PC Gopher User Manual Version 1.23 2 October 1991 Microcomputer & Workstation Networks Center University of Minnesota Room 125 Shepherd Labs 100 Union St. SE Minneapolis, MN 55455 (C) 1991 University of Minnesota I. INTRODUCTION This manual describes PC Gopher, a program for IBM and compatible microcomputers that run the MS-DOS operating system. PC Gopher is a program that lets you search for and retrieve information stored on other computers, known as Gopher Servers. PC Gopher uses the standard IBM character set to emulate a graphical user interface (GUI). For this reason, PC Gopher runs on a wide range of IBM PCs and compatibles, including the earliest PCs which contained a monochrome display adapter (with no graphics support). In other words, PC Gopher does not require that you install a special graphics display adapter in your computer. With a GUI, you interact with the program by responding to graphical symbols which appear on the computer screen, rather than by issuing single line commands (as with the MS-DOS operating system). Because of its graphical user interface, PC Gopher is largely self-explanatory. If you are familiar with the GUI in Microsoft Windows or the Apple Macintosh operating system, you will be able to run PC Gopher without much help from this manual. We allow free distribution of PC Gopher to all interested parties as long as our copyright notices are not altered or removed and you do not charge others for distribution of our software. Help! If you run into difficulties installing or using PC Gopher, or have bug reports, suggestions, or general comments, you can send E-mail to us at: gopher@boombox.micro.umn.edu or if you prefer paper mail: PC Gopher Project Microcomputer & Workstation Networks Center University of Minnesota Room 125 Shepherd Labs 100 Union St. SE Minneapolis, MN 55455 U.S.A. In all of your correspondence pertaining to PC Gopher, please indicate: - your PC Gopher version number; and - your operating system and version number (e.g., DOS 3.2). Background and Philosophy Individuals and departments at the University of Minnesota need fast access to large amounts of information. Additionally, the departments responsible for this information need a fast and simple way to make information available. The Gopher Project was started in reponse to these needs; PC Gopher will allow you to navigate through a universe of information provided by other computers, known as Gopher Servers. Information is distributed amongst the Gopher Servers, but you don't need to know anything about where the information is. Once the PC Gopher program has connected to one Gopher Server, you will be able to browse through information on any additional Gopher Servers that the first server knows about. Information is presented in the form of lists of items; items can be files, directories (somewhat like DOS directories) containing other directories or files, or Index Servers, computers that will perform searches for files containing text that you specify. Once you've found a file containing the information you need, PC Gopher can display the file in a window; it can also save it as a text file for you to view or edit with the word processor of your choice. II. THE PC GOPHER USER INTERFACE The Gopher Window The PC Gopher screen consists of a window which displays a moveable list of items for you to choose from. The list can be scrolled up and down by clicking on the up or down arrows on the right side of the list, or by using the arrow keys. The currently selected item is indicated by highlighting; the text and background colors of the currently selected item are colored differently than the rest of the list, or are shown in inverse video on a monochrome monitor. Buttons The window also contains buttons; these are rectangular areas of the screen which will respond to a mouse click by performing some action. Buttons can also be operated by repeatedly hitting the key until the button is highlighted, and then hitting the key. Dialog Boxes Dialog boxes allow the PC Gopher program to ask you for information. When you chose an Index Server (explained below) from the list of items, a dialog box will pop up to allow you to enter the text to search for. If you type in more text than will fit within the dialog box, the text will scroll automatically. The Menu Bar The very top line of the computer screen contains PC Gopher's menu bar with three menu labels. The menu bar looks like this: # File Window Options The menu bar is the primary mechanism you use to communicate with the PC Gopher program. The menus have pull-down labels; that is, when you select a title in the menu bar, a list of specific commands are dropped down from the menu label and displayed in a list. If one of the commands in a pull-down menu is followed by three periods (...), choosing that command will display a modal dialog box (explained later in this section). If a command in a pull-down menu is not followed by three periods, this means th at once you choose it, the indicated action will occur immediately. You can use either a mouse or keyboard to select commands. To use a mouse, click on the desired menu title to display the pull-down menu. (Use only the left mouse button if your mouse has more than one button). Then click the desired command. Alternatively, you can push the mouse button down over a menu title and then continue to hold the mouse button down while you drag straight down from the menu title to the desired menu command, and then release the mouse button. If you decide not to choose a comman d, just drag out of the boundaries of the pull-down menu and no action will be performed. To choose menu commands using the keyboard, first pull down the menu. You do this by pressing the F10 key to make the menu bar active. (When the menu bar is active, one menu title is highlighted.) If the menu title you want is not the one currently highlighted, use the arrow keys to move to the right or left along the menu bar, until the menu title you want to select appears highlighted. (Alternatively, you can just type the first letter of the menu title.) Then press the key. This will cause t he menu to pull down. There is a hot-key alternative method to pull-down a menu. Hold the Alt key down while typing the letter corresponding to the first letter of the menu title you want (e.g., type Alt-F to pull down the File menu). The hot key to pull-down the # menu (called the system menu) is Alt-Spacebar. Once the menu you want is pulled down, use the up and down arrow keys to highlight the command you want. Then press to choose (perform) the highlighted command. (As a shortcut: press the key corresponding to the highlighted letter of the desired command in order to choose that command.) Once you select a menu command, PC Gopher will do one of two things: carry out the command directly or display a modal dialog box. The Status Bar PC Gopher's status bar is located across the bottom line of the screen. The status bar looks like this: F10 Menus Alt-X Exit Alt-G New Gopher Alt-F3 Close The status bar contains hot spots. Hot spots are located wherever words occur in the status bar. For example, "Alt-G New Gopher" constitutes one hot spot. Hot spots are separated from each other by more than one space. When you click on a hot spot with a mouse, the indicated function will occur. For example, when you click on the words "Alt-G New Gopher", PC Gopher will open a new Gopher window, and when you click on the words "Alt-X Exit", PC Gopher will shut down and return you to the DOS prompt. To activate a hot spot without using a mouse, you type a hot-key. For example, if you hold down the Alt key and press the F3 function key, PC Gopher will close the frontmost window. Menu Structure The individual items under the pull-down menus are organized as follows. Highlighted letters (shown here as capital letters) are used to perform the various short-cuts described in the previous section and elsewhere in this manual. Note that the key (capital) letter associated with each command is not always the first letter of the command). In addition, some menu commands are considered to be so important that they can be activated with a keyboard alternative. These keys are also shown below. The Preferences menu has a submenu listing user-configurable preferences; this submenu works the same way that the other menus do. Menu Title Commands Keyboard Alternative ---------- -------- -------------------- # About... Calculator Calendar Puzzle DOS Shell File New gopher Alt-G Save... Alt-S Exit Alt-X Window Next F6 Zoom F5 Move Ctrl-F5 Close Alt-F3 Options Configure... Alt-C Preferences > Mouse... Video Mode Windows PC Gopher uses windows to display information. There are two different types of windows in PC Gopher; the Gopher window, which displays lists of items for you to choose from, and the file display window, which displays the contents of a file that you've chosen. Both windows can be positioned anywhere on the screen, with the mouse or the keyboard. To move a window with the mouse, position the cursor over the title bar of the window (the horizontal line marking the window's top edge), then press and hold the mouse button as you move the mouse. To move a window with the keyboard, type Ctrl-F5, and use the arrow keys to move the window around the screen. In the upper left-hand corner of each window is a small rectangle enclosed in square brackets. This is the window's close box; clicking with the mouse in the close box will close the window. To close a window using the keyboard, type "Alt-F3". In addition to these capabilities, the file display window can be resized. To resize the window with the mouse, position the cursor in the lower right-hand corner, press the mouse button, and move the mouse. To resize the window from the keyboard, type "Ctrl-F5" (just like you did to move the window), hold the shift key down, and use the arrow keys. III. PC GOPHER INSTALLATION System Requirements To run PC Gopher, your microcomputer must be connected to a local area network (LAN). Usually, the LAN will be connected to the campus backbone network, allowing you to find information located on Gopher servers outside of your network. For your microcomputer to operate on the LAN, you must have a network adapter card installed. In order to run PC Gopher, your network adapter card must be one supported by the Clarkson packet drivers, mentioned in the "Configuring PC Gopher" section below. (For a list of network adapter cards currently supported by the Clarkson Packet Drivers, please consult our accompanying documentation entitled "Installing the Clarkson Packet Drivers".) PC Gopher runs under DOS version 3.0 or greater and requires 640K of RAM. PC Gopher was designed to run on a wide range of IBM PCs and compatibles, including the earliest PCs which contained only a monochrome display adapter (no graphics support). A Microsoft-compatible mouse is helpful but optional. You must load mouse driver software into your system before running PC Gopher. Note also that if your mouse contains more than one mouse button, you will be using only the left mouse button when running PC Gopher. How to Obtain PC Gopher PC Gopher software consists of two components: a Clarkson Packet driver (matched to your microcomputer's network adapter card), and the PC Gopher program (GOPHER.EXE) itself. All the software components may be obtained on the internet through anonymous FTP from boombox.micro.umn.edu (IP address 128.101.95.95). Look in the UNIX directory called /pub//pub/gopher/PC_client and get the latest available version. Loading PC Gopher and the Clarkson Packet Driver Each Clarkson packet driver is a specialized piece of software designed to talk to a specific type of network adapter card. In order to run PC Gopher, the appropriate Clarkson packet driver must be loaded into RAM (random-access memory) each time you start up your computer. To do this, you first run the appropriate packet driver by typing the packet driver name, followed by the necessary parameters, as described in our accompanying documentation entitled "Installing the Clarkson Packet Drivers". If you'd like the packet driver to load automatically whenever you start up your computer, you can add the packet driver command and parameters to your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. After you have installed the appropriate packet driver, copy the GOPHER.EXE file into a directory on your hard disk. For example, suppose you have a 3Com 3c523 ethernet card installed in your PC. The following two command lines represent an example of the steps needed to load the packet driver and start PC Gopher (of course, the specific packet driver and parameters will depend on your configuration). Type each line following the command prompt and end each line by pressing the key: 3C523 0x60 0x3 0x300 GOPHER At this point you are running PC Gopher. As long as you do not turn the power off to your computer, you can quit PC Gopher and do other things and then start PC Gopher again without re-loading the packet driver. Also if you already have the packet driver loaded for other programs like FTP, Telnet, or tn3270, you do not need to re-load the packet driver before running PC Gopher. Configuring PC Gopher When you use PC Gopher for the first time, you need to enter some configuration information specific to your microcomputer. PC Gopher needs these configuration parameters in order to identify your computer on the network. When you run the program for the first time, PC Gopher will display a "Configure" dialog box, allowing you to enter the required parameters. You must enter all of the parameters, according to the instructions which follow. (Consult your network administrator for the correct parameter information .) You will not need to enter parameter information during subsequent PC Gopher sessions, because PC Gopher will save the parameters you have entered. You can modify your configuration settings at any time by selecting Configure from the Options pull-down menu. Initially, the Gopher Server line will contain the name of our main Gopher Server. Since this line is already selected, you can simply type in the name of the Gopher Server you wish to use. To enter or edit any of the parameters in the Configure dialog box, use the key (or Up and Down arrow keys) to advance to the appropriate parameter field. Then enter the appropriate parameter information. Some of the parameters can be left unchanged if your network has access to a BOOTP server; these parameters are indicated below. To use BOOTP, check the "Use BOOTP" option box (to check an option box with the keyboard, select it with the key, and then hit the spacebar). If you use BOOTP, you may still specify your own parameters; PC Gopher will use whatever addressing information you specify, and will use BOOTP to get the addresses that you leave set to '0.0.0.0'. A brief description of each of the parameters follows: Gopher Server This is the name of any gopher server on campus. Your department may be running its own gopher server; if not, you are welcome to use our server, which goes by the name of : gopher.micro.umn.edu PC Gopher will attempt to connect to this server when you issue a "New Gopher" command. Your explorations are not restricted to information stroed on this particular server, but you will always start off here. Port Number This is the port number that PC Gopher will use to attempt to connect to the gopher server named above. Currently, gopher servers use port 150 for connections. Name Server IP Address A name server converts a gopher server name into an IP address. You type in the IP address of your nameserver in this parameter field (see your network administrator for the value to enter). If you are using BOOTP, you don't need to change this field; it can remain "0.0.0.0". Gateway IP Address A gateway is a device which gives your computer access to the outside world, by transferring information from one type of network to another. If you want to use PC Gopher to look at information on servers beyond your local area network (LAN), you must specify the IP address of your gateway. Contact your network administrator for the IP address of the gateway accessible to your LAN. If you are using BOOTP, you don't need to change this field; it can remain "0.0.0.0". Microcomputer IP address This is the IP address of your individual microcomputer or workstation. See your network administrator for a microcomputer IP address assignment. If you are using BOOTP, you don't need to change this field; it can remain "0.0.0.0". Net Mask The net mask parameter has to do with how your local area network is configured and connected to the backbone network at your work site. See your network administrator for the correct value to enter here. Most sites are configured to use a net mask of 255.255.255.0 (the default value). If you are using BOOTP, you don't need to change this field; it can remain "0.0.0.0". I/O Timeout (sec) This parameter sets the maximum time allowed for PC Gopher to send and receive data from your computer to the gopher server. With the default value of 10 seconds, PC Gopher will wait 10 seconds for a response from the gopher server. If a response does not come through within 10 seconds, PC Gopher will present an error message at the bottom of the Gopher window and abort the operation in progress. If a gopher server is slow and frequently times out, you may need to increase this parameter value. Connect Timeout (sec) When PC Gopher attempts to connect to a gopher server, this parameter sets the maximum number of seconds it will wait for the gopher server to acknowledge your attempt to connect. The default value of 5 seconds is sufficient for most gopher servers. If an error message is displayed stating "can't connect" when trying to connect to a server, try increasing this value. Name Lookup Timeout (sec) This parameter sets the maximum number of seconds allowed for the domain name server on the network to convert a gopher server name to an IP address. The default value is set to 5 seconds. If an error message is displayed stating "can't get IP address" when trying to connect to a gopher server, try increasing this value. When you have finished entering the parameters, click on the Ok button to have PC Gopher save your changes to the configuration. If you decide you don't want your parameter changes to be saved, click on the Cancel button. Alternate Configuration Files You may specify the use of an alternate configuration file for PC Gopher to use; this will allow you to save different configurations and use the appropriate one. To specify the configuration file, start PC Gopher by typing the FULL PATH AND FILENAME after the name of the program. For example, to run PC Gopher and use the configuration file "MYFILE.CFG" in the directory "\HOOPY" on the C: drive, you would start the program like this: GOPHER C:\HOOPY\MYFILE.CFG If you don't specify a configuration file, PC Gopher will attempt to use CONFIG.IGP in the current directory; if the file doesn't exist, PC Gopher will create it and then open the Configuration window to allow you to change the default settings. IV. USING PC GOPHER Once you have configured your PC Gopher program, you are ready to start exploring the Gopher universe. The Gopher universe is made up of many different computers, all acting as Gopher Servers. However, you don't need to know anything about how these computers work, where they are, or how to connect to them; PC Gopher handles all of these details for you. To start exploring, choose "New Gopher" from the File menu, or click on the words "Alt-G New Gopher" on the status line (if you'd rather use the keyboard, type Alt-G). PC Gopher will open a Gopher window, and attempt to connect to the server that you specified in the configuration dialog box. If the attempt is successful, PC Gopher will retrieve a list of the items that the server knows about. The list will look something like this: About Internet Gopher Administrative Information Official Daily Bulletin Search Administrative Policies Files The first character of each line indicates whether the line refers to a file, a subdirectory, or an index server. In the above example, line one refers to a file called "About Internet Gopher"; we know that it's a file because the line begins with . To see the contents of this file, double-click (click twice in rapid succession) the mouse button while the cursor is anywhere on line one (or select line one with the arrow keys, and hit the key). PC Gopher will attempt to retrieve the information in the file, and display it in a separate window. If the file is too l arge for PC Gopher to fit into available memory, it will put up a dialog box requesting that you specify a filename and directory to save the file in. You can then open the file with your favorite word processor to see the contents. You may also choose to save the information that you get back as a file, even if it is small enough for PC Gopher to display immediately in a window. Just choose "Save As..." from the File menu, and enter the filename and directory that you want to save the file in. Hypertext The window that PC Gopher uses to display a file can be used to initiate searches for other files. To search for files containing a particular word, double-click on the word in the file display window; PC Gopher will return a list of all of the files it could find that contain that word. For example, if the file display window contained "The Microcomputer Center has information about Macintosh, IBM, and Zeos personal computers and software." and you wanted to find files containing references to Zeos, you would double-click on the word Zeos. In order to use the Hypertext feature of PC Gopher, you must have a mouse. If you don't have a mouse, you can still search for files containing text that you specify by using an Index Server (explained below). Directories Directories are like folders or drawers full of files or other directories. When PC Gopher first connects to the Gopher Server that you specify as your starting point, the list that you get back shows the contents of the main or "root" directory of that server. The at the beginning of the second line indicates that it refers to a subdirectory. This subdirectory is called "Administrative Information", and may contain more files, subdirectories, and Index Servers. To see the contents of the subdirectory, double-click on line two, or use the arrow keys to select line two, and hit . PC Gopher will request a list of the contents of the subdirectory that you selected, and will present this list in the Gopher window. PC Gopher keeps track of the directories that you have traversed, and will allow you to "back up" to previous directories by using the "Back" button. To back up, you can either click once on the "Back" button, or select the button with the key, and then hit . In the above example, if you clicked on the "Back" button, PC Gopher would return you to the root directory, and display the original list of items. Index Servers Lines that begin with a indicate that the line refers to an Index Server. An Index Server is a computer that can search various Gopher Servers for files containing text that you specify. If you select an index server, a dialog box will pop up for you to enter your search text in. To start the search, click on the "Search" button (or just hit the key). The index server returns a list of files that it knows about that contain ALL of the text that you enter in the input box. If you entered the word "salmon", the Index Server would return a list of all of the files containing that word. If you entered "salmon spinach", the Index Server will return a list of files that contain both the word "salmon" and the word "spinach"; it would NOT return the names of files that had only one of the two words. Logical Operators Logical operators are special words that allow you to set up specific search conditions. The logical operators "and", "or", and "not" are supported by index servers. You can use one or more of these operators to narrow the field of your search. For example, suppose you want to find files that contain the word "salmon" or the word "spinach", but not both. You can do this by entering "salmon or spinach" in the input box. You can also use the word "and" to explicitly indicate that the files you're searching for must contain both words; this allows you to set up specific search conditions by using multiple logical operators. Logical operators are evaluated in right-to-left order; the search pattern "spinach and salmon or broccoli" would result in a list of files that contained the word spinach and the word salmon, or just the word broccoli. To exclude words from the search pattern, use "not". The search phrase "macintosh not hypercard" would produce a list of files containing at least one reference to macintosh, and no references to hypercard. You can substitute the | character for the operator "or", and the & character for the operator "and". V. SUMMARY Other Gopher Software In addition to PC Gopher, Macintosh and NeXT versions of the Gopher program exists; PC Gopher's user interface mirrors the Macintosh Gopher user interface. This consistency helps simplify training for departments that have mixed computing environments. Gopher Server software is also available for the Macintosh. If you or your department would like to set up a Gopher Server to distribute information, we would be happy to help you. If you want to discuss PC Gopher, call or visit the Microcomputer HelpLine. If you visit the HelpLine, our consultants can demonstrate PC Gopher for you. Acknowledgments We wish to extend our thanks to Borland International of Scotts Valley, California, for continued excellence in the enhancement of their Turbo Pascal product. We developed PC Gopher using Borland's TurboVision, an object-oriented library of special-purpose routines provided with Borland's newest release of Turbo Pascal, Version 6.0. For the use of the Clarkson Packet Drivers, the foundation on which our network products are based, we gratefully acknowledge Clarkson College of Potsdam, New York. .