bombadillo(1)

okay bestie, welcome to bombadillo(1) 💖 the manual for a whole non-web browser that lives in your terminal and is genuinely giving main character energy. No cap, this thing is iconic.

✨ NAME ✨

• bombadillo — a non-web browser. That’s the whole vibe. 🦋

🌈 SYNOPSIS 🌈

bombadillo [options] [url]

💫 DESCRIPTION 💫

bombadillo is a non-web browser for the terminal. It features a full terminal user interface, vim-like keybindings, document pager, configurable settings, and a robust command selection. Like… it’s not just a browser, it’s a whole aesthetic. 💅

bombadillo supports the following protocols as first class citizens: gopher, gemini, finger, and local (a user’s file system). Support for telnet, http and https is also available via integration with third party applications.

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🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

• -h — Display usage help and exit. Provides a list of all command line options with a short description and exits. It’s giving “read the manual” but the manual is this. 🙈
• -t — Set the window title to 'Bombadillo'. Can be used in a GUI environment, however not all terminals support this feature. Lowkey fancy.
• -v — Display version information and exit. ✨

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🔥 PROTOCOL SUPPORT 🔥

All of the below protocols are supported. With the exception of gopher, the protocol name must be present as the scheme component of a url in the form of [protocol]://[the rest of the url].

• gopher — Gopher is the default protocol for bombadillo. Any textual item types will be visited and shown to the user and any non-text types will be downloaded. Type 7 (querying) is fully supported. As the default protocol, any url that is not prefixed with the scheme section of a url (gopher:// for example) will be treated as gopher urls.
• gemini — Gemini is supported, but as a new protocol with an incomplete specification, features may change over time. At present Bombadillo supports TLS with a trust on first use certificate pinning system (similar to SSH). Gemini maps and other text types are rendered in the browser and non-text types will be downloaded.
• finger — Basic support is provided for the finger protocol. The format is: finger://[[username@]][hostname]. Many servers still support finger and it can be fun to see if friends are online or read about the users whose phlogs you follow. 🫶
• local — Local is similar to the file protocol used in web browsers or the like, with a smaller set of features. Users can use the local scheme to view files on their local system. Directories are supported as viewable text object as well as any files. Wildcards and globbing are not supported. Using ~ to represent a user’s home directory, as well as relative paths, are supported. The color theme has no effect on this protocol and all terminal escape sequences will be rendered to the screen literally.
• telnet — Telnet is not supported directly, but addresses will be followed and opened as a subprocess by whatever telnet client a user sets in their settings (defaulting to telnet). In some cases this behavior may be buggy.
• http, https — Neither of the world wide web protocols are supported directly. bombadillo can be configured to open web links in a user’s default graphical web browser. It is also possible to display web content directly in bombadillo using lynx, w3m, or elinks terminal web browsers to render pages. Opening http/https links is opt-in only, controlled by the webmode setting.
  • Opening links in a default graphical web browser will only work in a GUI environment.
  • Displaying web content directly in bombadillo requires lynx, w3m or elinks terminal web browsers are installed on the system.

bestie, if you’re on a headless server, the graphical browser thing is not gonna happen. just saying. 💀

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👑 COMMANDS 👑

⌨️ KEY COMMANDS ⌨️

These commands work as a single keypress anytime bombadillo is not taking in a line based command or when the user is being prompted for action. This is the default command mode of bombadillo.

• b, h — Navigate back one place in your document history.
• B — Toggle the bookmarks panel open/closed.
• d — Scroll down an amount corresponding to 75% of your terminal window height in the current document.
• f, l — Navigate forward one place in your document history.
• g — Scroll to the top of the current document.
• G — Scroll to the bottom of the current document.
• j — Scroll down a single line in the current document.
• k — Scroll up a single line.
• n — Jump to next found text item.
• N — Jump to previous found text item.
• q — Quit bombadillo.
• R — Reload the current page (does not destroy forward history).
• 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0 — Quick navigation to the first 10 links on a page. The 0 key will navigate to the link numbered '10', all other numbers navigate to their matching link number.
• U — Move up a level in the current url path. /mydir/mysubdir/myfile.txt would become /mydir/mysubdir/, and so on.
• u — Scroll up an amount corresponding to 75% of your terminal window height in the current document.
• / — Search for text within current document. / followed by a text query will highlight and allow navigation of found text. / with an empty query will clear the current query.
• <tab> — Toggle the scroll focus between the bookmarks panel and the document panel. Only has an effect if the bookmarks panel is open.
• <spc> — Enter line command mode. Once a line command is input, the mode will automatically revert to key command mode.
• : — Alias for <spc>. Enter line command mode.

📝 LINE COMMANDS 📝

These commands are typed in by the user to perform an action of some sort. As listed in KEY COMMANDS, this mode is initiated by pressing : or <space>. The command names themselves are not case sensitive, though the arguments supplied to them may be.

• [url] — Navigates to the requested url.
• [link id] — Follows a link on the current document with the given number.
• add [url] [name...] — Adds the url as a bookmarks labeled by name. a can be used instead of the full add.
• add [link id] [name...] — Adds the url represented by the link id within the current document as a bookmark labeled by name. a can be used instead of the full add.
• add . [name...] — Adds the current document’s url as a bookmark labeled by name. a can be used instead of the full add.
• bookmarks — Toggles the bookmarks panel open/closed. Alias for KEY COMMAND B. b can be used instead of the full bookmarks.
• bookmarks [bookmark id] — Navigates to the url represented by the bookmark matching bookmark id. b can be entered, rather than the full bookmarks.
• check [link id] — Displays the url corresponding to a given link id for the current document. c can be used instead of the full check.
• check [setting name] — Displays the current value for a given configuration setting. c can be used instead of the full check.
• delete [bookmark id] — Deletes the bookmark matching the bookmark id. d can be used instead of the full delete.
• help — Navigates to the gopher based help page for bombadillo. ? can be used instead of the full help.
• home — Navigates to the document set by the homeurl setting. h can be entered, rather than the full home.
• jump — Navigates to the previous page in history from the current page. Useful for keeping the current page in your history while still browsing. j can be used instead of the full jump.
• jump [history location] — Navigates to the given history location. The history location should be an integer between 0 and 20. j can be used instead of the full jump.
• purge * — Deletes all pinned gemini server certificates. p can be used instead of the full purge.
• purge [host name] — Deletes the pinned gemini server certificate for the given hostname. p can be used instead of the full purge.
• quit — Quits bombadillo. Alias for KEY COMMAND q. q can be used instead of the full quit.
• reload — Requests the current document from the server again. This does not break forward history the way entering the url again would. r can be used instead of the full reload.
• search — Queries the user for search terms and submits a search to the search engine set by the searchengine setting.
• search [keywords...] — Submits a search to the search engine set by the searchengine setting, with the query being the provided keyword(s).
• set [setting name] [value] — Sets the value for a given configuration setting. s can be used instead of the full set.
• version — Shows the current Bombadillo version number.
• write . — Writes the current document to a file. The file is named by the last component of the url path. If the last component is blank or / a default name will be used. The file saves to the directory set by the savelocation setting. w can be entered rather than the full write.
• write [url] — Writes data from a given url to a file. The file is named by the last component of the url path. If the last component is blank or / a default name will be used. The file saves to the directory set by the savelocation setting. w can be entered rather than the full write.
• write [link id] — Writes data from a given link id in the current document to a file. The file is named by the last component of the url path. If the last component is blank or / a default name will be used. The file saves to the directory set by the savelocation setting. w can be entered rather than the full write.

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📁 FILES 📁

bombadillo keeps a hidden configuration file in a user’s XDG configuration directory. The file is a simplified ini file titled .bombadillo.ini. It is generated when a user first loads bombadillo and is updated with bookmarks and settings as a user adds them. The file can be directly edited, but it is best to use the SET command to update settings whenever possible. To return to the state of a fresh install, simply remove the file and a new one will be generated with the bombadillo defaults. On some systems an administrator may set the configuration file location to somewhere other than the default setting. If you do not see the file where you expect it, or if your settings are not being read, try :check configlocation to see where the file should be, or contact your system administrator for more information.

bestie, if your settings are acting haunted, :check configlocation is your bestie. 👑

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💖 configlocation 💖</p>

The path to the directory where the .bombadillo.ini config file lives, bestie. This one is read only — you literally cannot change it with the set command, so don't even try it. You can read it with the check command though. It's giving "look but don't touch". 👀

💖 defaultscheme 💖</p>

The scheme that gets used when a URL rolls up with no scheme on it at all. Valid values are gopher, gemini, http, and https. Pick your fave, she'll be the fallback queen. 👑

💖 geminiblocks 💖</p>

This one decides how we treat preformatted text blocks in text/gemini documents, and the options are:

• block — shows the contents of the block
• alt — shows any available alt text for the block
• both — shows both the content and the alt text
• neither — shows neither, periodt

Heads up bestie: unlike the other settings, changing this value needs a fresh page load before you'll actually see the change. No cap. 😭

💖 homeurl 💖</p>

The url bombadillo navigates to when the program loads, or whenever the home or h LINE COMMAND gets issued. It should be a valid url. And if there's no scheme/protocol in there? gopher gets assumed. Default behavior, iconic, we love her. 🏠

💖 maxwidth 💖</p>

The number of characters at which lines should be wrapped. If this number is bigger than the available terminal width, then the full width of the terminal gets used instead — she adapts, she's flexible. 💅 And if you hand her a non-integer or an integer less than 10? A default value gets used. Rude, but fair.

💖 savelocation 💖</p>

The path to the directory bombadillo should write files to. Requirements, and she is strict:

• it must be a valid filepath for the system
• it must be a directory
• it must already exist

No creating it on the fly, babe. She needs it to be there already. ✨

💖 searchengine 💖</p>

The url to use for the LINE COMMAND search. It should be a valid search path that terms may be appended to. So like, the terms go on the end. That's the whole vibe. 🔍

💖 telnetcommand 💖</p>

Tells the browser what command to use to start a telnet session. Should be a valid command, including any flags. And then — plot twist — the address being navigated to gets added to the end of that command. Cute. 📞

💖 theme 💖</p>

Can toggle between visual modes, and the valid values are normal, color, and inverse. Here's the tea:

• when set to inverse, the normal mode colors are inverted 🔄
• both normal and inverse modes filter out terminal escape sequences
• when set to color, Bombadillo will render terminal escape sequences representing colors when it finds them in documents 🌈

Aesthetic choices, honestly. 🎀

💖 timeout 💖</p>

The number of seconds after which connections to gopher or gemini servers should time out if the server has not responded. Basically: how long do we wait before we accept that she's not texting back. 💀

💖 webmode 💖</p>

Controls behavior when following web links, and the following values are valid:

• none — disables following web links entirely
• gui — has the browser attempt to open web links in a user's default graphical web browser
• lynx, w3m, and elinks — have the browser attempt to use the selected terminal web browser to handle the rendering of web pages, and will display the pages directly in Bombadillo

Pick your fighter. 🫶

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🐛 BUGS 🐛

There are very likely bugs. Many known bugs can be found in the issues section of bombadillo's source code repository (see links). Not me being honest about my own flaws, we love self-awareness. 😭

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🔗 LINKS 🔗

bombadillo maintains a presence in the following locations, bestie, go say hi:

• Source Code Repository — https://tildegit.org/sloum/bombadillo
• Web Homepage — http://bombadillo.colorfield.space
• Gopher Homepage — gopher://bombadillo.colorfield.space

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👑 AUTHORS 👑

bombadillo was primarily developed by sloum, with kind and patient assistance from ~asdf and jboverf. Shoutout to the whole squad, fr fr. 🫶✨

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and that's the whole page, babes!! 🎀 this little gem is dated 27 OCT 2019 and it's the bombadillo(1) manual, in case you forgot which queen we've been talking about this whole time. go read some gopher, you've got this. mwah. 💋💖