
conforms to the implementation and the client I wrote also supports it. Of
course you're welcome to write your own client that conformed to the
details of my experiment - it could be interesting to see if that worked.


> I've seen some suggestions on the mailing list that include using a http
> frontend to submit content, emailing in content, etc. All of which are
> valid use cases. To me, that's just adding complexity which is what I'm
> trying to get away from with Gemini.
>

Yeah - completely defeats the purpose IMO.


> I had a very brief look at titan and inimeg but I don't think either of
> those is capable of allowing users to type longform text into a multi-line
> free text box.
>
> Has anyone else tried this or found a good way of achieving this?
>

Feel free to check out the client I wrote: https://ondollo.com/mansfield


> The thought occurred to me that using INPUT I could implement an edlin
> style text editor but I thought I'd sound this out before committing to
> that level of self-harm!
>

Interesting idea - feel free to do what you might want to have done or what
you might enjoy doing... but it seems like you wouldn't enjoy that! ;-)


> Will finish off by just complimenting you on the quality of the discussion
> here. I've been reading through quite a bit of the mailing list archive and
> it's striking how super nice everyone is. What an amazing community you
> have!
>
> Thanks.
>
> davx
>

Welcome to the group!