Molasses is a multi-tabbed browser for the "slow" internet, including Gopher and Gemini. The name comes from an expression in American English, "Slow as molasses!" Molasses's design goals are:
- Done Support easy keyboard navigation of Gopher menus similar to Lynx.
- Done Support multiple tabs similar to modern web browsers.
- Done View images within the application(JPEG, PNG, and GIF are supported).
- Done Download binary files not viewable within Molasses.
- Done Separate browsing history for each tab and back button.
- Done Bookmarks
- Done Open HTTP URLs (in Gopher, selectors starting with "GET /" or "URL:") in external browser.
- Allow optional TLS connections for Gopher.
- Done Gemini protocol support.
- Done Simple inline HTML viewing without using an external application.
- Done Give option to open 'd' and 'P' item types in external application.
Molasses is a Racket GUI application, which means it will run on Windows, MacOS, and Linux. If Racket is already installed on a system, Molasses can be installed from the official Racket package catalog. Just run raco setup molasses. Installing the package will also install the necessary dependencies, including #lang magic, another of my projects.
Racket can be downloaded from The Racket Homepage
Binary executables which include the Racket runtime are available in the Releases section.
Gopher menu navigation is based on Lynx and consists of the following commands:
- Up and Down arrows move the selection between menu items.
- Right arrow or Return follows the currently selected menu item link. Left mouse click also follows links/menu items.
- Left arrow goes back to the previous page. There is also a back button on the Toolbar.
- Page Up/Down scrolls the page without changing the selection, as does the mouse scroll wheel.
- In text files, as opposed to Gopher menus, Up and Down arrows scroll the page line-by-line.
Tabs are saved by default and restored in the next session.
