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Screenshot / Code Snippet

Column 80

About

Browsing the existing Stack Exchange family of websites was OK in a text-based browser, but when you're stuck in a Linux shell with no way out and no other computers around and you just know you saw the answer on Server Fault last week, this is how you can find it easily.

It assumes you already have existing knowledge of the SE family of sites in order to navigate.

License

Public Domain. Feel free to do with it what you will. Grab it here (note: This is the old v1 API. I have not packaged v2 yet).

Access

http://www.column80.com (note: looks like rubbish in modern browsers, Firefox, Chrome, Internet Explorer, etc. It has got to be viewed in Lynx to get the full effect). offline as of late 2019 due to virtually no traffic over the past 10 years.

Platform

Optimised for Lynx. This sounded pretty niche when I made it, but it looks like it might already have been some use to some users!

Contact

Leave some feedback in this question.

Code

I haven't done any programming in about five years, so it was also a way for me refresh my skills. It uses the PHPStack by Thomas McDonald. If you really want the source and you promise not to make (public) fun of me, then I'd be more than happy to share. I've cleaned up the code a bit, and incorporated some suggestions from the public, so I feel comfortable releasing the code. Grab it here.

  • (10th Jun 2010) now updated to incorporate the unannounced API changes
  • (25th Jun 2010) changed front page to retrieve data from StackAuth, and changed URL format to prepare for URL Rewriting (using stack.PHP)
  • (11th Jul 2010) now updated to work with the v1.0 API (the list of Stack Apps sites is looking healthy!)
  • (9th May 2014) updated the site to use the v2 of the API. Removed some never-used features such as tag search and user profiles, as I'm pretty short on time.
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  • 80
    +1 for acknowledging the console-lovers and treating them to this! Commented Jun 5, 2010 at 0:43
  • 11
    ...and for mentioning Lynx :) Commented Jun 5, 2010 at 0:43
  • Public domain?! Wow. That's extreme. Awesome work! Commented Jul 23, 2013 at 9:41
  • @Jop - honestly, it's because I have no interest in maintaining it or updating it, so I may as well let it free into the world so people can do as they wish with it. Commented Jul 23, 2013 at 22:11

5 Answers 5

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32

Just wanted to give you a heads-up...

One of the questions contained <button> in the title, causing the entire rest of the page to be rendered in a button. You might want to run the title through htmlentities() first.

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  • 1
    Ooh, thanks. Do you know what the site & question ID is? I'll try it out in Lynx to see if it screws up on there. Commented Sep 1, 2010 at 2:31
  • @Farseeker: Here's one: stackoverflow.com/questions/3563753/… Commented Sep 1, 2010 at 3:01
  • 1
    htmlspecialchars() is enough, isn't it? Commented Feb 12, 2011 at 11:57
  • yes, it is. that escapes all dangerous characters Commented Apr 2, 2011 at 19:10
  • Yes, but it seems to not show the \<span\> at all in the title now. Also, the button looks like "\<submit\>"(Screenshot here: imgur.com/EUzzA), also happens in listing. Commented Jun 18, 2012 at 21:43
  • 1
    @MarkHenderson FUBAR is an adjective(Especially the first word) so your comment should read "Yep, it's also FUBAR[or FUBARed] in Lynx." Commented Jun 19, 2012 at 11:34
11

This is nice, but it gives the "You're not using Lynx" warning for other text-based browsers. It looks and works great in w3m as well, so it should probably skip the warning in that browser as well.

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8

Just pointing out: this system actually violates the content license because it does not link back to the original posts or authors in any way on the questions.

From the blog:

  1. Visually indicate that the content is from Stack Overflow or the Stack Exchange network in some way. It doesn’t have to be obnoxious; a discreet text blurb is fine.

    Yes

  2. Hyperlink directly to the original question on the source site (e.g., https://stackoverflow.com/questions/12345)

    No

  3. Show the author names for every question and answer

    Yes

  4. Hyperlink each author name directly back to their user profile page on the source site (e.g., https://stackoverflow.com/users/12345/username)

    No

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  • Interesting. I wonder if this applies to remixes from the API, but I guess I can comply. Not entirely sure how useful linking to the originals will be from a plain text browser, but oh well. Commented May 22, 2014 at 1:26
  • @Sally Thanks. I had forgotten about this. Ironically for years I did comply with the license but I had to make some changes a few years ago and I suspect I undid the attribution requirements. The source code for this site is, honestly, probably lost. I will see if I can dig it up to make it compliant. Commented Feb 18, 2016 at 11:08
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Searching with empty string (http://www.column80.com/api.v2.php?a=stackoverflow&s=) gives error:

Fatal error:  Uncaught Error 400: An API error has occurred.
  thrown in /home3/markness/column80.com/stackphp/src/api.php on line 284
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  • 1
    Thanks. I've got some stuff I've gotta do on the site in the near future, so I'll address this then. Commented Mar 4, 2016 at 22:30
2

Nice but is there a nice url we can remember that goes straight to:

http://sa.column80.com/?api=0 maybe?

It would be nice to have the search button BEFORE the title and tag options.

Also I get bugged about cookies, do you really need cookies?

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5
  • Honestly, I hardly remember how this little app works. It might be time for a refresh. The cookies were from memory from an earlier revision that must not have been taken out. Commented Sep 27, 2012 at 1:00
  • Cookies are gone, URl structure has been changed. Commented May 8, 2014 at 23:10
  • Nice. The search is a bit hit or miss though. (E.g: it's order dependent) Have you considered using Google or Bing? Commented May 9, 2014 at 4:51
  • I am just using the built-in Stack Exchange search. I believe it's a full string search, but not entirely sure. Problem with google search is that it will redirect you to the full SE site, not my Column 80 one. That might be OK, it might not be. Commented May 9, 2014 at 4:57
  • It looks like it's possible to extract the question number from the URL. Commented May 9, 2014 at 14:01

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