Lynx Users Guide v2.8.5
Lynx is a fully-featured World Wide Web (WWW) client for users running
cursor-addressable, character-cell display devices (e.g., vt100
terminals, vt100 emulators running on PCs or Macs, or any other
character-cell display). It will display Hypertext Markup Language
(HTML) documents containing links to files on the local system, as
well as files on remote systems running http, gopher, ftp, wais, nntp,
finger, or cso/ph/qi servers, and services accessible via logins to
telnet, tn3270 or rlogin accounts (see URL Schemes Supported by Lynx).
Current versions of Lynx run on Unix, VMS, Windows3.x/9x/NT, 386DOS
and OS/2 EMX.
Lynx can be used to access information on the WWW, or to build
information systems intended primarily for local access. For example,
Lynx has been used to build several Campus Wide Information Systems
(CWIS). In addition, Lynx can be used to build systems isolated within
a single LAN.
Table of Contents
* Lynx online help
* Viewing local files with Lynx
* Leaving Lynx
* Starting Lynx with a Remote File
* Starting Lynx with the WWW_HOME environment variable.
* Navigating hypertext documents with Lynx
* Printing, Mailing, and Saving rendered files to disk.
* Viewing the HTML document source and editing documents
* Downloading and Saving source files.
* Reloading files and refreshing the display
* Lynx searching commands
* Lynx Options Menu
* Comments and mailto: links
* USENET News posting
* Lynx bookmarks
* Jump command
* Directory Editing
* Using Color & the Mouse
* Scrolling and Other useful commands
* Lynx and HTML Forms | Lynx and HTML Images
* Lynx and HTML Tables | Lynx and HTML Tabs
* Lynx and HTML Frames | Lynx and HTML Banners
* Lynx and HTML Footnotes | Lynx and HTML Notes
* Lynx and HTML Lists
* Lynx and HTML Quotes
* Lynx and HTML Internationalization: 8bit, UNICODE, etc.
* Lynx and Client-Side-Image-Maps
* Lynx and Client-Side-Pull
* Lynx and State Management (Me want cookie!)
* The Lynx command line
* Environment variables used by Lynx
* Main configuration file lynx.cfg
* Lynx development history
Lynx online help
Online help is available while viewing any document. Press the '?' or
'H' key (or the 'h' key if vi-like key movement is not on) to see a
list of help topics. See the section titled Navigating hypertext
documents with Lynx for information on navigating through the help
files.
In addition, a summary description of all the Lynx keystroke commands
and their key bindings is available by pressing the 'K' key (or the
'k' key if vi-like key movement is not on). [ToC]
If you want to recall recent status-line messages, you can do so by
entering the `g' command, followed by `LYNXMESSAGES:'.
Viewing local files with Lynx
Lynx can be started by entering the Lynx command along with the name
of a file to display. For example these commands could all be used to
display an arbitrary ASCII text or HTML file:
UNIX
lynx filename
lynx /home/my-dir/filename
lynx ~/filename
VMS
lynx filename
lynx dua5:[my-directory]filename
lynx /dua5/my-directory/filename
lynx ~/filename
lynx sys$login:filename
lynx /sys$login/filename
Win32/DOS
lynx file:///filename
lynx filename
lynx c:/dir/filename
lynx //n/dir/filename
When executed, Lynx will clear the screen and display as much of the
specified file as will fit on the screen. Pressing a down-arrow will
bring up the next screen, and pressing an up-arrow will bring up the
previous screen. If no file is specified at startup, a default file
will be displayed, depending on settings e.g., in lynx.cfg.
Lynx will display local files written in the HyperText Markup Language
(HTML), if the file's name ends with the characters .html, .htm,
.shtml, .htmlx, .html3, or .ht3. HTML is a file format that allows
users to create a file that contains (among other things) hypertext
links to other files. Several files linked together may be described
as a hypertext document. If the filename does not have one of the
suffixes mapped by Lynx to HTML, the -force_html command line option
can be included to force treatment of the file as hypertext.
When Lynx displays an HTML file, it shows links as "bold face" text,
except for one link, which is shown as "highlighted" text. Whether
"boldface" or "highlighted" text shows up as reverse video, boldface
type, or a color change, etc. depends on the display device being used
(and the way in which that device has been configured). Lynx has no
control over the exact presentation of links.
The one link displayed as "highlighted" text is the currently
"selected" link. Lynx will display the file associated with the
selected link when a right-arrow or a Return key is pressed. To select
a particular link, press the up-arrow or down-arrow keys until the
desired link becomes "highlighted," and then press the right-arrow or
Return key to view the linked information. Information included in the
HTML file tells Lynx where to find the linked file and what kind of
server will provide it (i.e., HTTP, Gopher, etc.).
Lynx renders HTML files and saves the rendition (and the source, if so
configured in the lynx.cfg file) for initial display and should you
select the link again. If you do select a link again and have reason
to desire a new fetch and rendering of the file, use the NOCACHE
command, normally mapped to 'x' and 'X', instead of the right-arrow or
Return key when positioned on the link. You also can force a new fetch
and rendering of the currently displayed document via the RELOAD
command, normally mapped to Control-R.
When a binary file is encountered Lynx will ask the user if he/she
wishes to download the file or cancel. If the user selects 'D' for
download, Lynx will transfer the file into a temporary location and
present the user with a list of options. The only default option is
Save to disk, which is disabled if Lynx is running in anonymous mode.
Additional download methods may be defined in the lynx.cfg file.
Programs like kermit, zmodem and FTP are some possible options. [ToC]
Leaving Lynx
To exit Lynx use the 'q' command. You will be asked whether you really
want to quit. Answering 'y' will exit and 'n' will return you to the
current document. Use 'Q' or Control-D to quit without verification.
[ToC]
Starting Lynx with a Remote File
If you wish to view a remote file (that is, a file residing on some
computer system other than the one upon which you are running Lynx)
without first viewing a local file, you must identify that file by
using a Uniform Resource Locator (URL). URLs take the general form:
PROTOCOL :// HOST / PATH
where
PROTOCOL
identifies the communications protocol (scheme) used by the
server that will provide the file. As mentioned earlier, Lynx
(and any WWW client) can interact with a variety of servers,
each with its own protocol.
HOST
is the Internet address of the computer system on which the
server is running, and
PATH
is a scheme-specific field which for some schemes may
correspond to a directory path and/or filename.
Here are some sample URLs.
HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol)
http://www.subir.com/lynx.html
Gopher
gopher://gopher.micro.umn.edu/11/
FTP (File Transfer Protocol)
ftp://ftp2.cc.ukans.edu/pub/lynx/README
WAIS (Wide Area Information Service protocol)
wais://cnidr.org/directory-of-servers
A URL may be specified to Lynx on the command line, as in:
lynx http://kufacts.cc.ukans.edu/cwis/kufacts_start.html
Lynx also will attempt to create a complete URL if you include
adequate portions of it in the startfile argument. For example:
1234.6789.1234.6789.1234.6789.1234.6789.1234.6789.1234.6789.1234.6789.1234.6789
wfbr will be expanded to:
http://www.wfbr.edu/ and:
ftp.more.net/pub will be expanded to:
ftp://ftp.more.net/pub
See URL Schemes Supported by Lynx for more detailed information. [ToC]
Starting Lynx with the WWW_HOME environment variable.
You may also specify a starting file for Lynx using the WWW_HOME
environment variable,
UNIX
ksh
export WWW_HOME=http://www.w3.org/
csh
setenv WWW_HOME http://www.w3.org/
VMS
define "WWW_HOME" "http://www.w3.org/"
win32
WWW_HOME=http://www.w3.org/ [or in registry]
Note that on VMS the double-quoting must be included to preserve
casing. [ToC]
Navigating hypertext documents with Lynx
The process of moving within a hypertext web, selecting and displaying
links is known as "navigation." With Lynx almost all navigation can be
accomplished with the arrow keys and the numeric keypad.
+-------+-------+-------+
| TOP | /|\ | Page |
arrow keys | of | | | UP |
| text 7| | 8| 9|
+---------+ +-------+-------+-------+
| SELECT | | | | |
| prev /|\| | <--- | | ---> |
| link | | | 4| 5| 6|
+---------+---------+---------+ +-------+-------+-------+
| BACK | SELECT | DISPLAY | | END | | | Page |
|<-- prev | next | | sel. -->| | of | | | DOWN |
| doc. | link \|/| link | | text 1| \|/ 2| 3|
+---------+---------+---------+ +-------+-------+-------+
There are also a few other keyboard commands to aid in navigation. The
Control and Function keys used for navigation within the current
document are described in Scrolling and Other useful commands. Some
additional commands depend on the fact that Lynx keeps a list of each
link you visited to reach the current document, called the History
Page, and a list of all links visited during the current Lynx session,
called the Visited Links Page. The HISTORY keystroke command, normally
mapped to Backspace or Delete, will show you the History Page of links
leading to your access of the current document. Any of the previous
documents shown in the list may be revisited by selecting them from
the history screen. The VLINKS keystroke command, normally mapped to
uppercase 'V', will show the Visited Links Page, and you similarly can
select links in that list. The MAIN_MENU keystroke command, normally
mapped to 'm' and 'M', will take you back to the starting document
unless you specified the -homepage=URL option at the command line.
Also, the LIST and ADDRLIST keystroke commands, normally mapped to 'l'
and A' respectively, will create a compact lists of all the links in
the current document, and they can be selected via those lists.
The 'i' key presents an index of documents. The default index offered
contains many useful links, but can be changed in lynx.cfg or on the
command line using the -index=URL switch.
If you choose a link to a server with active access authorization,
Lynx will automatically prompt for a username and a password. If you
give the correct information, you will then be served the requested
information. Lynx will automatically send your username and password
to the same server if it is needed again. [ToC]
Printing, Mailing, and Saving rendered files to disk.
Rendered HTML documents, and plain text files, may be printed using
the 'p' command while viewing the document. After pressing the 'p' key
a menu of Print Options will be displayed. The menu will vary
according to several factors. First, some sites set up special
accounts to let users run Lynx to access local information systems.
Typically these accounts require no passwords and do not require users
to identify themselves. As a result such accounts are called
"anonymous" accounts, and their users are considered "anonymous"
users. In most configurations, all Lynx users (including anonymous
users) are able to mail files to themselves and print the entire file
to the screen.
Additional print options are available for users who are using Lynx
from their own accounts (that is, so-called "non-anonymous users"). In
particular, the Save to a local file option allows you to save the
document into a file on your disk space. Additional print options may
also be available as configured in the lynx.cfg file.
Some options, such as Save to a local file, involve prompting for an
output filename. All output filename entries are saved in a circular
buffer, and any previous entries can be retrieved for re-use by
pressing the up-arrow or down-arrow keys at the prompt.
Note that if you want exact copies of text files without any
expansions of TAB characters to spaces you should use the Download
options. [ToC]
Viewing the HTML document source and editing documents
When viewing HTML documents it is possible to retrieve and display the
unrendered (i.e., the original HTML) source of the document by
pressing the '\' (backslash) key. Lynx usually caches only the
rendering of the document and doesn't keep the source (unless it is
configured to do so in the lynx.cfg file), so to display the source
unrendered, Lynx must reload it from the server or disk. When viewing
unrendered documents you may print them as any normal document.
Selecting the Print to a local file option from the Print Menu, makes
it possible to save the source of the document to disk so that you may
have a local copy of the document source, but it is better to Download
the source.
NOTE: When saving an HTML document it is important to name the
document with a .html or .htm extension, if you want to read it with
Lynx again later.
Lynx can allow users to edit documents that reside on the local
system. To enable editing, documents must be referenced using a
"file:" URL or by specifying a plain filename on the command line as
in the following two examples:
Command
lynx file://localhost/FULL/PATH/FILENAME
lynx path/filename.html
In addition, the user must also specify an editor in the Options Menu
so that Lynx knows which editor to use. If the file is specified
correctly and an editor is defined, then you may edit documents by
using the 'e' command. When the 'e' command is entered your specified
editor is spawned to edit the file. After changes are completed, exit
your editor and you will return to Lynx. Lynx will reload and render
the file so that changes can be immediately examined. [ToC]
Downloading and Saving source files.
If the DOWNLOAD keystroke command ('d' or D) is used when positioned
on a link for an HTML, plain text, or binary file, Lynx will transfer
the file, without rendering, into a temporary location and present the
user with a list of options, just as it does when a link for a binary
file of a type for which no viewer has been mapped is activated.
There is a default Download option of Save to disk. This is disabled
if Lynx is running in anonymous mode. Any number of download methods
such as kermit and zmodem may be defined in addition to this default
in the lynx.cfg file. Using the Save to disk option under the PRINT
command after viewing the source of an HTML with the VIEW SOURCE (\)
command will result in a file which differs from the original source
in various ways such as tab characters expanded to spaces. Lynx
formats the source presentation in this mode. On the other hand, if
the DOWNLOAD command is used, the only change will be that Lynx
optionally puts
at the start of the file so that relative URLs in the document will
still work. Even this modification can be prevented by setting
PREPEND_BASE_TO_SOURCE:FALSE in lynx.cfg.
Some options, such as Save to disk, involve prompting for an output
filename. All output filename entries are saved in a circular buffer,
and any previous entries can be retrieved for re-use by pressing the
up-arrow or down-arrow keys at the prompt. [ToC]
Reloading files and refreshing the display
The RELOAD (Control-R) command will reload and re-render the file that
you are currently viewing. The REFRESH (Control-L or Control-W)
command will refresh or wipe the screen to remove or correct any
errors that may be caused by operating system or other messages.
The NOCACHE ('x' or 'X') command can be used in lieu of ACTIVATE
(Return or right-arrow) to request an uncached copy and new rendition
for the current link, or resubmission of a FORM, if a cache from a
previous request or submission exits. The request or submission will
include Pragma: no-cache and Cache-Control: no-cache in its headers.
Note that FORMs with POST content will be resubmitted regardless of
whether the NOCACHE or ACTIVATE command is used (see Lynx and HTML
Forms). [ToC]
Lynx searching commands
Two commands activate searching in Lynx: '/' and 's'.
While viewing a normal document use the '/' command to find a word or
phrase within the current document. The search type will depend on the
search option setting in the Options Menu. The search options are case
sensitive and case insensitive. These searches are entirely local to
Lynx.
Some documents are designated index documents by virtue of an ISINDEX
element in their HEAD section. These documents can be used to retrieve
additional information based on searches using words or phrases
submitted to an index server. The Lynx statusline will indicate that
you are viewing such a document, and if so, the 's' key will invoke a
statusline prompt to enter a query string. The prompt can be specified
via a PROMPT attribute in the ISINDEX element. Otherwise, Lynx will
use an internally configured prompt. The address for submitting the
search can be specified via an HREF or ACTION attribute. Otherwise,
Lynx will use the current document's URL and append your query string
as a ?searchpart (see Supported URLs).
All search words or strings which you have entered during a Lynx
session are saved in a circular buffer, and can be retrieved for
re-use by pressing the up-arrow or down-arrow keys at the prompt for a
search word or string. Also, you can use the 'n'ext command to repeat
a search with the last-entered search word or phrase, starting from
the current position in the document. The word or phrase matches will
be highlighted throughout the document, but such highlighting will not
persist for new documents, or if the current document is reloaded. The
search cycles to the top of the document if the word or phrase is not
located below your current position.
Although HTML Forms have largely replaced index documents for searches
via http servers, they are still useful for performing searches
directly via WAIS or Gopher servers in conjunction with the internal
gateways for such servers. For example, an HTML index document can act
as a cover page describing a WAIS database and how to formulate query
strings for searching it, and include an element such as:
for submitting a search of the Biologist's Addresses database directly
to the net.bio.net WAIS server. [ToC]
Lynx Options Menu
The Lynx Options Menu may be accessed by pressing the 'o' key. It
allows you to change options at runtime, if you need to. Most changes
are read from & saved to your .lynxrc file; those which are not are
marked (!) in the form-based menu (as below). Many other options are
stored in the lynx.cfg file.
Lynx supports two styles of Options Menu, key-based & form-based. The
form-based menu shown below is an HTML file generated at runtime, in
which the user fills in choices as in any ordinary HTML form.
Options Menu (Lynx Version 2.8.5dev.15)
Accept Changes - Reset Changes Left Arrow cancels changes HELP!
Save options to disk: [_]
(options marked with (!) will not be saved)
General Preferences
User mode : [Advanced....]
Editor : __________________________________________
Type of Search : [Case insensitive]
Security and Privacy
Cookies (!) : [ask user..]
Invalid-Cookie Prompting (!) : [prompt normally___]
SSL Prompting (!) : [prompt normally___]
Keyboard Input
Keypad mode : [Links are numbered................]
Emacs keys : [OFF]
VI keys : [OFF]
Line edit style : [Bash-like Bindings]
Keyboard layout : [YAWERTY Cyrillic, for DEC LK201 kbd]
Display and Character Sets
Use locale-based character set(!): [OFF]
Display character set : [Cyrillic (ISO-8859-5)..........]
Assumed document character set(!): [iso-8859-1......]
Raw 8-bit (!) : [OFF]
X Display (!) : __________________________________________
Document Appearance
Show color : [ON....]
Show cursor : [OFF]
Underline links (!) : [OFF]
Show scrollbar : [OFF]
Popups for select fields : [ON.]
HTML error recovery (!) : [strict (SortaSGML mode)]
Show images (!) : [as labels]
Verbose images : [OFF..........]
Headers Transferred to Remote Servers
Personal mail address : __________________________________________
Preferred document character set : _________________________________
Preferred document language : _________________________________
User-Agent header (!) : __________________________________________
Listing and Accessing Files
FTP sort criteria : [By Name]
Local directory sort criteria : [Mixed style......]
Local directory sort order : [By name..........]
Show transfer rate : [Show KiB/sec, ETA]
Show dot files : [ON.]
Execution links : [FOR LOCAL FILES ONLY]
Special Files and Screens
Multi-bookmarks : [ADVANCED]
Review/edit Bookmarks files : Goto multi-bookmark menu
Visited Pages : [As Visit Tree..........]
Check your lynx.cfg here
Accept Changes - Reset Changes Left Arrow cancels changes
The key-based menu depends on key-strokes to identify options which
the user wants to change. It is compiled into Lynx and is accessed by
setting FORMS_OPTIONS to TRUE in lynx.cfg.
Options Menu (Lynx Version 2.8.5rel.1)
(E)ditor : emacs
(D)ISPLAY variable : aixtest.cc.ukans.edu:0.0
mu(L)ti-bookmarks: OFF B)ookmark file: lynx_bookmarks.html
(F)TP sort criteria : By Filename
(P)ersonal mail address : montulli@netscape.com
(S)earching type : CASE INSENSITIVE
preferred document lan(G)uage: en
preferred document c(H)arset : NONE
display (C)haracter set : Western (ISO-8859-1)
raw 8-bit or CJK m(O)de : ON show color (&) : OFF
(V)I keys: OFF e(M)acs keys: OFF sho(W) dot files: OFF
popups for selec(T) fields : ON show cursor (@) : OFF
(K)eypad mode : Numbers act as arrows
li(N)e edit style : Default Binding
l(I)st directory style : Mixed style
(U)ser mode : Advanced verbose images (!) : ON
user (A)gent : [User-Agent header]
local e(X)ecution links : FOR LOCAL FILES ONLY
An option can be changed by entering the capital letter or character
in parentheses for the option you wish to change (e.g., 'E' for Editor
or '@' for show cursor). For fields where text must be entered, simply
enter the text by typing on the keyboard. The Line Editor can be used
to correct mistakes, and Control-U can be used to erase the line. When
you are done entering a change press the Return key to get back to the
Command? prompt.
For fields where you must choose one of two choices, press any key to
toggle the choices and press the Return key to finish the change.
For fields where you potentially have more than two choices, popup
windows may be evoked which function homologously to those for select
fields in HTML Forms. The popup windows will be invoked only if you
have popups for select fields set to ON (see below). Otherwise, your
cursor will be positioned at the current choice, and you can press any
key to cycle through the choices, then press the Return key to finish
the change.
When you are done changing options use the 'r' command to return to
Lynx or the '>' command to save the options to a .lynxrc file and
return to Lynx.
The following table describes the options available on the Options
Menu:
Assumed document character set
This option changes the handling of documents which do not
explicitly specify a charset. Normally Lynx assumes that 8-bit
characters in those documents are encoded according to
iso-8859-1 (the official default for the HTTP protocol).
Unfortunately, many non-English web pages "forget" to include
proper charset info; this option helps you to browse those
broken pages if you know by some means what the charset is.
When the value given here or by an -assume_charset command line
flag is in effect, Lynx will treat documents as if they were
encoded accordingly. This option active when 'Raw 8-bit or CJK
Mode' is OFF.
Bookmark file
When multi-bookmarks is OFF, this is the filename and location
of your default personal bookmark file. Enter 'B' to modify the
filename and/or location via the Line Editor. Bookmark files
allow frequently traveled links to be stored in personal easy
to access files. Using the 'a'dd bookmark link command (see
Lynx bookmarks) you may save any link that does not have
associated POST content into a bookmark file. All bookmark
files must be in or under your account's home directory. If the
location specified does not begin with a dot-slash (./), its
presence will still be assumed, and referenced to the home
directory. When multi-bookmarks is STANDARD or ADVANCED,
entering 'B' will invoke a menu of up to 26 bookmark files
(associated with the letters of the English alphabet), for
editing their filenames and locations (filepath), and
descriptions. Lynx will create bookmark files, if they don't
already exist, when you first 'a'dd a bookmark link to them.
However, if you've specified a subdirectory (e.g.,
./BM/lynx_bookmarks.html), that subdirectory must already
exist. Note that on VMS you should use the URL syntax for the
filepath (e.g., not [.BM]lynx_bookmarks.html). For Win32, see
[???].
DISPLAY variable
This option is only relevant to X Window users. The DISPLAY
(Unix) or DECW$DISPLAY (VMS) variable is picked up
automatically from the environment if it has been previously
set.
Display Character set
This option allows you to set up the default character set for
your specific terminal. The display character set provides a
mapping from the character encodings of viewed documents and
from HTML entities into viewable characters. It should be set
according to your terminal's character set so that characters
other than 7-bit ASCII can be displayed correctly, using
approximations if necessary. You must have the selected
character set installed on your terminal. (Since Lynx now
supports a wide range of platforms it may be useful to note
that cpXXX codepages used within IBM PC computers, and
windows-xxxx within native MS-Windows apps.)
Editor
The editor to be invoked when editing browsable files, when
sending mail or comments, when preparing a news article for
posting, and for external TEXTAREA editing. The full pathname
of the editor command should be specified when possible.
Emacs keys
If set to ON then the CTRL-P, CTRL-N, CTRL-F, and CTRL-B keys
will be mapped to up-arrow, down-arrow, right-arrow, and
left-arrow, respectively. Otherwise, they remain mapped to
their configured bindings (normally UP_TWO lines, DOWN_TWO
lines, NEXT_PAGE, and PREV_PAGE, respectively).
Note: this has no direct effect on the line-editor's key
bindings.
FTP sort criteria
This option allows you to specify how files will be sorted
within FTP listings. The current options include "By Filename",
"By Size", "By Type", and "By Date".
Keypad as arrows, numbered links, numbered fields, or numbered links
and form fields
This option gives the choice among navigating with the arrow
keys, or having every link numbered so that the links may be
selected or made current by numbers as well as using the arrow
keys, or having every link as well as every form field numbered
so that they can be selected or sought by numbers. See the
Follow link (or page) number: and
Select option (or page) number:
help for more information.
Line edit style
This option allows you to set alternative key bindings for the
built-in line editor, if alternative line-edit bindings have
been compiled in. Otherwise, Lynx uses the Default Binding.
List directory style
Applies to Directory Editing. Files and directories can be
presented in the following ways:
Mixed style
Files and directories are listed together in alphabetical
order.
Directories first
Files and directories are separated into two alphabetical
lists. Directories are listed first.
Files first
Files and directories are separated into two alphabetical
lists. Files are listed first.
The Options Form also allows you to sort by the file
attributes, using the Local directory sort order:
By name
by filename (the default)
By size
by file size, in descending order
By date
by file modification time, in descending order
By mode
by file protection
By type
by filename suffix, e.g., the text beginning with
'.'
By user
by file owner's user-id
By group
by file owner's group-id
Local execution scripts or links
Local execution is activated when Lynx is first set up. If it
has not been activated you will not see this option in the
Options Menu.
When a local execution script is encountered Lynx checks the
users options to see whether the script can be executed. Users
have the following options:
Always off
Local execution scripts will never be executed
For Local files only
Local execution scripts will only be executed if the
script to be executed resides on the local machine, and
is referenced by a URL that begins with file://localhost
Always on
All local execution scripts will be executed
If the users options permit the script to be executed Lynx will
spawn a shell and run the script. If the script cannot be
executed Lynx will show the script within the Lynx window and
inform the user that the script is not allowed to be executed
and will ask the user to check his/her options. [ToC]
Multi-bookmarks
Lynx supports a default bookmark file, and up to 26 total
bookmark files (see below). When multi-bookmarks is OFF, the
default bookmark file is used for the 'v'iew bookmarks and
'a'dd bookmark link commands. If multi-bookmark support is
available in your account, the setting can be changed to
STANDARD or ADVANCED. In STANDARD mode, a menu of available
bookmarks always is invoked when you seek to view a bookmark
file or add a link, and you select the bookmark file by its
letter token (see Bookmark file, below) in that menu. In
ADVANCED mode, you instead are prompted for the letter of the
desired bookmark file, but can enter '=' to invoke the STANDARD
selection menu, or RETURN for the default bookmark file.
Personal mail address
This mail address will be used to help you send files to
yourself and will be included as the From: address in any mail
or comments that you send. It will also be sent as the From:
field in HTTP or HTTPS requests if inclusion of that header has
been enabled via the NO_FROM_HEADER definition in lynx.cfg (the
compilation default is not to send the header), or via the
-from command line toggle.
Popups for select fields
Lynx normally uses a popup window for the OPTIONs in form
SELECT fields when the field does not have the MULTIPLE
attribute specified, and thus only one OPTION can be selected.
The use of popup windows can be disabled by changing this
setting to OFF, in which case the OPTIONs will be rendered as a
list of radio buttons. Note that if the SELECT field does have
the MULTIPLE attribute specified, the OPTIONs always are
rendered as a list of checkboxes.
Preferred Document Language
The language you prefer if multi-language files are available
from servers. Use RFC 1766 abbreviations, e.g., en for English,
fr for French, etc. Can be a comma-separated list, which may be
interpreted by servers as descending order of preferences. You
can also make your order of preference explicit by using q
factors as defined by the HTTP protocol, for servers which
understand it, for example: da, en-gb;q=0.8, en;q=0.7
Preferred Document Charset
The character set you prefer if sets in addition to ISO-8859-1
and US-ASCII are available from servers. Use MIME notation
(e.g., ISO-8859-2) and do not include ISO-8859-1 or US-ASCII,
since those values are always assumed by default. Can be a
comma-separated list, which may be interpreted by servers as
descending order of preferences. You can also make your order
of preference explicit by using q factors as defined by the
HTTP protocol, for servers which understand it, for example:
iso-8859-5, utf-8;q=0.8
Raw 8-bit or CJK Mode
Whether 8-bit characters are assumed to correspond with the
display character set and therefore are processed without
translation via the chartrans conversion tables. Should be ON
by default when the display character set is one of the Asian
(CJK) sets and the 8-bit characters are Kanji multibytes.
Should be OFF for the other display character sets, but can be
turned ON when the document's charset is unknown (e.g., is not
ISO-8859-1 and no charset parameter was specified in a reply
header from an HTTP server to indicate what it is) but you know
by some means that you have the matching display character set
selected. Should be OFF when an Asian (CJK) set is selected but
the document is ISO-8859-1 or another 'assumed document
character set'. The setting also can be toggled via the
RAW_TOGGLE command, normally mapped to '@', and at startup via
the -raw switch.
Show color.
This option will be present if color support is available. If
set to ON or ALWAYS, color mode will be forced on if possible.
If (n)curses color support is available but cannot be used for
the current terminal type, selecting ON is rejected with a
message. If set to OFF or NEVER, color mode will be turned off.
ALWAYS and NEVER are not offered in anonymous accounts. If
saved to a .lynxrc file in non-anonymous accounts, ALWAYS will
cause Lynx to set color mode on at startup if supported. If
Lynx is built with the slang library, this is equivalent to
having included the -color command line switch or having the
COLORTERM environment variable set. If color support is
provided by curses or ncurses, this is equivalent to the
default behavior of using color when the terminal type supports
it. If (n)curses color support is available but cannot be used
for the current terminal type, the preference can still be
saved but will have no effect.
A saved value of NEVER will cause Lynx to assume a monochrome
terminal at startup. It is similar to the -nocolor switch, but
(when the slang library is used) can be overridden with the
-color switch.
If the setting is OFF or ON when the current options are saved
to a .lynxrc file, the default startup behavior is retained,
such that color mode will be turned on at startup only if the
terminal info indicates that you have a color-capable terminal,
or (when the slang library is used) if forced on via the -color
switch or COLORTERM variable. This default behavior always is
used in anonymous accounts, or if the option_save restriction
is set explicitly. If for any reason the startup color mode is
incorrect for your terminal, set it appropriately on or off via
this option.
Searching type
Searching type has two possible values: CASE INSENSITIVE
(default) and CASE SENSITIVE. The searching type effects
inter-document searches only, and determines whether searches
for words within documents will be done in a case-sensitive or
case-insensitive manner.
Show cursor for current link or option.
Lynx normally hides the cursor by positioning it to the right
and if possible the very bottom of the screen, so that the
current link or OPTION is indicated solely by its highlighting
or color. If show cursor is set to ON, the cursor will be
positioned at the left of the current link or OPTION. This is
helpful when Lynx is being used with a speech or braille
interface. It also is useful for sighted users when the
terminal cannot distinguish the character attributes used to
distinguish the current link or OPTION from the others in the
screen display.
Show dot files
If display/creation of hidden (dot) files/directories is
enabled, you can turn the feature on or off via this setting.
Use locale-based character set
This option allows you to request lynx to obtain a MIME name
from the operating system which corresponds to your locale
setting. If successful, it overrides the normal setting of the
display character set.
Underline links
Use underline-attribute rather than bold for links.
User Agent
The header string which Lynx sends to HTTP servers to indicate
the User-Agent is displayed here. Changes may be disallowed via
the -restrictions switch. Otherwise, the header can be changed
temporarily to a string such as L_y_n_x/2.8.5 for access to
sites which discriminate against Lynx based on checks for the
presence of "Lynx" in the header. If the User-Agent header has
been changed, it can be restored to the built-in default value
by deleting the modified string in the Options Menu. Whenever
the User-Agent header is changed, the current document is
reloaded, with the no-cache flags set, on exit from the Options
Menu. Changes of the header are not saved in the RC file.
NOTE: Some sites may regard misrepresenting the browser as
fraudulent deception, or as gaining unauthorized access, if it
is used to circumvent blocking that was intentionally put in
place. Some browser manufacturers may find the transmission of
their product's name objectionable. If you change the
User-Agent string, it is your responsibility. The Options Menu
issues a reminder whenever the header is changed to one which
does not include "Lynx" or "L_y_n_x".
User Mode
There are three possible choices: Novice, Intermediate, and
Advanced.
Novice
In Novice mode two lines of help are displayed at the
bottom of the screen.
Intermediate
Intermediate mode turns off the help lines.
Advanced
Advanced mode displays the URL of the currently selected
link at the bottom of the screen.
Verbose Images
Controls whether or not Lynx replaces the [LINK], [INLINE] and
[IMAGE] comments (for images without ALT) with filenames of
these images. This is extremely useful because now we can
determine immediately what images are just decorations
(button.gif, line.gif) and what images are important. This
setting can also be toggled on startup via the -verbose switch.
VI keys
If set to ON then the lowercase h, j, k, and l keys will be
mapped to left, down, up, and right arrow, respectively. The
uppercase H, J, K, and L keys remain mapped to their configured
bindings (normally HELP, JUMP, KEYMAP, and LIST, respectively).
Note: this has no effect on the line-editor's key bindings.
Visited Pages
Enable several different views of the visited links:
By First Visit
By First Visit Reversed
As Visit Tree
By Last Visit
By Last Visit Reversed
Comments and mailto: links
At any time while viewing documents within Lynx, you may use the 'c'
command to send a mail message to the owner of the current document if
the author of the document has specified ownership. (Note to authors:
if you want to assign the ownership to your document, you need to add
into HEAD section a LINK element with appropriate value for REV
attribute. Two values are recognized: owner and made (these are case
insensitive). For example,
...
...
You may also add a TITLE attribute with, for example, the name of your
page) If no ownership is specified then comments are disabled. Certain
links called mailto: links will also allow you to send mail to other
people. Using the mail features within Lynx is straightforward.
Once you have decided to send a comment or have selected a mailto:
link a new screen will appear showing you to whom you are sending the
message. Lynx will ask for your name, your e-mail address, and the
subject of the message. If you have filled in the "personal mail
address" field in the Options Menu, your e-mail address will be filled
in automatically. After entering the above information, if you have an
editor defined in the Options Menu and you are not an anonymous user
then your specified editor will be spawned for you so that you can
enter your message. If you do not have an editor defined or you are an
anonymous user, a simple line mode input scheme will allow you to
enter your message.
To finish sending the message, exit your spawned editor or, if you are
using the simple line mode input scheme, type a '.' (period) on a line
by itself. You will be asked a final time whether to send the message.
If you press 'y', you will be prompted whether to append your
signature file if one was defined in lynx.cfg and is accessible, and
then the message will be sent, whereas if you press 'n' the message
will be deleted. Entering Control-G in response to any prompts also
will cancel the mailing.[ToC]
USENET News posting
While reading news articles with Lynx you should see a link that says
Reply to: user@host and, if the nntp server from which you received
the article supports posting from your site, a link that says Followup
to: newsgroup(s)
Reply to user@host
user@host will correspond to the mail address of the person who
posted the news article. Selecting the link will allow you to
send a message to the person who wrote the message you are
currently viewing. You will be given the option of including
the original message in your reply.
Followup to newsgroup(s)
Selecting this link will allow you to post back to the
newsgroup that you are currently reading and any newsgroups to
which the message was cross-posted. You will be given the
option of including the original message in your reply. Once
you have typed in your message, you will be asked for
confirmation of whether to proceed with the posting, and
whether to append your signature file if one was defined in
lynx.cfg and is accessible. See Supported URLs for more
information about the URL schemes for posting or sending
followups (replies) to nntp servers with Lynx. [ToC]
See also RFC 977.
Lynx bookmarks
Bookmarks are entries in your bookmark file, which record the URL of a
document you may want to return to easily, with a name of your choice
to identify the document. To use bookmarks you must first have
specified a name for your bookmark file in lynx.cfg or via the Options
Menu.
To save a bookmark to the document you wish to place in the bookmark
file press the 'a' key and you will be asked:
Save D)ocument or L)ink to bookmark file or C)ancel? (d,l,c):
Answer 'd' to save a link to the document you are currently viewing or
'l' to save the link that is currently selected on the page. Selecting
'c' will cancel without saving anything to your bookmark file.
A bookmark file will be created in conjunction with acting on the
'a'dd command if it does not already exist. Otherwise, the link will
be added to the bottom of the pre-existing bookmark file. You must
have created a bookmark file via the 'a'dd command before you can view
it.
Use the 'v' command to view the list of bookmarks you have saved.
While viewing the bookmark list you may select a bookmark as you would
any other link.
You can remove a link from the bookmark list by pressing the 'r' key
when positioned on that link. You also can use a standard text editor
(e.g., via the 'e'dit command while viewing a bookmark file, if an
external editor has been defined via the Options menu) to delete or
re-order links in the bookmark file, or to modify a link name by
editing the content of the Anchor element for the link, but you should
not change the format within the line for the link, consisting of an
LI element followed by the Anchor element, nor cause the line to
become wrapped to a second line. You similarly can change the link
destination by editing the double-quoted value for the HREF attribute
in the Anchor start tag, but you should not otherwise change the
spacing within the start tag, nor add other attributes. You can add a
new link while editing by copying an existing line for a link, to
ensure the proper format, and then modifying its HREF value and Anchor
content, but you should not add any other HTML markup to the bookmark
file. If the format and spacing (other than the Anchor content or HREF
value) within lines is changed or other HTML markup is added, the
'a'dd and 'r'emove commands may not work properly.
When multi-bookmarks (see Options Menu) is OFF, you will always view
or add links to the default bookmark file. When it is STANDARD, a menu
of up to 26 bookmark files will be invoked, and you select the
bookmark file by entering its letter token. When it is ADVANCED, you
will be prompted for the letter token, but can enter '=' to invoke the
STANDARD selection menu, or RETURN for the default bookmark file.
[ToC]
Jump Command
Similar to the bookmarks file is the jumps file: for an example, look
in the samples subdirectory in the distribution package. To use the
jumps command, create a jumps file with the same format as the sample
file, but containing your own URLs & short-cut names. Once you have
done that, typing 'j' prompts you to enter a short-cut name, which
will take you straight to the URL associated with the short-cut in the
jumps file, much like using 'g'. If you want to check which short-cuts
are available, type '?' at the jump prompt for the full list.
All jump short-cuts you have entered are saved in a circular buffer in
the same way as with 'g' and '/' (search):
previous entries can be retrieved with up-arrow or down-arrow.
The jumps feature is especially useful for system administrators who
have unsophisticated users to care for, but ordinary Lynx users who
have a number of URLs they regularly visit while browsing may find
using the jumps command speeds their movements.
For more advice how to set up the jumps command on your system and how
to define short-cut names, read lynx.cfg . [ToC]
Directory Editing
Lynx offers extended DIRED support on Unix (on VMS the more powerful
CSwing program is recommended for character cell terminals, and can be
offered via Lynx as a jump shortcut or execution link). When a local
directory is accessed using a URL of the form file://localhost/path/,
a new set of commands is available. With DIRED support you can create,
edit, delete, copy, and move files on your local system. The commands
available in DIRED mode are
C)reate
Type 'c' to create a new file. New file will be empty.
D)ownload
Type 'd' to download using one of the pre-defined options.
E)dit
Type 'e' to spawn the editor defined in Options Menu and load a
selected file for editing.
F)ull Menu
Type 'f' to show full menu of options available for selection.
Menu may vary according to type of file selected and
compression facilities available.
M)odify
Type 'm' to modify the name or location of file. Then type 'n'
to rename the file or 'l' to move the file to a different
location.
R)emove
Type 'r' to remove the selected file or directory.
T)ag
Type 't' to tag highlighted file. Further operations will be
performed on tagged files instead of highlighted ones.
U)pload
Type 'u' to upload a file to the present directory. An
uploading method must have been pre-defined in lynx.cfg .
[ToC]
Using Color & the Mouse
A limited range of colors & mouse commands are available, if the user
chooses: see lynx.cfg for details. [ToC]
Scrolling and Other useful commands
A summary of all the keystroke commands and their key bindings can be
invoked via the KEYMAP command, normally mapped to 'k' and 'K'. The
following describes some of the most commonly used commands.
^A
Control-A jumps you to the beginning of the current document.
It is a synonym for the Keypad Home key, and can be used also
when Links are numbered mode is on. The Find Function key also
is a synonym, and ideally the latter has been mapped to the
Function key labeled Home if you are using an IBM Enhanced
Keyboard.
^E
Control-E jumps you to the end of the current document. It is a
synonym for the Keypad End key, and can be used also when Links
are numbered mode is on. The Select Function key also is a
synonym, and ideally the latter has been mapped to the Function
key labeled End if you are using an IBM Enhanced Keyboard.
^B
Control-B normally jumps you to the previous page of the
current document, and thus is a synonym for the Keypad and
Function Page-Up keys. However, Control-B acts as right-arrow
when emacs-like key movement is enabled (see Lynx Options
Menu).
^F
Control-F normally jumps you to the next page of the current
document, and thus is a synonym for the Keypad and Function
Page-Down keys. However, Control-F becomes right-arrow when
emacs-like key movement is enabled.
^N
Control-N normally jumps you forward two lines in the current
document. The Remove Function key (labeled Delete on IBM
Enhanced keyboards, and distinct from their Backspace key) is a
synonym. Control-N becomes down-arrow when emacs-like key
movement is enabled.
^P
Control-P normally jumps you back two lines in the current
document. The Insert Function key is a synonym. Control-P
becomes up-arrow when emacs-like key movement is enabled.
)
The ) command jumps you forward half a page in the current
document.
(
The ( command jumps you back half a page in the current
document.
#
The '#' command jumps you to the pseudo Toolbar or Banner if
present in the current document. Use left-arrow to return from
there to your previous position in the document.
!
When '!' is pressed your default shell will be spawned. When
you quit or exit the shell you will return to Lynx (usually
exit under Unix and logout under VMS). This command is usually
disabled for anonymous users. On VMS, '$' normally is a
synonym. On Win32, this has no effect [???].
g
The 'g' command allows any URL to be viewed. Pressing the 'g'
command will bring up a prompt asking for a URL. Type in the
URL that you wish to view. All previously entered goto URLs are
saved in a circular buffer, and can be accessed at the prompt
by pressing the up-arrow or down-arrow keys.
G
The 'G' command allows you to edit the URL of the current
document and then use that as a goto URL. Pressing the 'G'
command will bring up a prompt asking you to edit the current
document's URL. If you do not modify it, or completely delete
it, or enter Control-G, the command will be cancelled. If the
current document has POST content associated with it, an Alert
will be issued. If you do edit that URL, and it does not simply
involve a fragment change (for seeking a position in the
current document), the modified URL will be submitted with
method GET and no POST content. If a modification of the
current document's URL results in a submission, that modified
URL will be entered into the circular buffer for goto URLs, and
can be accessed for further modification via the 'g' command.
E
The 'E' command allows you to edit the URL (or ACTION) of the
current link and then use that as a goto URL. Pressing the 'E'
command will bring up a prompt asking you to edit the current
link's URL. If you do not modify it, or completely delete it,
or enter Control-G, the command will be cancelled. Otherwise,
the request for the 'E'dited URL will be sent with method GET,
and will be entered into the circular buffer for goto URLs so
that it can be accessed for further modification via the 'g'
command. Note that lower case 'e' invokes the external editor
for the current document.
=
The '=' command shows information about the current document
and the currently selected link if there is one. The number of
lines in the file, URL, title, owner, and type are shown.
^T
Control-T toggles Lynx trace mode on and off. This is useful
for diagnosing bad html. If you get a Bad HTML statusline
message when loading a document, enter Control-T and then
Control-R to reload the document in trace mode. You may then
examine the Lynx Trace Log file with the ; command if enabled
(see below), watch out especially for lines marked with a
number of asterisks '*****'. You also can submit the document
for validation via links in the online help menu. If you are
able to diagnose the problem, send a message about it to the
document's author.
;
The ; command shows the Lynx Trace Log (Lynx.trace in the home
directory) if one has been started for the current session. If
a log has not been started, any trace messages will be sent to
the screen (and will disturb the normal display) unless the
system supports piping and that was used to redirect stderr
messages to a file. The log is started when Lynx trace mode is
turned on via the -trace command line switch, or via the
Control-T toggle, if Lynx has been compiled to log the trace
and other stderr messages by default. If not, ability to create
a log can be toggled on with the -tlog switch. Note that this
ability is probably disabled in anonymous or validation
accounts.
*
The '*' command toggles image_links mode on and off. When on,
links will be created for all images, including inlines. If you
have an image viewer mapped to the image's MIME type, you can
activate such links to view an inline image. You should
normally have this mode toggled off.
@
The '@' command toggles raw 8-bit or CJK mode on and off. When
on, the charset is assumed to match the selected character set
and 8-bit characters are not reverse translated with respect to
the ISO-8859-1 conversion tables.
[
The '[' command toggles pseudo_inlines mode on and off. When
on, inline images which have no ALT string specified will have
an [INLINE] pseudo-ALT string inserted in the Lynx display.
When off, they will be treated as having ALT="" (i.e., they'll
be ignored). If image_links mode is toggled on, the pseudo-ALT
strings will be restored, to serve as links to the inline
images' sources.
]
The ']' command is used to send HEAD requests for the current
document or link. It applies only to documents or links (or
form submit buttons) of http servers. A statusline message will
notify you if the context for this command was inappropriate.
The HEAD requests always are sent to the http server, i.e.,
Lynx does not retrieve any previous server replies from its
cache. Note that for form submissions, http servers vary in
whether they'll treat HEAD requests as valid and return the CGI
script's headers, or treat it as invalid and return an error
message.
^K
Control-K invokes the Cookie Jar Page if it contains cookies.
z
Lynx supports completely interruptible I/O processes. Press the
'z' key at any time during a connect or transfer process and
the process will be halted. If any data was transferred before
the interrupt, it will be displayed.
numbers
Lynx offers other, advanced navigation features when numbers
are used to invoke the Follow Link (or goto link or page)
number: or Select Pop-up Option Number: prompts. [ToC]
Lynx and HTML Forms
This section describes the Lynx Forms Interface. HTML gives document
providers the ability to create on-line forms which may be filled out
when the document is viewed. When a form is submitted the information
on the form can be used to search a database or complete a survey.
An HTML Form provides for the use of buttons to perform an action
(such as submit), checkboxes, radio buttons or popups to select
options from a list, and fields for entering text.
Buttons:
Buttons are displayed in the same way that Lynx displays links
in a document. To "push" the button press the right-arrow or
Return key. If it is a form submission button, you also can use
the NOCACHE ('x') or DOWNLOAD ('d') keystroke commands to
"push" the button (see below).
Checkboxes and Radio buttons
Checkboxes are displayed as square brackets: [ ] and radio
buttons are displayed as parenthesis: ( ). When a box is
checked or a button selected, an x appears in the brackets: [x]
or an asterisk appears within the parenthesis: (*). To check a
box or select a radio button press the right-arrow or Return
key.
Selection Fields
Selection fields are displayed as brackets with the default
option displayed between them: [default__]. To select an option
press the right-arrow or Return key. A box with a border of
asterisks (or line-drawing characters) will pop up with the
list of possible options listed within the box. Use the
up-arrow, down-arrow, page-up, page-down, and other navigation
keys to move the cursor among options, and the right-arrow or
Return key to select an option. You also can use the '/' and
'n'ext searching commands for navigating to options which
contain particular strings. NOTE that the popup menu feature
can be disabled via compilation and/or configuration options,
or via the Options Menu, in which case the selection field
options will be converted to a list of radio buttons. The
default setting for use of popups or radio button lists can be
toggled via the -popup command line switch.
Text Entry Fields
Text entry (INPUT) fields are displayed as a row of underscores
the length of the entry field: _______. You may enter text
directly by typing at the keyboard. Use the Line Editor keys to
correct errors. If you try to input more text than the field
can hold, the line editor will not accept the additional
characters. If you fill a text field the cursor will not move
off the field but remain at the last field position. Use the
up-arrow, and down-arrow, TAB or Return keys to move up, or
down from the text entry field. NOTE, however, that Return also
will submit the form if the text entry field is the only
non-hidden field in the form. If "Textfields Need Activation"
mode is turned on (with the -tna command-line option or in
lynx.cfg), then text entry fields do not become active
immediately upon being selected, as normally. Keystrokes have
their normal command meaning unless the Line Editor gets
activated with Return or Right Arrow. This mode can be used to
avoid "getting stuck" in input fields, especially by users who
rarely fill out forms.
NOTE: If you have a text input field selected you will not have
access to most of the Lynx keystroke commands, because they are
interpreted by the Line Editor as either text entries or
editing commands. Select a button or box when you want to use
Lynx keystrokes; or prefix your keystroke with ^V to
temporarily escape from line editing.
Some flavors of UNIX, shells & terminal settings require that
you enter ^V^Ve in order to start the external editor, as they
also use ^V as default command-line quote key (called `lnext'
in stty man pages and `stty -a' output); to avoid this, you can
put `stty lnext undef' in your .cshrc file (or .profile or
.bashrc, depending on what shell you use), or invoke Lynx with
a wrapper script, e.g.
#!/bin/sh
stty lnext undef
$HOME/bin/lynx "$@"
stty lnext ^V
exit
NB when NOT in the Line Editor, ^V is by default bound to the
command to switch between SortaSGML and TagSoup HTML parsing
(i.e., SWITCH_DTD). To avoid confusion, either of these
separate functions could be changed (mapped away) with a KEYMAP
directive in lynx.cfg. For example,
KEYMAP:^V:DO_NOTHING
KEYMAP:#:SWITCH_DTD
would map SWITCH_DTD away from ^V to #, while leaving its
default Line Editor function as a command escape in place. On
the other hand,
KEYMAP:^V::NOP:1
KEYMAP:^_::LKCMD:1
would move ^V's Line Editor binding as command escape to ^_ for
the first Line Edit style, letting ^V still act as SWITCH_DTD
outside of text input fields.
TEXTAREA Fields
TEXTAREA fields are for most purposes handled as if they were a
series of text entry (INPUT) fields for which successive lines
imply a newline at the end of the preceding line. You enter
text on each line to construct the overall message. Any blank
lines at the bottom of the TEXTAREA field will be eliminated
from the submission. The up-arrow, and down-arrow or Return
keys move you to the preceding, or next line of the overall
message, as for INPUT fields. The TAB key will move you down
beyond the bottom of the TEXTAREA field, and Back Tab (if
available, e.g., as Shift-Tab, and correctly mapped in the
terminal description) will move backward to a link or field
before the TEXTAREA.
Editing TEXTAREA Fields and Special TEXTAREA Functions
TEXTAREA fields can be edited using an external editor. The
statusline should tell you when this is possible and what key
to use, it might for example say
(Textarea) Enter text. [ ..... ] (^Xe for editor).
An external editor has to be defined, for example in the
Options Menu, before you can start using this function.
A key to invoke external TEXTAREA editing is normally provided
by the Line-Editor Key Bindings. A KEYMAP directive in lynx.cfg
can also be used to make a different key invoke external
editing; it will then normally be necessary to prefix that key
with ^V to "escape" from line-editing. Two variants exist,
KEYMAP:e:EDITTEXTAREA
or
KEYMAP:e:DWIMEDIT
(the first is only functional for TEXTAREA editing, while the
second allows to use the same key for normal file editing as
long as both functions don't conflict).
Please see the note above for details about ^V behavior.
You can also use two other special TEXTAREA functions. Again,
these are already bound to key sequences in the Line-Editor
Bindings, by default ^Xg and ^Xi. You can use different keys by
adding KEYMAP bindings to your lynx.cfg file, e.g.
KEYMAP:$:GROWTEXTAREA
KEYMAP:#:INSERTFILE
With these bindings, (in a TEXTAREA only) ^V$ would add 5 lines
to the TEXTAREA and ^V# would prompt for the name of an
existing file to be inserted into the TEXTAREA (above the
cursorline). An automatic variation of GROWTEXTAREA is normally
compiled in, so that hitting Enter with the cursor on the last
line adds a new line to the TEXTAREA, with the cursor on it.
If you have some single keys (or control keys) to spare that
you do not need for their normal purposes, you can dedicate
those keys to invoke the special functions (without requiring a
prefix key). For example, to use the ^E key for the DWIMEDIT
action, and the Insert key for the INSERTFILE action, use
KEYMAP:^E:DWIMEDIT:PASS
KEYMAP:0x10C:INSERTFILE:PASS
(see lynx.cfg for other keystroke codes to use).
Note that the default bindings that use ^X as a prefix key may
also work by substituting the Escape key for ^X. If your
keyboard has a modifier (Meta) key that gets transmitted as an
ESC prefix, for example Alt, you can then even use Alt-e
instead of ^Xe, Alt-g instead of ^Xg, and so on. But this does
not work reliably everywhere (it depends on the way Lynx is
compiled, including which libraries are used, and behavior of
the connection and terminal type).
In general, you can move around the form using the standard Lynx
navigation keys. The up-arrow and down-arrow keys, respectively,
select the previous or next field, box, or button. The TAB key selects
the next field, box, or button.
To submit the form press right-arrow or Return when positioned on the
form's submit button. If you've submitted the form previously during
the Lynx session, have not changed any of the form content, and the
METHOD was GET, Lynx will retrieve from its cache what was returned
from the previous submission. If you wish to resubmit that form to the
server with the same content as previously, use the NOCACHE command
('x') when positioned on the submit button. The right-arrow and Return
keys also will invoke a no-cache resubmission if the reply from a form
submission included a META element with a no-cache Pragma or
Cache-Control directive:
or the server sent a "Pragma" or "Cache-Control" MIME header with a
no-cache directive.
You also can use the DOWNLOAD ('d') keystroke command when positioned
on a form submit button if you wish to download the server's reply to
the submission instead of having Lynx render and display it.
Forms which have POST as the METHOD, or a mailto: URL as the ACTION,
are always resubmitted, even if the content has not changed, when you
activate the submit button. Lynx normally will not resubmit a form
which has POST as the METHOD if the document returned by the form has
links which you activated, and then you go back via the PREV_DOC
(left-arrow) command or via the History Page. Lynx can be compiled so
that it resubmits the form in those cases as well, and the default can
be changed via lynx.cfg, and toggled via the -resubmit_posts command
line switch.
If the form has one text entry field and no other fields except,
possibly, hidden INPUT fields not included in the display, then that
field also serves as a submit button, and pressing right-arrow or
Return on that field will invoke submission of the form. Be sure to
use up-arrow, down-arrow or TAB to move off the text entry field, in
such cases, if it is not your intention to submit the form (or to
retrieve what was returned from an earlier submission if the content
was not changed and the METHOD was GET).
Forms can have multiple submit buttons, if they have been assigned
NAMEs in the markup. In such cases, information about which one of the
buttons was used to submit the form is included in the form content.
Inlined images can be used as submit buttons in forms. If such buttons
are assigned NAMEs in the markup, for graphic clients they can also
serve as image maps, and the x,y coordinates of the graphic client's
cursor position in the image when it was clicked are included in the
form content. Since Lynx cannot inline the image, and the user could
not have moved a cursor from the origin for the image, if no
alternatives are made available in the markup Lynx sends a 0,0
coordinate pair in the form content. Document authors who use images
as submit buttons, but have at least some concern for text clients and
sight-challenged Webizens, should include VALUEs for the buttons in
such markup. Lynx will then display the string assigned to the VALUE,
as it would for a normal submit button. Some document authors
incorrectly use an ALT instead of VALUE attribute for this purpose.
Lynx "cooperates" by treating ALT as a synonym for VALUE when present
in an INPUT tag with TYPE="image". If neither a VALUE nor an ALT
attribute is present, Lynx displays "[IMAGE]-Submit" as the string for
such buttons. If clickable images is set, the "[IMAGE]" portion of the
string is a link for the image, and the "Submit" portion is the button
for submitting the form. Otherwise, the entire string is treated as a
submit button. If a VALUE or ALT attribute is present and clickable
images is set, Lynx prepends "[IMAGE]" as a link for the image,
followed by '-' and then the attribute's value as the displayed string
for the submit button. Note that earlier versions of Lynx would send a
name=value pair instead of a 0,0 coordinate pair if a TYPE="image"
submit button was NAME-ed, had a VALUE attribute in the INPUT tag, and
was used to submit the form. The script which analyzes the form
content thus could be made aware whether the submission was by a user
with a graphic client and had image loading turned on, or by a user
who did not see the image nor make a conscious choice within it.
However, requests that this be included in HTML specifications
consistently have fallen on deaf ears, and thus Lynx now "fakes" a 0,0
coordinate pair whether or not a VALUE or ALT attribute is present in
the INPUT tag. Ideally, the script which analyzes the submitted
content will treat the 0,0 coordinate pair as an indicator that the
user did not see the image and make a conscious choice within it.
Forms can have hidden INPUT fields, which are not displayed, but have
NAMEs and VALUEs included in the content. These often are used to keep
track of information across a series of related form submissions, but
have the potential for including information about the user that might
be considered to represent an invasion of privacy. NOTE, in this
regard, that Lynx has implemented the HTML 3.0 DISABLED attribute for
all of its form fields. These can be used to keep track of information
across submissions, and to cast it unmodifiable in the current form,
but keep the user aware that it will be included in the submission.
Forms most commonly are submitted to http servers with the content
encoded as ENCTYPE="application/x-www-form-urlencoded" for analysis by
a script, and Lynx treats that as the default if no ENCTYPE is
specified in the FORM start tag. However, you can specify a mailto URL
as the form's ACTION to have the form content sent, instead, to an
email address. In such cases, you may wish to specify
ENCTYPE="text/plain" in the form markup, so that the content will not
be encoded, but remain readable as plain text.
Lynx also supports ENCTYPE="application/sgml-form-urlencoded" for
which all reserved characters in the content will be hex escaped, as
with application/x-www-form-urlencoded, but semicolons (';') instead
of ampersands ('&') will be used as the separator for name=value pairs
in the form content. The use of semicolons is preferred for forms with
the GET METHOD, because the GET METHOD causes the encoded form content
to be appended as a ?searchpart for the form's ACTION, and if such
URLs are used in text/html documents or bookmark files without
conversion of the ampersands to SGML character references (& or
&), their being followed by form field NAMEs which might
correspond to SGML entities could lead to corruption of the intended
URL.
NOTE, in this regard, that Lynx converts ampersands to & when
creating bookmarks, and thus the bookmark links will not be vulnerable
to such corruptions. Also NOTE that Lynx allows you to save links in
your bookmark file for documents returned by forms with the GET
METHOD, and which thus have the content appended as a ?searchpart, but
not if the METHOD was POST, because the content would be lost and the
link thus would be invalid.
Lynx supports ENCTYPE="multipart/form-data" for sending form content
with name=value pairs encoded as multipart sections with individual
MIME headers and boundaries. However, Lynx does not yet support INPUTs
with TYPE="file" or TYPE="range" and will set the DISABLED attribute
for all of the form's fields if any INPUTs with either of those two
TYPEs are present, so that the form can't be submitted. Otherwise,
Lynx will submit the form with the multipart ENCTYPE.
A Content-Disposition: file; filename=name.suffix header can be used
by CGI scripts to set the suggested filename offered by Lynx for
'd'ownload and 'p'rint menu options to save or mail the body returned
by the script following submission of a FORM. Otherwise, Lynx uses the
last symbolic element in the path for the FORM's ACTION, which is
normally the script, itself, or a PATH_INFO field, and thus might be
misleading. This also can be done via a META element in any document:
[ToC]
Lynx and HTML Images
As a text browser, Lynx does not display images as such -- you need to
define a viewer in lynx.cfg: see there -- , but users can choose a
number of ways of showing their presence.
There are 3 choices in lynx.cfg, with 2 corresponding keys:
MAKE_LINKS_FOR_ALL_IMAGES * IMAGE_TOGGLE
MAKE_PSEUDO_ALTS_FOR_INLINES [ INLINE_TOGGLE
VERBOSE_IMAGES no corresponding key
You can also use the Options Menu, as outlined below:
key lynx.cfg FM KM .lynxrc variable in source
* MAKE_LINKS_ Y N N clickable_images
[ MAKE_PSEUDO_ Y N N pseudo_inline_alts
VERBOSE_ Y Y Y verbose_img
FM = Form-based Menu ; KM = Key-based Menu ;
in .lynxrc , VERBOSE_IMAGES is called `verbose_images':
the other two cannot be saved between sessions.
In the Form-based Menu, the 3-way `Show images' selection combines the
effects of the `*' & `[' keys, as follows:
Ignore clickable_images = FALSE, pseudo_inline_alts = FALSE
As labels clickable_images = FALSE, pseudo_inline_alts = TRUE
As links clickable_images = TRUE, pseudo_inline_alts = unchanged
Lynx and HTML Tables
HTML includes markup for creating tables structured as arrays of cells
aligned by columns and rows on the displayed page.
Lynx recognizes the TABLE element and all of its associated elements
as described in RFC 1942 and will process any ID attributes in the
start tags for handling as NAME-ed anchors, but does not create actual
tables. Instead, it treats the TR start tag as a collapsible BR (line
break), and inserts a collapsible space before the content of each TH
and TD start tag. This generally makes all of the content of the table
readable, preserves most of the intra-cell organization, and makes all
of the links in the table accessible, but any information critically
dependent on the column and row alignments intended for the table will
be missed.
If inherently tabular data must be presented with Lynx, one can use
PRE formatted content, or, if the table includes markup not allowed
for PRE content, construct the table using HTML Tabs. An example table
using TAB elements is included in the test subdirectory of the Lynx
distribution.
Starting with version 2.8.3, Lynx renders some tables in tabular form.
This tabular representation for simple tables (TRST) does not attempt
to implement full support for any table model. Limitations are:
* All data constituting a table row generally has to fit within the
display width without inserting line breaks.
* Cell contents have to be simple. In general, only inline markup is
acceptable, no
, etc. (although may be ignored at the
beginning of the first cell or at the end of the last cell of a
row).
* When tables are nested, only the innermost level is a candidate
for tabular representation.
* Most attributes are ignored, including borders, WIDTH, vertical
alignment.
Horizontal alignments (LEFT, CENTER, RIGHT), COLSPAN, and ROWSPAN are
interpreted according to HTML 4.01. (ROWSPAN can only reserve empty
space in subsequent rows, because of the limitations above.) When TRST
fails because a table is not "simple" enough, the representation falls
back to the minimal handling described earlier. Many (but,
unfortunately, by no means all) tables that represent inherently
tabular material will thus be shown with correct tabular formatting.
Where table markup is used only for layout purposes (containing whole
blocks of text and list within table cells) and not essential for
understanding the textual contents, it remains basically ignored. Some
more information on details is available in the file README.TRST of
the source distribution.
For tabular display of more complex tables, Lynx users can make use of
external scripts or programs. The normal Lynx distribution currently
does not provide such scripts, but they can be written locally or
downloaded from several sources. It is suggested to use one of Lynx's
facilities for invoking external programs (see DOWNLOADER, PRINTER,
EXTERNAL, TRUSTED_LYNXCGI in lynx.cfg and lynxcgi: in Supported URLs
for information on various ways for setting this up). [ToC]
Lynx and HTML Tabs
Lynx implements the HTML 3.0 TAB element only when LEFT alignment is
in effect. If the alignment is CENTER or RIGHT (JUSTIFY is not yet
implemented in Lynx, and is treated as a synonym for LEFT), or if the
TAB element indicates a position to the left of the current position
on the screen, it is treated as a collapsible space. For purposes of
implementing TAB, Lynx treats en units as half a character cell width
when specified by the INDENT attribute, and rounds up for odd values
(e.g., a value of either 5 or 6 will be treated as three spaces, each
the width of a character cell). See the example table using TAB
elements in the test subdirectory of the Lynx distribution as a model
for using this functionality.
Note that this Users Guide and the Supported URLs page include TAB
markup in a manner which degrades gracefully for WWW browsers which do
not support it. Toggle to display of source and search for footnote.
activating that link will take you to the labeled rendering of:
Lynx does not use popups for FN blocks.
i.e., position it at the top of the page. Then, upon reading the
footnote, you can return to your previous position in the document by
pressing the left-arrow key. The content of an FN element can be any
HTML markup that is valid in the BODY of the document. [ToC]
Lynx and HTML Notes
Lynx implements the HTML 3.0 NOTE element (Admonishment) as a labeled
block, i.e., as if a new paragraph were indicated whether or not
paragraphing markup is included in its content, with greater than
normal left and right margins, and with the type of note indicated by
an emphasized label based on the value of its CLASS or ROLE attribute.
If no CLASS or ROLE attribute is included, the default label NOTE:
will be used. Lynx recognizes the values caution and warning, for
which, respectively, the labels CAUTION: or WARNING: will be used. The
NOTE element can have an ID attribute, which will be treated as a
named Anchor, as for HTML Footnotes, but the NOTE block need not be
placed at the bottom of the document. The content of a NOTE block can
be any HTML markup that is valid in the BODY of the document. This is
an example:
The W3C vendors did not retain NOTE in the HTML 3.2 draft.
It will degrade gracefully for WWW browsers which do not support NOTE,
except for recognition of the ID attribute as a named Anchor. [ToC]
Lynx and HTML Lists
Lynx implements the HTML 3.0 list elements UL (Unordered List), OL
(Ordered List), and DL (Definition List), and their associated
attributes, and elements (LH, LI, DT, and DD) for the most part as
described in that specification. The lists can be nested, yielding
progressively greater indentation, up to six levels. The HTML 2.0 MENU
and DIR elements both are treated as synonyms for UL with the PLAIN
attribute (no bullets, see below). Note, thus, that neither DIR nor
MENU yields a series of columns with 24-character spacing. A single
nesting index is maintained, so that different types of List elements
can be used for different levels within the nest. Also, the HTML 3.0
FIG, CAPTION and CREDIT elements are treated as valid within list
blocks. They will be rendered with indentation appropriate for the
current nesting depth, and the CAPTION or CREDIT elements will have a
CAPTION: or CREDIT: label beginning the first line of their content.
The content of any APPLET or OBJECT elements in the lists also will be
indented appropriately for the current nesting depth, but those will
not invoke line breaks unless indicated by their content, and it
should not include markup which is inappropriate within the list.
Lynx also supports the TYPE attribute for OL elements, which can have
values of 1 for Arabic numbers, I or i for uppercase or lowercase
Roman numerals, or A or a for uppercase or lowercase letters, that
increment for successive LI elements in the list block. The CONTINUE
attribute can be used to continue the ordering from the preceding list
block when the nesting depth is changed.
Lynx treats the OL attributes START and SEQNUM as synonyms for
specifying the ordering value for the first LI element in the block.
The values should be specified as Arabic numbers, but will be
displayed as Arabic, Roman, or alphabetical depending on the TYPE for
the block. The values can range from -29997 to the system's maximum
positive integer for Arabic numbers. For Roman numerals, they can
range from 1 (I or i) to 3000 (MMM or mmm.). For alphabetical orders,
the values can range from 1 (A or a) to 18278 (ZZZ or zzz). If the
CONTINUE attribute is used, you do not need to specify a START or
SEQNUM attribute to extend the ordering from a previous block, and you
can include a TYPE attribute to change among Arabic, Roman, or
alphabetical ordering styles, or their casing, without disrupting the
sequence. If you do not include a START, SEQNUM or CONTINUE attribute,
the first LI element of each OL block will default to 1, and if you do
not include a TYPE attribute, Lynx defaults to Arabic numbers.
For UL blocks without the PLAIN attribute, Lynx uses *, +, o, #, @ and
- as bullets to indicate, progressively, the depth within the six
nesting levels.
Lynx treats UL, OL, DIR, and MENU blocks as having the COMPACT
attribute by default, i.e., single spaces between LH and LI elements
within those blocks. For DL blocks, double spacing will be used to
separate the DT and DD elements unless the COMPACT attribute has been
specified. [ToC]
Lynx and HTML Quotes
The HTML 3.0 and later specifications provide for two classes of
quotation in HTML documents. Block quotes, designated by the
BLOCKQUOTE element (or it's abbreviated synonym BQ in HTML 3.0), have
implied paragraph breaks preceding and following the start and end
tags for the block. Character level quotes, designated by the Q
element, in contrast are simply directives in the markup to insert an
appropriate quotation mark.
Lynx renders block quotes with a greater than normal left and right
indentation. Lynx does not support italics, and normally substitutes
underlining, but does not underline block quotes so as not to obscure
any explicit emphasis elements within the quotation. The BLOCKQUOTE or
BQ block can include a CREDIT container element, whose content will be
rendered as an implied new paragraph with a CREDIT: label at the
beginning of its first line.
Lynx respects nested Q start and end tags, and will use ASCII
double-quotes (") versus grave accent (`) and apostrophe ('),
respectively, for even versus odd depths in the nest.
Any ID attributes in BLOCKQUOTE, BQ or Q elements can be the target of
a hyperlink in the form URL#id. It is treated just like the NAME in
Anchors. [ToC]
Lynx and HTML Internationalization: 8bit, UNICODE, etc.
Lynx has superior support for HTML 4.0/I18N internationalization
issues. However, to see the characters other than 7bit properly you
should set your display character set from Option Menu and save its
value, this is a Frequently Asked Question. Fine-turning is also
available from lynx.cfg [ToC]
Lynx and Client-Side-Image-Maps
HTML includes markup, designed primarily for graphic clients, that
treats inlined images as maps, such that areas of the image within
which a mouse cursor was positioned when the mouse was clicked can
correspond to URLs which should be retrieved. The original
implementations were based on the client sending an http server the
x,y coordinates associated with the click, for handling by a script
invoked by the server, and have been termed server-side-image-maps.
Lynx has no rational way of coping with such a procedure, and thus
simply sends a 0,0 coordinate pair, which some server scripts treat as
an instruction to return a document suitable for a text client.
Newer HTML markup provides bases for the client to determine the URLs
associated with areas in the image map, and/or for a text client to
process alternative markup and allow the user to make choices based on
textual information. These have been termed client-side-image-maps.
Lynx recognizes and processes the MAP container element and its AREA
elements, and will create a menu of links for the HREF of each AREA
when the link created for the IMG element with a USEMAP attribute is
activated. The menu uses the ALT attributes of the AREA elements as
the link names, or, if the document's author has disregard for text
clients and sight-challenged Webizens, and thus did not include ALT
attributes, Lynx uses the resolved URLs pointed to by the HREF
attributes as the link names. Lynx uses the TITLE attribute of the IMG
element, or the TITLE attribute of the MAP, if either was present in
the markup, as the title and main header of the menu. Otherwise, it
uses the ALT attribute of the IMG element. If neither TITLE nor ALT
attributes were present in the markup, Lynx creates and uses a
[USEMAP] pseudo-ALT. The MAPs need not be in the same document as the
IMG elements. If not in the same document, Lynx will fetch the
document which contains the referenced MAP, and locate it based on its
NAME or ID attribute. All MAPs encountered in documents during a Lynx
session are cached, so that they need not be retrieved repeatedly when
referenced in different documents.
If the IMG element also indicates a server-side-image-map via an ISMAP
attribute, Lynx normally will create a link for that as well, using an
[ISMAP] pseudo-ALT (followed by a hyphen to indicate its association
with the client-side-image-map) rather than ignoring it, and will
submit a 0,0 coordinate pair if that link is activated. Although, the
client-side-image-map may be more useful for a client such as Lynx,
because all of the URLs associated with the image map can be accessed,
and their nature indicated via ALT attributes, Lynx-friendly sites can
map 0,0 such that the server returns a for-text-client document
homologous to the content of FIG elements (see below). Inclusion of
such a link for submissions to the server can be disabled by default
via the configuration file (lynx.cfg), and the default can be toggled
via the -ismap command line switch.
Lynx also recognizes the HTML 3.0 FIG and OVERLAY elements, and will
handle them as intended for text clients. These are the ideal way to
handle client-side-image-maps, because the FIG content provides
complete alternative markup, rather than relying on the client to
construct a relatively meager list of links with link names based on
ALT strings.
The presently experimental OBJECT element encompasses much of the
functionality of the FIG element for client-side-image-maps. Lynx will
render and display the content of OBJECT elements which have the
SHAPES attribute equivalently to its handling of FIG. Lynx also
handles OBJECT elements with the USEMAP and/or ISMAP attributes
equivalently to its handling of IMG elements with
client-side-image-maps and/or server-side-image-maps. [ToC]
Lynx and Client-Side-Pull
HTML includes provision for passing instructions to clients via
directives in META elements, and one such instruction, via the token
Refresh, should invoke reloading of the document, fetched from a
server with the same URL or a new URL, at a specified number of
seconds following receipt of the current document. This procedure has
been termed client-side-pull. An example of such an element is:
which instructs a client to fetch the indicated URL in 3 seconds after
receiving the current document. If the URL= field is omitted, the URL
defaults to that of the current document. A no-cache directive is
implied when the Refresh if for the same URL.
Lynx recognizes and processes Refresh directives in META elements, but
puts up a labeled link, typically in the upper left corner of the
display, indicating the number of seconds intended before a refresh,
and the URL for the refresh, instead of making the request
automatically after the indicated number of seconds. This allows
people using a braille interface any amount of time to examine the
current document before activating the link for the next URL. In
general, if the number of seconds indicated is short, the timing is
not critical and you can activate the link whenever you like. If it is
long (e.g., 60 seconds), a server process may be generating new
documents or images at that interval, and you would be wasting
bandwidth by activating the link at a shorter interval. [ToC]
Lynx State Management (Me want cookie!)
HTTP provides a means to carry state information across successive
connections between a browser and an http server. Normally, http
servers respond to each browser request without relating that request
to previous or subsequent requests. Though the inclusion of INPUT
fields with TYPE="hidden" can be used as a sort of state management by
HTML Forms, a more general approach involves exchanges of MIME headers
between the server and browser. When replying to a request, the server
can send a Set-Cookie MIME header which contains information (cookies)
relevant to the browser's request, and in subsequent requests the
browser can send a Cookie MIME header with information derived from
previously received cookies.
State Management via cookie exchanges originally was implemented by
Netscape, and such cookies are now designated as Version 0. A more
elaborate format for cookies, designated as Version 1, is being
standardized by the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force). Lynx
supports both Version 0 and Version 1 cookie exchanges. This support
can be disabled by default via the SET_COOKIES symbol in the
compilation (userdefs.h) and/or run time (lynx.cfg) configuration
files, and that default setting can be toggled via the -cookies
command line switch. The SET_COOKIES symbol can be further modified by
the ACCEPT_ALL_COOKIES mode. If ACCEPT_ALL_COOKIES is set TRUE, and
SET_COOKIES is TRUE, Lynx will accept all cookies. Additionally, the
cookies that are automatically accepted or rejected by Lynx can be
further modified with the COOKIE_ACCEPT_DOMAINS and
COOKIE_REJECT_DOMAINS options in your .lynxrc file, each of which is a
comma-separated list of domains to perform the desired action. The
domain listed in these options must be identical to the domain the
cookie comes from, there is no wildcard matching. If a domain is
specific in both COOKIE_ACCEPT_DOMAINS and COOKIE_REJECT_DOMAINS,
rejection will take precedence.
When cookie support is enabled, Set-Cookie MIME headers received from
an http server invoke confirmation prompts with possible replies of
'Y'es or 'N'o for acceptance of the cookie, 'A'lways to accept the
cookie and to allow all subsequent cookies from that domain (server's
Fully Qualified Domain Name, or site-identifying portion of the FQDN)
without further confirmation prompts, or ne'V'er to never allow
cookies from that domain to be accepted (silently ignore its
Set-Cookie MIME headers). All unexpired cookies are held in a
hypothetical Cookie Jar which can be examined via the COOKIE_JAR
keystroke command, normally mapped to Ctrl-K, for invoking the Cookie
Jar Page. If Lynx has been compiled with the
--enable-persistent-cookies flag, then unexpired cookies will be
stored between sessions in the filename set with the COOKIE_FILE
option in your .lynxrc.
A common use of cookies by http servers is simply to track the
documents visited by individual users. Though this can be useful to
the site's WebMaster for evaluating and improving the organization of
links in the various documents of the site, if the user has configured
Lynx to include a From MIME header with the user's email address in
http requests, or has passed personal information to the server via a
form submission, the tracking might be used to draw inferences,
possibly incorrect, about that user, and may be considered by some as
an invasion of privacy.
An example of worthwhile State Management via cookies is the setting
of personal preferences, typically via a form submission to the site,
which will then apply to all documents visited at that site.
If you accept cookies when accessing a site, but are given no
indication about how they will be used in subsequent requests to that
site, nor can infer how they will be used, you can Gobble (delete) the
cookies and/or change the 'allow' setting for its domain via the
Cookie Jar Page. [ToC]
The Lynx command line
A summary of the Lynx command line options (switches) is returned to
stdout if Lynx is invoked with the -help switch. A description of the
options also should be available via the system man (Unix) pages or
help (VMS) libraries. On Win32, typing lynx -help in a DOS window
should display similarly. The basic syntax of the Lynx command line
can be represented as one of the following:
Command
lynx [options]
lynx [options] startfile
where
startfile
is the file or URL that Lynx will load at start-up.
+ If startfile is not specified, Lynx will use a default
starting file and base directory determined during
installation.
+ If a specified file is local (i.e., not a URL) Lynx displays
that file and uses the directory in which that file resides
as the base directory.
+ If a URL is specified, the file will be retrieved, and only
the server base directory will be relevant to further
accesses.
options
can be selected from the following list, where items in
all-caps indicate that a substitution must be made. Many
options are "toggles", meaning that they will change the
default action, however it was specified. To always set the
option on, use the syntax "-option+", "-option=on", or
"-option:on". To always set the option off, use the syntax
"-option-", "-option=off", or "-option:off". The syntax with
the "=" may not work under DOS because of operating system
constraints. Use one of the other forms in that case.
-
If the argument is only '-' (dash), then Lynx expects to
receive the arguments from stdin. This is to allow for
the potentially very long command line that can be
associated with the -get_data or -post_data arguments
(see below). It can also be used to avoid having
sensitive information in the invoking command line (which
would be visible to other processes on most systems),
especially when the -auth or -pauth options are used. On
VMS, the dash must be encased in double-quotes ("-") and
the keyboard input terminated with Control-Z or the
command file input terminated by a line that begins with
'$'. On Unix, the keyboard input terminator is Control-D.
On Win32, [???].
-accept_all_cookies
accept all cookies.
-anonymous
apply restrictions appropriate for an anonymous account,
see -restrictions below for some details.
-assume_charset=MIMENAME
charset for documents that don't specify it.
-assume_local_charset=MIMENAME
charset assumed for local files.
-assume_unrec_charset=MIMENAME
use this instead of unrecognized charsets.
-auth=ID:PW
set authorization ID and password for protected documents
at startup. Be sure to protect any script files which use
this switch.
-base
prepend a request URL comment and BASE tag to text/html
outputs for -source dumps.
-bibp=URL
specify a local bibp server (default http://bibhost/).
-blink
forces high intensity background colors for color mode,
if available and supported by the terminal. This applies
to the slang library (for a few terminal emulators), or
to OS/2 EMX with ncurses.
-book
use the bookmark page as the startfile. The default or
command line startfile is still set for the Main screen
command, and will be used if the bookmark page is
unavailable or blank.
-buried_news
toggles scanning of news articles for buried references,
and converts them to news links. Not recommended because
email addresses enclosed in angle brackets will be
converted to false news links, and uuencoded messages can
be trashed.
-cache=NUMBER
set the NUMBER of documents cached in memory. The default
is 10.
-center
Toggle center alignment in HTML TABLE.
-case
enable case-sensitive string searching.
-cfg=FILENAME
specifies a Lynx configuration file other than the
default lynx.cfg.
-child
exit on left-arrow in startfile, and disable save to
disk.
-cmd_log=FILENAME
write keystroke commands and related information to the
specified file.
-cmd_script=FILENAME
read keystroke commands from the specified file. You can
use the data written using the -cmd_log option. Lynx will
ignore other information which the command-logging may
have written to the log- file. Each line of the command
script contains either a comment beginning with "#", or a
keyword:
exit
causes the script to stop, and forces lynx to exit
immediately.
key
the character value, in printable form. Cursor and
other special keys are given as names, e.g., Down
Arrow. Printable 7-bit ASCII codes are given as-is,
and hexadecimal values represent other 8-bit codes.
set
followed by a "name=value" allows one to override
values set in the lynx.cfg file.
-color
forces color mode on, if available. Default color control
sequences which work for many terminal types are assumed
if the terminal capability description does not specify
how to handle color. Lynx needs to be compiled with the
slang library for this flag. It is equivalent to setting
the COLORTERM environment variable. (If color support is
instead provided by a color-capable curses library like
ncurses, Lynx relies completely on the terminal
description to determine whether color mode is possible,
and this flag is not needed and thus unavailable.) A
saved show_color=always setting found in a .lynxrc file
at startup has the same effect. A saved show_color=always
found in .lynxrc on startup is overridden by this flag.
-connect_timeout=N
Sets the connection timeout, where N is given in seconds.
-cookie_file=FILENAME
specifies a file to use to read cookies. If none is
specified, the default value is ~/.lynx_cookies for most
systems, but ~/cookies for MS-DOS.
-cookie_save_file=FILENAME
specifies a file to use to store cookies. If none is
specified, the value given by -cookie_file is used.
-cookies
toggles handling of Set-Cookie headers.
-core
toggles forced core dumps on fatal errors. (Unix only)
-crawl
with -traversal, output each page to a file.
with -dump, format output as with -traversal, but to
stdout.
-curses_pads
toggles the use of curses "pad" feature which supports
left/right scrolling of the display.
-debug_partial
separate incremental display stages with MessageSecs
delay
-display=DISPLAY
set the display variable for X rexe-ced programs.
-display_charset=MIMEname
set the charset for the terminal output.
-dont_wrap_pre
inhibit wrapping of text in
when -dump'ing and
-crawl'ing, mark wrapped lines in interactive session.
-dump
dumps the formatted output of the default document or one
specified on the command line to standard out. This can
be used in the following way:
lynx -dump http://www.w3.org/
-editor=EDITOR
enable external editing using the specified EDITOR. (vi,
ed, emacs, etc.)
-emacskeys
enable emacs-like key movement.
-enable_scrollback
toggles behavior compatible with the scrollback keys in
some communications software (may be incompatible with
some curses packages).
-error_file=FILENAME
the status code from the HTTP request is placed in this
file.
-exec
enable local program execution (normally not configured).
-fileversions
include all versions of files in local VMS directory
listings.
-find_leaks
toggles the memory leak checking off. Normally this is
not compiled-into your executable, but when it is, it can
be disabled for a session.
-force_empty_hrefless_a
force HREF-less 'A' elements to be empty (close them as
soon as they are seen).
-force_html
forces the first document to be interpreted as HTML.
-force_secure
toggles forcing of the secure flag for SSL cookies.
-forms_options
toggles whether the Options Menu is key-based or
form-based.
-from
toggles transmissions of From headers to HTTP or HTTPS
servers.
-ftp
disable ftp access.
-get_data
properly formatted data for a get form are read in from
stdin and passed to the form. Input is terminated by a
line that starts with '---'.
-head
send a HEAD request for the mime headers.
-help
print this Lynx command syntax usage message.
-hiddenlinks=option
control the display of hidden links. Option values are:
merge
hidden links show up as bracketed numbers and are
numbered together with other links in the sequence
of their occurrence in the document.
listonly
hidden links are shown only on List screens and
listings generated by -dump or from the Print menu,
but appear separately at the end of those lists.
This is the default behavior.
ignore
hidden links do not appear even in listings.
-historical
toggles use of '>' or '-->' as a terminator for comments.
-homepage=URL
set homepage separate from start page. Will be used if a
fetch of the start page fails or if it is a script which
does not return a document, and as the URL for the 'm'ain
menu command.
-image_links
toggles inclusion of links for all images.
-ismap
toggles inclusion of ISMAP links when client-side MAPs
are present.
-index=URL
set the default index file to the specified URL
-justify
do justification of text.
-link=NUMBER
starting count for lnk#.dat files produced by -crawl.
-localhost
disable URLs that point to remote hosts.
-locexec
enable local program execution from local files only (if
lynx was compiled with local execution enabled).
-lss=FILENAME
specify filename containing color-style information. The
default is lynx.lss.
-mime_header
include mime headers and force source dump.
-minimal
toggles minimal versus valid comment parsing. When
minimal, any '-->' serves as a terminator for a comment
element. When valid, pairs of '--' are treated as
delimiters for series of comments within the overall
comment element. If historical is set, that overrides
minimal or valid comment parsing.
-nested_tables
toggles nested-tables logic (for debugging).
-newschunksize=NUMBER
number of articles in chunked news listings.
-newsmaxchunk=NUMBER
maximum news articles in listings before chunking.
-nobold
disable bold video-attribute.
-nobrowse
disable directory browsing.
-nocc
disable Cc: prompts for self copies of mailings. Note
that this does not disable any CCs which are incorporated
within a mailto URL or form ACTION.
-nocolor
force color mode off, overriding terminal capabilities
and any -color flags, COLORTERM variable, and saved
.lynxrc settings.
-noexec
disable local program execution. (DEFAULT)
-nofilereferer
disable transmissions of Referer headers for file URLs.
-nolist
disable the link list feature in dumps.
-nolog
disable mailing of error messages to document owners.
-nonrestarting_sigwinch
make window size change handler non-restarting. This flag
is not available on all systems, Lynx needs to be
compiled with HAVE_SIGACTION defined. If available, this
flag may cause Lynx to react more immediately to window
changes when run within an xterm.
-nopause
disable forced pauses for statusline messages.
-noprint
disable most print functions.
-noredir
don't follow URL redirections
-noreferer
disable transmissions of Referer headers.
-noreverse
disable reverse video-attribute.
-nosocks
disable SOCKS proxy usage by a SOCKSified Lynx.
-nostatus
disable the retrieval status messages.
-nounderline
disable underline video-attribute.
-number_fields
force numbering of links as well as form input fields.
-number_links
force numbering of links.
-partial
toggles displaying of partial pages while loading.
-partial_thres=NUMBER
number of lines to render before repainting display with
partial-display logic.
-pauth=ID:PW
set authorization ID and password for a protected proxy
server at startup. Be sure to protect any script files
which use this switch.
-popup
toggles handling of single-choice SELECT options via
popup windows or as lists of radio buttons. The default
configuration can be changed in userdefs.h or lynx.cfg.
It also can be set and saved via the 'o'ptions menu. The
command line switch toggles the default.
-post_data
properly formatted data for a post form are read in from
stdin and passed to the form. Input is terminated by a
line that starts with '---'.
-preparsed
show source preparsed and reformatted when used with
-source or in source view ('\'). May be useful for
debugging of broken HTML markup to visualize the
difference between SortaSGML and TagSoup recovery modes,
switched by '^V'.
-prettysrc
do syntax highlighting and hyperlink handling in source
view.
-print
enable print functions. (default)
-pseudo_inlines
toggles pseudo-ALTs for inlines with no ALT string.
-raw
toggles default setting of 8-bit character translations
or CJK mode for the startup character set.
-realm
restricts access to URLs in the starting realm.
-reload
flushes the cache on a proxy server (only the first
document affected).
-restrictions
allows a list of services to be disabled selectively and
takes the following form:
lynx -restrictions=[option][,option][,option]...
The list of recognized options is printed if none are
specified.
?
if used alone, lists restrictions in effect.
all
restricts all options listed below.
bookmark
disallow changing the location of the bookmark
file.
bookmark_exec
disallow execution links via the bookmark file.
change_exec_perms
disallow changing the eXecute permission on files
(but still allow it for directories) when local
file management is enabled.
chdir
disallow command which changes Lynx's working
directory.
default
same as command line option -anonymous. Set default
restrictions for anonymous users. All specific
services listed are always restricted, except for:
inside_telnet, outside_telnet, inside_ftp,
outside_ftp, inside_rlogin, outside_rlogin,
inside_news, outside_news, telnet_port, jump, mail,
print, exec, and goto. The settings for these, as
well as additional goto restrictions for specific
URL schemes that are also applied, are derived from
definitions within userdefs.h.
Note that this is the only option value that may
have the effect of removing some restrictions, if
they have been set by other options, namely for
those services that are allowed by default
according to userdefs.h. However, if the separate
command line option form (-anonymous) is used, Lynx
takes care to set the default restrictions before
handling additional -restrictions= options (even if
they precede the anonymous option), so that this
cannot happen.
dired_support
disallow local file management.
disk_save
disallow saving to disk in the download and print
menus.
dotfiles
disallow access to, or creation of, hidden (dot)
files.
download
disallow some downloaders in the download menu.
This does not imply the disk_save restriction. It
also does not disable the DOWNLOAD command, and
does not prevent "Download or Cancel" offers when a
MIME type cannot otherwise be handled. Those are
only disabled if additionally the disk_save
restriction is in effect and no download methods
are defined in a Lynx configuration file that are
marked as "always ENABLED" (or, alternatively, if
the -validate switch is used).
editor
disallow external editing.
exec
disable execution scripts.
exec_frozen
disallow the user from changing the local execution
option.
externals
disallow some "EXTERNAL" configuration lines, if
support for passing URLs to external applications
(with the EXTERN_LINK or EXTERN_PAGE command) is
compiled in.
file_url
disallow using G)oto, served links or bookmarks for
file: URLs.
goto
disable the 'g' (goto) command.
inside_ftp
disallow ftps for people coming from inside your
domain.
inside_news
disallow USENET news reading and posting for people
coming from inside you domain. This applies to
"news", "nntp", "newspost", and "newsreply" URLs,
but not to "snews", "snewspost", or "snewsreply" in
case they are supported.
inside_rlogin
disallow rlogins for people coming from inside your
domain.
inside_telnet
disallow telnets for people coming from inside your
domain.
jump
disable the 'j' (jump) command.
lynxcgi
disallow execution of Lynx CGI URLs.
mail
disallow mailing feature.
multibook
disallow multiple bookmarks.
news_post
disallow USENET News posting,
options_save
disallow saving options in .lynxrc.
outside_ftp
disallow ftps for people coming from outside your
domain.
outside_news
disallow USENET news reading and posting for people
coming from outside you domain. This applies to
"news", "nntp", "newspost", and "newsreply" URLs,
but not to "snews", "snewspost", or "snewsreply" in
case they are supported.
outside_rlogin
disallow rlogins for people coming from outside
your domain.
outside_telnet
disallow telnets for people coming from outside
your domain.
print
disallow most print options.
shell
disallow shell escapes.
suspend
disallow Control-Z suspends with escape to shell on
Unix.
telnet_port
disallow specifying a port in telnet G)oto's.
useragent
disallow modifications of the User-Agent header.
-resubmit_posts
toggles forced resubmissions (no-cache) of forms with
method POST when the documents they returned are sought
with the PREV_DOC (left-arrow) command or from the
History Page.
-rlogin
disable recognition of rlogin commands.
-scrollbar
toggles showing scrollbar.
-scrollbar_arrow
toggles showing arrows at ends of the scrollbar.
-selective
require .www_browsable files to browse directories.
-short_url
show very long URLs in the status line with "..." to
represent the portion which cannot be displayed. The
beginning and end of the URL are displayed, rather than
suppressing the end.
-show_cursor
If enabled the cursor will not be hidden in the right
hand corner but will instead be positioned at the start
of the currently selected link. Show cursor is the
default for systems without FANCY_CURSES capabilities.
The default configuration can be changed in userdefs.h or
lynx.cfg. It also can be set and saved via the 'o'ptions
menu. The command line switch toggles the default.
-show_rate
If enabled the transfer rate is shown in bytes/second. If
disabled, no transfer rate is shown. Use lynx.cfg or the
options menu to select KiB/second and/or ETA.
-soft_dquotes
toggles emulation of the old Netscape and Mosaic bug
which treated '>' as a co-terminator for double-quotes
and tags.
-source
works the same as dump but outputs HTML source instead of
formatted text.
-stack_dump
disable SIGINT cleanup handler.
-startfile_ok
allow non-http startfile and homepage with -validate.
-stdin
read the startfile from standard input (UNIX only).
-syslog=text
information for syslog call.
-tagsoup
initialize DTD with "TagSoup" tables, more details.
-telnet
disable recognition of telnet commands.
-term=TERM
tell Lynx what terminal type to assume its talking to.
(This may be useful for remote execution, when, for
example, Lynx connects to a remote TCP/IP port that
starts a script that, in turn, starts another Lynx
process.)
-timeout=N
For win32, sets the network read-timeout, where N is
given in seconds.
-tlog
toggles use of a Lynx Trace Log for the session. The log
is named Lynx.trace and is created in the home directory
when Lynx trace mode is turned on via the -trace command
line switch (see below), or via the TRACE_TOGGLE
(Control-T) keystroke command. Once a log is started for
the session, all trace and other stderr messages are
written to the log. The contents of the log can be
examined during the session via the TRACE_LOG (normally,
';') keystroke command. If use of a Lynx Trace Log is
turned off, any trace output will go to the standard
error stream.
-tna
turns on "Textfields Need Activation" mode.
-trace
turns on Lynx trace mode. If a Lynx Trace Log (Lynx.trace
in the home directory) has been started for the current
session, all trace messages are written to that log, and
can be examined during the session via the TRACE_LOG
(normally, ';') command. If no Trace Log file is in use,
trace messages go to stderr.
-trace_mask=value
turn on optional traces, which may result in very large
trace files. Logically OR the values to combine options:
1
SGML character parsing states
2
color-style
4
TRST (table layout)
8
config (lynx.cfg and .lynxrc contents)
16
binary string copy/append, used in form data
construction.
-traversal
traverse all http links derived from startfile. When used
with -crawl, each link that begins with the same string
as startfile is output to a file, intended for indexing.
See CRAWL.announce for more information.
-trim_input_fields
trim input text/textarea fields in forms.
-underscore
toggles use of _underline_ format in dumps.
-use_mouse
turn on mouse support, if available.
-useragent=STRING
set different Lynx User-Agent header. Lynx produces a
warning on startup if the STRING does not contain "Lynx"
or "L_y_n_x", see the note in the Options Menu section
for rationale.
-validate
accept only http URLs (meant for validation).
This flag implies security restrictions generally more
severe than -anonymous: restriction options as for
-restrictions=all, with the notable exception that goto
remains enabled for http and https URLs; in addition, the
PRINT and DOWNLOAD commands are completely disabled, and
use of a Trace Log file is forced off.
Any relaxing of restriction that might be implied by an
also present (or implied) -anonymous flag is overridden,
the only way to possibly relax some of the restrictions
to the level applicable for "anononymous" accounts is
with an explicit -restrictions=default.
-verbose
toggles [LINK], [IMAGE] and [INLINE] comments with
filenames of these images.
-version
print version information.
-vikeys
enable vi-like key movement.
-wdebug
enable Waterloo tcp/ip packet debug (print to watt
debugfile). This applies only to DOS versions compiled
with WATTCP or WATT-32.
-width=NUMBER
number of columns for formatting of dumps, default is 80.
-with_backspaces
emit backspaces in output if -dumping or -crawling (like
man does).
No options are required, nor is a startfile argument required. White
space can be used in place of equal sign separators ('=') appearing in
the option list above. It can not be used in place of the equal signs
in forms like "-option=on" and "-option=off" for simple switches and
toggles, for which "-option" alone (without a value) is valid. [ToC]
Environment variables used by Lynx
Lynx uses certain environment variables and sets a few of them. Please
visit a separate page for this rather technical information. [ToC]
Main configuration file lynx.cfg
Lynx has several levels of customization: from the Options Menu
(accessible on-line, and possibly stored in your local .lynxrc file),
via command-line switches on startup (mainly for batch processing).
The most important and numerous default settings are stored in the
Lynx configuration file lynx.cfg.
If you are on a UNIX system you should have appropriate permissions to
make changes there or ask your system administrator to modify lynx.cfg
for your needs. This file provides default settings for all accounts
on your system. It may be copied to your shell account and included
with -cfg command line switch or via an environment variable LYNX_CFG
(if you have shell access). Starting with version 2.8.1 Lynx has an
include facility so you can load the system-wide configuration file
and easily add one or more settings from your local add-on
configuration file. It is really cool to read lynx.cfg with its
comments for hundreds of options, most of them commented out because
they are built-in defaults. You may visit an index of options: by
category or by alphabet.
To view your current configuration derived from lynx.cfg and any
included configuration files, press 'g' and type in 'lynxcfg:'. If you
are using the forms-based Options Menu, you may press 'o' for the
Options Menu and follow the 'Check your lynx.cfg' link near the
bottom.
However, for those who have a restricted account many Lynx features
may be disabled by the system administrator, you probably will not see
your lynx.cfg. [ToC]
Lynx development history
Lynx grew out of efforts to build a campus-wide information system at
The University of Kansas. The earliest versions of Lynx provided a
user-friendly, distributed hypertext interface for users connected to
multiuser (Unix and VMS) systems via curses-oriented display devices.
A custom hypertext format was developed to support hypertext links to
local files and files on remote Gopher servers. Using Gopher servers
for distributed file service allowed information providers to publish
information from a wide variety of platforms (including Unix, VMS,
VM/CMS and Macintosh). In addition, Lynx became the most user-friendly
Gopher client, although that was only an ancillary capability.
This distributed approach let providers retain complete control over
their information, but it made communication between users and
providers somewhat more difficult. Following the lead of Neal Erdwien,
of Kansas State University, the Lynx hypertext format was extended to
include links for including ownership information with each file. This
information made it possible for users running Lynx clients to send
comments and suggestions via e-mail to the providers.
This early version of Lynx was also augmented to support hypertext
links to programs running on remote systems. It included the ability
to open a Telnet connection, as well as the ability to start programs
via rexec, inetd, or by direct socket connects. These capabilities
were included to allow users to access databases or custom program
interfaces.
A subsequent version of Lynx incorporated the World Wide Web libraries
to allow access to the full list of WWW servers, along with the option
to build hypertext documents in HTML, rather than the native Lynx
format. HTML has become far more widely used, and the native format
has been phased out. With the addition of the WWW libraries, Lynx
became a fully-featured WWW client, limited only by the display
capabilities offered in the curses environment.
Lynx was designed by Lou Montulli, Charles Rezac and Michael Grobe of
Academic Computing Services at The University of Kansas. Lynx was
implemented by Lou Montulli and maintained by Garrett Arch Blythe and
Craig Lavender.
Foteos Macrides and members of the lynx-dev list have developed and
supported Lynx since release of v2.3 in May 1994.
The Lynx2-3FM code set was released as v2.4 in June 1995.
The Lynx2-4FM code set was released as v2.5 in May 1996.
The Lynx2-5FM code set was released as v2.6 in September 1996.
The Lynx2-6FM code set was released as v2.7 in February 1997.
The v2-7FM code set was released as v2.7.1 in April 1997.
The v2-7-1FM code set was released as v2.7.2 in January 1998.
The 2.7.1 development set was released as v2.8 in March 1998.
The 2.8 development set was released as v2.8.1 in October 1998.
The 2.8.1 development set was released as v2.8.2 in June 1999.
The 2.8.2 development set was released as v2.8.3 in April 2000.
The 2.8.3 development set was released as v2.8.4 in July 2001.
The 2.8.4 development set was released as v2.8.5 in February 2004.
Since early 1997, the Lynx code has expanded into autoconfigure and PC
versions. The branching of the Lynx source base from a single source
into two sources (FM/Foteos Macrides and ac/autoconfigure) should be
considered a healthy synergism among groups of computer professionals
acting in their spare time out of a common goal.
Lynx has incorporated code from a variety of sources along the way.
The earliest versions of Lynx included code from Earl Fogel of
Computing Services at the University of Saskatchewan, who implemented
HYPERREZ in the Unix environment. Those versions also incorporated
libraries from the Unix Gopher clients developed at the University of
Minnesota, and the later versions of Lynx rely on the WWW client
library code developed by Tim Berners-Lee (and others) and the WWW
community.
Contributors have generally been acknowledged in the CHANGES file.
Earlier CHANGES file can be found in the docs/ subdirectory of this
distribution.
Information on obtaining the most current version of Lynx is available
at the current distribution page.
[ToC]