mcross 0.5.5

Do you remember www?

McRoss is a minimal and usable gemini:// browser written in python and tkinter, meaning it Just Works (tm) on any self-respecting desktop OS: Linux, Windows, Mac OS, and maybe the BSDs? Never tried one of those.

It currently looks like this:

Or check out the demo video: https://junk.imnhan.com/mcross.mp4

Surfing plaintext and gemini content is already working well. See feature checklist below for more details.

Installation

pip install mcross
mcross

Better distribution methods to be explored later. Maybe it's finally time to try nuitka?

Development

Deps:

• python3.7+
• idlelib (it's supposed to be in the standard lib but Ubuntu for example splits it into a separate package)
• curio - for async I/O so that it doesn't block the UI.

To get started:

pyenv install 3.7.7
pyenv virtualenv 3.7.7 mcross
pyenv activate
poetry install
mcross

# to publish, first bump version in pyproject.toml then
poetry publish --build

Feature checklist

• back-forward buttons
• handle redirects
• non-blocking I/O using curio
• more visual indicators: waiting cursor, status bar
• parse gemini's advanced line types
• properly handle mime types (gemini/plaintext/binary)
• configurable document styling
• configurable TLS to accomodate self-signed sites?
• human-friendly distribution

Long term high-level goals:

Easy for end users to install

If the words cargo build exists in the installation guide for your G U I application then I'm sorry it's not software made for people to use.

What-you-see-is-what-you-write

A rendered text/gemini viewport should preserve its original text content. This way once you've read a gemini page on the browser, you already know how to write one. No "View Source" necessary.

Responsive & pleasant to use

The Castor browser doesn't have visual indicators at all, for example, when clicking on a link it just appears to do nothing until the new page is completely loaded. That is A Bad Thing (tm).

Lightweight

In terms of both disk space & memory/cpu usage. It's completely unoptimized at the moment. Actually the way I'm hooking up tkinter and curio is... not ideal. See comments in controller.py for more info. TL;DR I'm prioritizing gui responsiveness and code simplicity, sacrificing a non-negligible amount of CPU cycles even at idle.

Server bugs/surprises

Forces gemini:// in request

Spec says protocol part is optional, but if I omit that one the server will respond with 53 No proxying to other hosts!.

Newline

Spec says a newline should be \r\n but the server running gemini.circumlunar.space just uses \n every time.