always on), and you should never have to manually set a character coding
scheme.
+The gemini protocol specification recommends a Trust on First Use (TOFU)
+behaviour when validating gemini server TLS certificates. This is
+because many gemini servers rely on self-signed certificates rather
+than certificates signed by a CA. Sadly however, this TOFU behaviour is
+far from straight-forward to configure using Emacs' existing Network
+Security Manager. For this reason, elpher defaults to performing no
+certificate verification by default. This behaviour can be easily
+customized by setting the @code{elpher-gemini-TLS-cert-checks}
+customization variable to non-nil.
+
+Like gopher, the gemini specification concerns both the protocol
+ a simple text document format (mimetype text/gemini) which is
+like a mixture between gophermap files and markdown-formatted files but
+simpler than both. Elpher renders gemini responses which are provided
+in this format in line with the rules in the spec. This includes
+wrapping long lines at word boundaries. The specific column at which
+this text is wrapped is defined by the customization variable
+@code{elpher-gemini-max-fill-width}, which is set to 80 columns by
+default. (This is slightly wider than Emacs' default fill width of 70
+columns due to the fact that there are a significant amount of older
+gemini which, against the advice of the current spec, hard wraps at <80
+columns. The larger default allows this to still look okay, while
+still keeping content without hard wraps looking pleasant.)
+
+The text/gemini format also posesses a section header syntax similar to
+markdown. Elpher allows different header levels to be drawn with
+different, customizable, faces. By default, on graphically-capable
+emacs systems, these faces are given different heights to distinguish
+amongst levels. On terminal systems, the level is indicated by the
+number of preceeding # symbols.
+
I should emphasize however that, while it is definitely functional,
Elpher's gemini support is still experimental, and various aspects will
change as the protocol develops further. Additionally, the use of
-client TLS certicificates is not yet supported.
+client TLS certicificates is still not yet supported.
@node Finger support, Customization, Gemini support, Top
@chapter Finger support