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<h1>Lynx Users Guide v2.8.7</h1>
<p>Lynx is a fully-featured <em>World Wide Web</em>
(<em>WWW</em>) 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 <em>Hypertext Markup Language</em>
(<em>HTML</em>) documents containing links to files on the local
system, as well as files on remote systems running <em>http</em>,
<em>gopher</em>, <em>ftp</em>, <em>wais</em>, <em>nntp</em>,
<em>finger</em>, or <em>cso</em>/<em>ph</em>/<em>qi</em> servers,
and services accessible via logins to <em>telnet</em>,
<em>tn3270</em> or <em>rlogin</em> accounts (see <a href=
"lynx_url_support.html">URL Schemes Supported by Lynx</a>).
<a href="#Hist">Current</a> versions of Lynx run on Unix, VMS,
Windows3.x/9x/NT, 386DOS and OS/2 EMX.</p>
<p>Lynx can be used to access information on the <em>WWW</em>, or
to build information systems intended primarily for local access.
For example, Lynx has been used to build several <em>Campus Wide
Information Systems</em> (<em>CWIS</em>). In addition, Lynx can
be used to build systems isolated within a single LAN.</p>
<h2 id="TOC"><a name="Contents" id="Contents"><em>Table of
Contents</em></a></h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="#Help" name="ToC-Help" id="ToC-Help">Lynx online
help</a></li>
<li><a href="#Local" name="ToC-Local" id="ToC-Local">Viewing
local files with Lynx</a></li>
<li><a href="#Leaving" name="ToC-Leaving" id=
"ToC-Leaving">Leaving Lynx</a></li>
<li><a href="#Remote" name="ToC-Remote" id=
"ToC-Remote">Starting Lynx with a Remote File</a></li>
<li><a href="#EnVar" name="ToC-EnVar" id="ToC-EnVar">Starting
Lynx with the WWW_HOME environment variable.</a></li>
<li><a href="#IntraDocNav" name="ToC-IntraDocNav" id=
"ToC-IntraDocNav">Navigating hypertext documents with
Lynx</a></li>
<li><a href="#Disposing" name="ToC-Disposing" id=
"ToC-Disposing">Printing, Mailing, and Saving rendered files to
disk.</a></li>
<li><a href="#LocalSource" name="ToC-LocalSource" id=
"ToC-LocalSource">Viewing the HTML document source and editing
documents</a></li>
<li><a href="#RemoteSource" name="ToC-RemoteSource" id=
"ToC-RemoteSource">Downloading and Saving source
files.</a></li>
<li><a href="#ReDo" name="ToC-ReDo" id="ToC-ReDo">Reloading
files and refreshing the display</a></li>
<li><a href="#Search" name="ToC-Search" id="ToC-Search">Lynx
searching commands</a></li>
<li><a href="#InteractiveOptions" name="ToC-InteractiveOptions"
id="ToC-InteractiveOptions">Lynx Options Menu</a></li>
<li><a href="#Mail" name="ToC-Mail" id="ToC-Mail">Comments and
mailto: links</a></li>
<li><a href="#News" name="ToC-News" id="ToC-News">USENET News
posting</a></li>
<li><a href="#Bookmarks" name="ToC-Bookmarks" id=
"ToC-Bookmarks">Lynx bookmarks</a></li>
<li><a href="#Jumps" name="ToC-Jumps" id="ToC-Jumps">Jump
command</a></li>
<li><a href="#DirEd" name="ToC-DirEd" id="ToC-DirEd">Directory
Editing</a></li>
<li><a href="#ColorMouse" name="ToC-ColorMouse" id=
"ToC-ColorMouse">Using Color & the Mouse</a></li>
<li><a href="#MiscKeys" name="ToC-MiscKeys" id=
"ToC-MiscKeys">Scrolling and Other useful commands</a></li>
<li><a href="#Forms" name="ToC-Forms" id="ToC-Forms">Lynx and
HTML Forms</a> | <a href="#Images" name="ToC-Images" id=
"ToC-Images">Lynx and HTML Images</a></li>
<li><a href="#Tables" name="ToC-Tables" id="ToC-Tables">Lynx
and HTML Tables</a> | <a href="#Tabs" name="ToC-Tabs" id=
"ToC-Tabs">Lynx and HTML Tabs</a></li>
<li><a href="#Frames" name="ToC-Frames" id="ToC-Frames">Lynx
and HTML Frames</a> | <a href="#Banners" name="ToC-Banners" id=
"ToC-Banners">Lynx and HTML Banners</a></li>
<li><a href="#Footnotes" name="ToC-Footnotes" id=
"ToC-Footnotes">Lynx and HTML Footnotes</a> | <a href="#Notes"
name="ToC-Notes" id="ToC-Notes">Lynx and HTML Notes</a></li>
<li><a href="#Lists" name="ToC-Lists" id="ToC-Lists">Lynx and
HTML Lists</a></li>
<li><a href="#Quotes" name="ToC-Quotes" id="ToC-Quotes">Lynx
and HTML Quotes</a></li>
<li><a href="#Eightbit" name="ToC-Eightbit" id=
"ToC-Eightbit">Lynx and HTML Internationalization: 8bit,
UNICODE, etc.</a></li>
<li><a href="#USEMAP" name="ToC-USEMAP" id="ToC-USEMAP">Lynx
and Client-Side-Image-Maps</a></li>
<li><a href="#Refresh" name="ToC-Refresh" id="ToC-Refresh">Lynx
and Client-Side-Pull</a></li>
<li><a href="#Cookies" name="ToC-Cookies" id="ToC-Cookies">Lynx
and State Management</a> (Me want <em>cookie</em>!)</li>
<li><a href="#Cache" name="ToC-Cache" id="ToC-Cache">Lynx and
Cached Documents</a></li>
<li><a href="#Sessions" name="ToC-Sessions" id=
"ToC-Sessions">Lynx and Sessions</a></li>
<li><a href="#Invoking" name="ToC-Invoking" id=
"ToC-Invoking">The Lynx command line</a></li>
<li><a href="#Environment" name="ToC-Environment" id=
"ToC-Environment">Environment variables used by Lynx</a></li>
<li><a href="#lynx.cfg" name="ToC-lynx.cfg" id=
"ToC-lynx.cfg">Main configuration file lynx.cfg</a></li>
<li><a href="#Hist" name="ToC-Hist" id="ToC-Hist">Lynx
development history</a></li>
</ul>
<h2 id="id-Help"><a name="Help" id="Help"><em>Lynx online
help</em></a></h2>
<p>Online help is available while viewing any document. Press the
'<em>?</em>' or '<em>H</em>' key (or the '<em>h</em>' key if
vi-like key movement is not on) to see a list of help topics. See
the section titled <a href="#IntraDocNav">Navigating hypertext
documents with Lynx</a> for information on navigating through the
help files.</p>
<p>In addition, a summary description of all the Lynx keystroke
commands and their key bindings is available by pressing the
'<em>K</em>' key (or the '<em>k</em>' key if vi-like key movement
is not on).</p>
<p>If you want to recall recent status-line messages, you can do
so by entering the `g' command, followed by `LYNXMESSAGES:'.</p>
<p>[<a href="#ToC-Help">ToC</a>]</p>
<h2 id="id-Local"><a name="Local" id="Local"><em>Viewing local
files with Lynx</em></a></h2>
<p>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:</p>
<dl>
<dt>UNIX</dt>
<dd><code>lynx filename</code></dd>
<dd><code>lynx /home/my-dir/filename</code></dd>
<dd><code>lynx ~/filename</code></dd>
<dt>VMS</dt>
<dd><code>lynx filename</code></dd>
<dd><code>lynx dua5:[my-directory]filename</code></dd>
<dd><code>lynx /dua5/my-directory/filename</code></dd>
<dd><code>lynx ~/filename</code></dd>
<dd><code>lynx sys$login:filename</code></dd>
<dd><code>lynx /sys$login/filename</code></dd>
<dt>Win32/DOS</dt>
<dd><code>lynx file:///filename</code></dd>
<dd><code>lynx filename</code></dd>
<dd><code>lynx c:/dir/filename</code></dd>
<dd><code>lynx //n/dir/filename</code></dd>
</dl>
<p>When executed, Lynx will clear the screen and display as much
of the specified file as will fit on the screen. Pressing a
<em>down-arrow</em> will bring up the next screen, and pressing
an <em>up-arrow</em> 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 <em>lynx.cfg</em>.</p>
<p>Lynx will display local files written in the <em>HyperText
Markup Language</em> (<em>HTML</em>), if the file's name ends
with the characters <em>.html</em>, <em>.htm</em>,
<em>.shtml</em>, <em>.htmlx</em>, <em>.html3</em>, or
<em>.ht3</em>. 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
<em>hypertext document</em>. If the filename does not have one of
the suffixes mapped by Lynx to HTML, the <em>-force_html</em>
command line option can be included to force treatment of the
file as hypertext.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>The one link displayed as "highlighted" text is the currently
"selected" link. Lynx will display the file associated with the
selected link when a <em>right-arrow</em> or a <em>Return</em>
key is pressed. To select a particular link, press the
<em>up-arrow</em> or <em>down-arrow</em> keys until the desired
link becomes "highlighted," and then press the
<em>right-arrow</em> or <em>Return</em> 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.).</p>
<p>Lynx renders HTML files and saves the rendition (and the
source, if so configured in the <a href="#lynx.cfg">lynx.cfg</a>
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 '<em>x</em>' and '<em>X</em>', instead of the
<em>right-arrow</em> or <em>Return</em> 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 <em>Control-R</em>.</p>
<p>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
'<em>D'</em> 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 <em>Save to disk</em>, which is
disabled if Lynx is running in anonymous mode. Additional
download methods may be defined in the <a href=
"#lynx.cfg">lynx.cfg</a> file. Programs like kermit, zmodem and
FTP are some possible options.</p>
<p>[<a href="#ToC-Local">ToC</a>]</p>
<h2 id="id-Leaving"><a name="Leaving" id="Leaving"><em>Leaving
Lynx</em></a></h2>
<p>To exit Lynx use the '<em>q</em>' command. You will be asked
whether you really want to quit. Answering '<em>y</em>' will exit
and '<em>n</em>' will return you to the current document. Use
'<em>Q</em>' or <em>Control-D</em> to quit without
verification.</p>
<p>[<a href="#ToC-Leaving">ToC</a>]</p>
<h2 id="id-Remote"><a name="Remote" id="Remote"><em>Starting Lynx
with a Remote File</em></a></h2>
<p>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:</p>
<p><code>PROTOCOL :// HOST / PATH</code></p>
<p>where</p>
<dl>
<dt><code>PROTOCOL</code></dt>
<dd>identifies the communications protocol (<em>scheme</em>)
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.</dd>
<dt><code>HOST</code></dt>
<dd>is the Internet address of the computer system on which the
server is running, and</dd>
<dt><code>PATH</code></dt>
<dd>is a scheme-specific field which for some schemes may
correspond to a directory path and/or filename.</dd>
</dl>Here are some sample URLs.
<dl>
<dt>HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol)</dt>
<dd><code>http://www.subir.com/lynx.html</code></dd>
<dt>Gopher</dt>
<dd><code>gopher://gopher.micro.umn.edu/11/</code></dd>
<dt>FTP (File Transfer Protocol)</dt>
<dd><code>ftp://ftp2.cc.ukans.edu/pub/lynx/README</code></dd>
<dt>WAIS (Wide Area Information Service protocol)</dt>
<dd><code>wais://cnidr.org/directory-of-servers</code></dd>
<dt>A URL may be specified to Lynx on the command line, as
in:</dt>
<dd><code>lynx
http://kufacts.cc.ukans.edu/cwis/kufacts_start.html</code></dd>
</dl>Lynx also will attempt to create a complete URL if you
include adequate portions of it in the startfile argument. For
example:<br>
<pre>
1234.6789.1234.6789.1234.6789.1234.6789.1234.6789.1234.6789.1234.6789.1234.6789
<em>wfbr</em> will be expanded to:
<em>http://www.wfbr.edu/</em> and:
<em>ftp.more.net/pub</em> will be expanded to:
<em>ftp://ftp.more.net/pub</em>
</pre>See <a href="lynx_url_support.html">URL Schemes Supported by
Lynx</a> for more detailed information.
<p>[<a href="#ToC-Remote">ToC</a>]</p>
<h2 id="id-EnVar"><a name="EnVar" id="EnVar"><em>Starting Lynx
with the WWW_HOME environment variable.</em></a></h2>
<p>You may also specify a starting file for Lynx using the
WWW_HOME environment variable,</p>
<dl>
<dt>UNIX</dt>
<dd>
<dl>
<dt>ksh</dt>
<dd><code>export WWW_HOME=http://www.w3.org/</code></dd>
<dt>csh</dt>
<dd><code>setenv WWW_HOME http://www.w3.org/</code></dd>
</dl>
</dd>
<dt>VMS</dt>
<dd><code>define "WWW_HOME" "http://www.w3.org/"</code></dd>
<dt>win32</dt>
<dd><code>WWW_HOME=http://www.w3.org/ [or in
registry]</code></dd>
</dl>Note that on VMS the double-quoting <em>must</em> be
included to preserve casing.
<p>[<a href="#ToC-EnVar">ToC</a>]</p>
<h2 id="id-IntraDocNav"><a name="IntraDocNav" id=
"IntraDocNav"><em>Navigating hypertext documents with
Lynx</em></a></h2>
<p>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.</p>
<pre>
+-------+-------+-------+
| 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|
+---------+---------+---------+ +-------+-------+-------+
</pre>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 <a href=
"#MiscKeys"><em>Scrolling and Other useful commands</em></a>. Some
additional commands depend on the fact that Lynx keeps a list of
each link you visited to reach the current document, called the
<a href="keystrokes/history_help.html">History Page</a>, and a list
of all links visited during the current Lynx session, called the
<a href="keystrokes/visited_help.html">Visited Links Page</a>. The
HISTORY keystroke command, normally mapped to <em>Backspace</em> or
<em>Delete</em>, will show you the <em>History Page</em> 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 '<em>V</em>', will show the <em>Visited Links
Page</em>, and you similarly can select links in that list. The
MAIN_MENU keystroke command, normally mapped to '<em>m</em>' and
'<em>M</em>', will take you back to the starting document unless
you specified the <em>-homepage=URL</em> option at the command
line. Also, the LIST and ADDRLIST keystroke commands, normally
mapped to '<em>l</em>' and <em>A</em>' respectively, will create a
compact lists of all the links in the current document, and they
can be selected via those lists.
<p>The '<em>i</em>' key presents an index of documents. The
default index offered contains many useful links, but can be
changed in <em>lynx.cfg</em> or on the command line using the
<em>-index=URL</em> switch.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>[<a href="#ToC-IntraDocNav">ToC</a>]</p>
<h2 id="id-Disposing"><a name="Disposing" id=
"Disposing"><em>Printing, Mailing, and Saving rendered files to
disk.</em></a></h2>
<p>Rendered HTML documents, and plain text files, may be printed
using the '<em>p</em>' command while viewing the document. After
pressing the '<em>p</em>' key a menu of <em>Print Options</em>
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.</p>
<p>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 <em>Save to a local file</em> 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 <a href="#lynx.cfg">lynx.cfg</a> file.</p>
<p>Some options, such as <em>Save to a local file</em>, 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 <em>up-arrow</em> or
<em>down-arrow</em> keys at the prompt.</p>
<p>Note that if you want exact copies of text files without any
expansions of TAB characters to spaces you should use the
<a href="#RemoteSource">Download</a> options.</p>
<p>[<a href="#ToC-Disposing">ToC</a>]</p>
<h2 id="id-LocalSource"><a name="LocalSource" id=
"LocalSource"><em>Viewing the HTML document source and editing
documents</em></a></h2>
<p>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 '<em>\</em>' (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 <a href=
"#lynx.cfg">lynx.cfg</a> 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.</p>
<p>Selecting the <em>Print to a local file</em> 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 <a href="#RemoteSource">Download</a> the
source.</p>
<p>NOTE: When saving an HTML document it is important to name the
document with a <em>.html</em> or <em>.htm</em> extension, if you
want to read it with Lynx again later.</p>
<p id="FileEdit">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:</p>
<dl>
<dt>Command</dt>
<dd><code>lynx file://localhost/FULL/PATH/FILENAME</code></dd>
<dd><code>lynx path/filename.html</code></dd>
</dl>In addition, the user must also specify an editor in the
<em>Options Menu</em> 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 '<em>e</em>' command. When
the '<em>e</em>' 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.
<p>[<a href="#ToC-LocalSource">ToC</a>]</p>
<h2 id="id-RemoteSource"><a name="RemoteSource" id=
"RemoteSource"><em>Downloading and Saving source
files.</em></a></h2>
<p>If the DOWNLOAD keystroke command ('<em>d</em>' or <em>D</em>)
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.</p>
<p>There is a default <em>Download option</em> of <em>Save to
disk</em>. 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 <em>lynx.cfg</em>
file. Using the <em>Save to disk</em> option under the PRINT
command after viewing the source of an HTML with the VIEW SOURCE
(<em>\</em>) 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</p>
<blockquote>
<!--X-URL: http://www.site.foo/path/to/file.html --><br>
<BASE href="http://www.site.foo/path/to/file.html">
</blockquote>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.
<p>Some options, such as <em>Save to disk</em>, 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 <em>up-arrow</em> or <em>down-arrow</em>
keys at the prompt.</p>
<p>[<a href="#ToC-RemoteSource">ToC</a>]</p>
<h2 id="id-ReDo"><a name="ReDo" id="ReDo"><em>Reloading files and
refreshing the display</em></a></h2>
<p>The RELOAD (<em>Control-R</em>) command will reload and
re-render the file that you are currently viewing. The REFRESH
(<em>Control-L</em> or <em>Control-W</em>) command will refresh
or wipe the screen to remove or correct any errors that may be
caused by operating system or other messages.</p>
<p>The NOCACHE ('<em>x</em>' or '<em>X</em>') command can be used
in lieu of ACTIVATE (<em>Return</em> or <em>right-arrow</em>) 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
<em>Pragma: no-cache</em> and <em>Cache-Control: no-cache</em> in
its headers. Note that FORMs with POST content will be
resubmitted regardless of whether the NOCACHE or ACTIVATE command
is used (see <a href="#Forms"><em>Lynx and HTML
Forms</em></a>).</p>
<p>[<a href="#ToC-ReDo">ToC</a>]</p>
<h2 id="id-Search"><a name="Search" id="Search"><em>Lynx
searching commands</em></a></h2>
<p>Two commands activate searching in Lynx: '<em>/</em>' and
'<em>s</em>'.</p>
<p>While viewing a normal document use the '<em>/</em>' command
to find a word or phrase within the current document. The search
type will depend on the search option setting in the <a href=
"#InteractiveOptions">Options Menu</a>. The search options are
case sensitive and case insensitive. These searches are entirely
local to Lynx.</p>
<p>Some documents are designated <em>index documents</em> 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 '<em>s</em>' 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 <em>?searchpart</em> (see
<a href="lynx_url_support.html">Supported URLs</a>).</p>
<p>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 <em>up-arrow</em> or
<em>down-arrow</em> keys at the prompt for a search word or
string. Also, you can use the '<em>n</em>'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.</p>
<p>Although <a href="#Forms">HTML Forms</a> 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
<em>cover page</em> describing a WAIS database and how to
formulate query strings for searching it, and include an element
such as:<br></p>
<pre>
<em><ISINDEX PROMPT="Enter WAIS query:"
HREF="wais://net.bio.net/biologists-addresses"></em>
</pre>for submitting a search of the Biologist's Addresses database
directly to the net.bio.net WAIS server.
<p>[<a href="#ToC-Search">ToC</a>]</p>
<h2 id="id-InteractiveOptions"><a name="InteractiveOptions" id=
"InteractiveOptions"><em>Lynx Options Menu</em></a></h2>
<p>The Lynx <em>Options Menu</em> may be accessed by pressing the
'<em>o</em>' 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
<a href="#lynx.cfg">lynx.cfg</a> file.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<pre>
Options Menu (Lynx Version 2.8.7rel.1)
Accept Changes - Reset Changes Left Arrow cancels changes <a href="keystrokes/option_help.html">HELP!</a>
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]
Use HTML5 charset replacements(!): [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)]
Bad HTML messages (!) : [Warn, point to trace-file]
Show images (!) : [as labels]
Verbose images : [OFF..........]
Headers Transferred to Remote Servers
Personal mail address : __________________________________________
Personal mail name : __________________________________________
Password for anonymous ftp : __________________________________________
Preferred media type (!) : [Accept lynx's internal types]
Preferred encoding (!) : [All_____]
Preferred document character set : _________________________________
Preferred document language : _________________________________
Send User-Agent header (!) : [ ]
User-Agent header (!) : __________________________________________
Listing and Accessing Files
Use Passive FTP (!) : [ON_]
FTP sort criteria : [By Name]
Local directory sort criteria : [Mixed style......]
Local directory sort order : [By name..........]
Show dot files : [ON.]
Execution links : [FOR LOCAL FILES ONLY]
Pause when showing message (!) : [ON_]
Show transfer rate : [Show progressbar___]
Special Files and Screens
Multi-bookmarks : [ADVANCED]
Review/edit Bookmarks files : Goto multi-bookmark menu
Auto Session (!) : [OFF]
Session file (!) : ___________________________________________
Visited Pages : [As Visit Tree..........]
View the file lynx.cfg
Accept Changes - Reset Changes Left Arrow cancels changes
</pre>
<p>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 <a href=
"#lynx.cfg">lynx.cfg</a>.</p>
<pre>
Options Menu (Lynx Version 2.8.7rel.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
</pre>An option can be changed by entering the capital letter or
character in parentheses for the option you wish to change (e.g.,
'<em>E</em>' for Editor or '<em>@</em>' for show cursor). For
fields where text must be entered, simply enter the text by typing
on the keyboard. The <a href="keystrokes/edit_help.html">Line
Editor</a> can be used to correct mistakes, and <em>Control-U</em>
can be used to erase the line. When you are done entering a change
press the <em>Return</em> key to get back to the <em>Command?</em>
prompt.
<p>For fields where you must choose one of two choices, press any
key to toggle the choices and press the <em>Return</em> key to
finish the change.</p>
<p>For fields where you potentially have more than two choices,
popup windows may be evoked which function homologously to those
for select fields in <a href="#Forms">HTML Forms</a>. 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 <em>Return</em> key to finish the
change.</p>
<p>When you are done changing options use the '<em>r</em>'
command to return to Lynx or the '<em>></em>' command to save
the options to a <em>.lynxrc</em> file and return to Lynx.</p>
<p>The following table describes the options available on the
<em>Options Menu</em>:</p>
<dl>
<dt>Assumed document character set</dt>
<dd>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.</dd>
<dt>Auto Session</dt>
<dt>Lynx can save and restore useful information about your
browsing history. Use this setting to enable or disable the
feature.</dt>
<dt>Bad HTML messages</dt>
<dd>
Suppress or redirect Lynx's messages about "Bad HTML":
<dl>
<dt>Ignore</dt>
<dd>do not warn; no details are written to the
trace-file.</dd>
<dt>Add to trace-file</dt>
<dd>add the detailed warning message to the
trace-file.</dd>
<dt>Add to LYNXMESSAGES</dt>
<dd>add the detailed warning message to the message page at
"LYNXMESSAGES:".</dd>
<dt>Warn, point to trace-file</dt>
<dd>show a warning message on the status line; the complete
message is written to the trace-file.</dd>
</dl>
</dd>
<dt>Bookmark file</dt>
<dd>
When multi-bookmarks is OFF, this is the filename and
location of your default personal bookmark file. Enter
'<em>B</em>' to modify the filename and/or location via the
<a href="keystrokes/edit_help.html">Line Editor</a>. Bookmark
files allow frequently traveled links to be stored in
personal easy to access files.
<p>Using the '<em>a</em>'dd bookmark link command (see
<a href="#Bookmarks">Lynx bookmarks</a>) 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.</p>
<p>When multi-bookmarks is STANDARD or ADVANCED, entering
'<em>B</em>' will invoke a menu of up to 26 bookmark files
(associated with the letters of the English alphabet), for
editing their filenames and locations (<em>filepath</em>),
and descriptions.</p>
<p>Lynx will create bookmark files, if they don't already
exist, when you first '<em>a</em>'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., <em>not</em> [.BM]lynx_bookmarks.html).</p>
</dd>
<dt>Cookies</dt>
<dd>This option allows you to tell how to handle cookies:
<em>ignore</em>, prompt (<em>ask user</em>) or <em>accept
all</em>.</dd>
<dt>Display Character set</dt>
<dd>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.)</dd>
<dt>Editor</dt>
<dd>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.</dd>
<dt>Emacs keys</dt>
<dd>
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).
<p>Note: this has no direct effect on the line-editor's key
bindings.</p>
</dd>
<dt>Execution links<br>
This deals with execution of local scripts or links:</dt>
<dd>Local execution is activated when Lynx is first set up. If
it has not been activated you will not see this option in the
<em>Options Menu</em>.</dd>
<dd>
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:
<dl>
<dt>Always off</dt>
<dd>Local execution scripts will never be executed</dd>
<dt>For Local files only</dt>
<dd>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
<em>file://localhost</em></dd>
<dt>Always on</dt>
<dd>All local execution scripts will be executed</dd>
</dl>
</dd>
<dd>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.</dd>
<dt>FTP sort criteria</dt>
<dd>This option allows you to specify how files will be sorted
within FTP listings. The current options include "<code>By
Filename</code>", "<code>By Size</code>", "<code>By
Type</code>", and "<code>By Date</code>".</dd>
<dt>HTML error recovery</dt>
<dd>Select the <a href=
"keystrokes/option_help.html#tagsoup">recovery mode</a> used by
Lynx.</dd>
<dt>Invalid-Cookie Prompting</dt>
<dd>This allows you to tell how to handle invalid cookies:
<em>prompt normally</em> to prompt for each cookie, <em>force
yes-response</em> to reply "yes" to each prompt, <em>force
no-response</em> to reply "no" to each prompt.</dd>
<dt>Keypad mode</dt>
<dd>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<br>
<a href="keystrokes/follow_help.html">Follow link
(or page) number:</a> and<br>
<a href=
"keystrokes/follow_help.html#select-option">Select option (or
page) number:</a><br>
help for more information.</dd>
<dt>Line edit style</dt>
<dd>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 <a href=
"keystrokes/edit_help.html">Default Binding</a>.</dd>
<dt>Local directory sort criteria</dt>
<dd>
This applies to directory editing. Files and directories can
be presented in the following ways:
<dl>
<dt>Mixed style</dt>
<dd>Files and directories are listed together in
alphabetical order.</dd>
<dt>Directories first</dt>
<dd>Files and directories are separated into two
alphabetical lists. Directories are listed first.</dd>
<dt>Files first</dt>
<dd>Files and directories are separated into two
alphabetical lists. Files are listed first.</dd>
</dl>
</dd>
<dt>Local directory sort order</dt>
<dd>
The Options Form also allows you to sort by the file
attributes.
<dl>
<dt>By name</dt>
<dd>by filename (the default)</dd>
<dt>By size</dt>
<dd>by file size, in descending order</dd>
<dt>By date</dt>
<dd>by file modification time, in descending order</dd>
<dt>By mode</dt>
<dd>by file protection</dd>
<dt>By type</dt>
<dd>by filename suffix, e.g., the text beginning with
'.'</dd>
<dt>By user</dt>
<dd>by file owner's user-id</dd>
<dt>By group</dt>
<dd>by file owner's group-id</dd>
</dl>
</dd>
<dt>Multi-bookmarks</dt>
<dd>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 '<em>v</em>'iew bookmarks
and '<em>a</em>'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 <em>Bookmark file</em>, below) in that
menu. In ADVANCED mode, you instead are prompted for the letter
of the desired bookmark file, but can enter '<em>=</em>' to
invoke the STANDARD selection menu, or <em>RETURN</em> for the
default bookmark file.</dd>
<dt>Password for anonymous ftp</dt>
<dd>If this is blank, Lynx will use your personal mail address
as the anonymous ftp password. Though that is the convention,
some users prefer to use some other string which provides less
information. If the given value lacks a "@", Lynx also will use
your computer's hostname as part of the password. If both this
field and the personal mail address are blank, Lynx will use
your $USER environment variable, or "WWWuser" if even the
environment variable is unset.</dd>
<dt>Pause when showing message</dt>
<dd>If set to "off", this overrides the INFOSECS setting in
lynx.cfg, to eliminate pauses when displaying informational
messages, like the "-nopause" command line option.</dd>
<dt>Personal mail address</dt>
<dd>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 <a href=
"#lynx.cfg">lynx.cfg</a> (the compilation default is not to
send the header), or via the <em>-from</em> command line
toggle.</dd>
<dt>Personal mail name</dt>
<dd>This mail name will be included as the "X-Personal_Name"
field in any mail or comments that you send if that header has
not been disabled via the NO_ANONYMOUS_EMAIL definition in
<a href="#lynx.cfg">lynx.cfg</a>.</dd>
<dt>Popups for select fields</dt>
<dd>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.</dd>
<dt>Preferred document language</dt>
<dd>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</dd>
<dt>Preferred document charset</dt>
<dd>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</dd>
<dt>Preferred encoding</dt>
<dd>When doing a GET, lynx tells what types of compressed data
it can decompress (the "Accept-Encoding:" string). This is
determined by compiled-in support for decompression or external
decompression programs. Use this option to select none, one or
all of the supported decompression types.</dd>
<dt>Preferred media type</dt>
<dd>
When doing a GET, lynx lists the MIME types which it knows
how to present (the "Accept:" string). Depending on your
system configuration, the mime.types or other data given by
the GLOBAL_EXTENSION_MAP may include many entries that lynx
really does not handle. Use this option to select one of the
built-in subsets of the MIME types that lynx could list in
the Accept.
<dl>
<dt>Accept lynx's internal types</dt>
<dd>list only the types that are compiled into lynx.</dd>
<dt>Also accept lynx.cfg's types</dt>
<dd>lists types defined in lynx.cfg, e.g., the VIEWER and
Cern RULE or RULESFILE settings.</dd>
<dt>Also accept user's types</dt>
<dd>lists types from the PERSONAL_EXTENSION_MAP setting in
lynx.cfg</dd>
<dt>Also accept system's types</dt>
<dd>lists types from the GLOBAL_EXTENSION_MAP setting in
lynx.cfg</dd>
<dt>Accept all types</dt>
<dd>adds the types that are in lynx's built-in tables for
external programs that may be used to present a
document.</dd>
</dl>
</dd>
<dt>Raw 8-bit or CJK Mode</dt>
<dd>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 '<em>@</em>', and at
startup via the <em>-raw</em> switch.</dd>
<dt>Send User-Agent header Controls whether the user-agent
string will be sent.</dt>
<dt>Session file</dt>
<dd>Define the file name where lynx will store user sessions.
This setting is used only when <em>Auto Session</em> is
enabled.</dd>
<dt>Show color</dt>
<dd>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.<br>
ALWAYS and NEVER are not offered in anonymous accounts. If
saved to a <em>.lynxrc</em> 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 <em>-color</em> command line
switch or having the <em>COLORTERM</em> 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.<br>
A saved value of NEVER will cause Lynx to assume a monochrome
terminal at startup. It is similar to the <em>-nocolor</em>
switch, but (when the slang library is used) can be overridden
with the <em>-color</em> switch.<br>
If the setting is OFF or ON when the current options are saved
to a <em>.lynxrc</em> 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 <em>-color</em> switch or <em>COLORTERM</em>
variable. This default behavior always is used in anonymous
accounts, or if the <em>option_save</em> 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.</dd>
<dt>Show cursor</dt>
<dd>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.</dd>
<dt>Show dot files</dt>
<dd>If display/creation of hidden (dot) files/directories is
enabled, you can turn the feature on or off via this
setting.</dd>
<dt>Show images</dt>
<dd>
This allows you to select the way in which Lynx shows image
links. These are the available selections:
<ul>
<li><em>ignore</em> to suppress the links altogether,</li>
<li><em>as labels</em> to show the descriptive text for the
link</li>
<li><em>as links</em>, which allows you to use an external
viewer</li>
</ul>
</dd>
<dt>Show scrollbar</dt>
<dd>This allows you to enable (show) or disable (hide) the
scrollbar on the right-margin of the display. This feature is
available with ncurses or slang libraries.</dd>
<dt>Show transfer rate</dt>
<dd>
This allows you to select the way in which Lynx shows its
progress in downloading large pages. It displays its progress
in the status line. These are the available selections:
<ul>
<li>Do not show rate</li>
<li>Local directory sort order</li>
<li>Show dot files</li>
<li>Execution links</li>
<li>Pause when showing message</li>
<li>Show transfer rate</li>
</ul>
</dd>
<dt>SSL Prompting</dt>
<dd>This allows you to tell how to handle errors detected in
SSL connections <em>prompt normally</em> to prompt for each
cookie, <em>force yes-response</em> to reply "yes" to each
prompt, <em>force no-response</em> to reply "no" to each
prompt.</dd>
<dt>Type of Search</dt>
<dd>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.</dd>
<dt>Use HTML5 charset replacements</dt>
<dd>This option allows lynx to treat pages with ISO-8859-1
(Latin1) or ASCII encoding as if they were Windows 1252. That
allows a few punctuation characters to be shown.</dd>
<dt>Use locale-based character set</dt>
<dd>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.</dd>
<dt>Underline links</dt>
<dd>Use underline-attribute rather than bold for links.</dd>
<dt>Use Passive FTP</dt>
<dd>This allows you to change whether Lynx uses passive ftp
connections.</dd>
<dt>User Agent header</dt>
<dd>The header string which Lynx sends to HTTP servers to
indicate the User-Agent is displayed here. Changes may be
disallowed via the <em>-restrictions</em> switch. Otherwise,
the header can be changed temporarily to a string such as
<em>L_y_n_x/2.8.7</em> 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.</dd>
<dd><em id="noteUA">NOTE:</em> 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".</dd>
<dt>User Mode</dt>
<dd>
There are three possible choices: Novice, Intermediate, and
Advanced.
<dl>
<dt>Novice</dt>
<dd>In Novice mode two lines of help are displayed at the
bottom of the screen.</dd>
<dt>Intermediate</dt>
<dd>Intermediate mode turns off the help lines.</dd>
<dt>Advanced</dt>
<dd>Advanced mode displays the URL of the currently
selected link at the bottom of the screen.</dd>
</dl>
</dd>
<dt>Verbose Images</dt>
<dd>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
<em>-verbose</em> switch.</dd>
<dt>VI keys</dt>
<dd>
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).
<p>Note: this has no effect on the line-editor's key
bindings.</p>
</dd>
<dt>Visited Pages</dt>
<dd>
Enable several different views of the visited links:
<dl>
<dt>By First Visit</dt>
<dt>By First Visit Reversed</dt>
<dt>As Visit Tree</dt>
<dt>By Last Visit</dt>
<dt>By Last Visit Reversed</dt>
</dl>
</dd>
<dt>X Display</dt>
<dd>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.</dd>
</dl>
<p>[<a href="#ToC-InteractiveOptions">ToC</a>]</p>
<h2 id="id-Mail"><a name="Mail" id="Mail"><em>Comments and
mailto: links</em></a></h2>
<p>At any time while viewing documents within Lynx, you may use
the '<em>c</em>' 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: <em>owner</em> and <em>made</em> (these are case
insensitive). For example,</p>
<pre>
<HEAD>
…
<LINK REV="made" HREF="mailto:user@somedomain.com">
…
</HEAD>
</pre>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 <a href=
"lynx_url_support.html#mailto_url">mailto:</a> links will also
allow you to send mail to other people. Using the mail features
within Lynx is straightforward.
<p>Once you have decided to send a comment or have selected a
<em>mailto:</em> 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 <em>Options
Menu</em>, your e-mail address will be filled in automatically.
After entering the above information, if you have an editor
defined in the <em>Options Menu</em> 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.</p>
<p>To finish sending the message, exit your spawned editor or, if
you are using the simple line mode input scheme, type a
'<em>.</em>' (period) on a line by itself. You will be asked a
final time whether to send the message. If you press
'<em>y</em>', you will be prompted whether to append your
signature file if one was defined in <a href=
"#lynx.cfg">lynx.cfg</a> and is accessible, and then the message
will be sent, whereas if you press '<em>n</em>' the message will
be deleted. Entering Control-G in response to any prompts also
will cancel the mailing.</p>
<p>[<a href="#ToC-Mail">ToC</a>]</p>
<h2 id="id-News"><a name="News" id="News"><em>USENET News
posting</em></a></h2>
<p>While reading <a href=
"http://www.w3.org/LineMode/User/AboutNewsServers.html">news</a>
articles with Lynx you should see a link that says <em>Reply to:
user@host</em> and, if the nntp server from which you received
the article supports posting from your site, a link that says
<em>Followup to: newsgroup(s)</em></p>
<dl>
<dt>Reply to user@host</dt>
<dd>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.</dd>
<dt>Followup to newsgroup(s)</dt>
<dd>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
<a href="#lynx.cfg">lynx.cfg</a> and is accessible. See
<a href="lynx_url_support.html">Supported URLs</a> for more
information about the URL schemes for posting or sending
followups (replies) to nntp servers with Lynx. [<a href=
"#ToC-News">ToC</a>]</dd>
</dl>See also <a href=
"http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc977/rfc977">RFC 977</a>.
<h2 id="id-Bookmarks"><a name="Bookmarks" id="Bookmarks"><em>Lynx
bookmarks</em></a></h2>
<p>Bookmarks are entries in your <em>bookmark file</em>, 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 <a href="#lynx.cfg">lynx.cfg</a> or via the <em>Options
Menu</em>.</p>
<p>To save a bookmark to the document you wish to place in the
bookmark file press the '<em>a</em>' key and you will be
asked:</p>
<blockquote>
Save D)ocument or L)ink to bookmark file or C)ancel? (d,l,c):
</blockquote>Answer '<em>d</em>' to save a link to the document
you are currently viewing or '<em>l</em>' to save the link that
is currently selected on the page. Selecting '<em>c</em>' will
cancel without saving anything to your bookmark file.
<p>A bookmark file will be created in conjunction with acting on
the '<em>a</em>'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 '<em>a</em>'dd command before you can view it.</p>
<p>Use the '<em>v</em>' 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.</p>
<p>You can remove a link from the bookmark list by pressing the
'<em>r</em>' key when positioned on that link. You also can use a
standard text editor (e.g., via the '<em>e</em>'dit command while
viewing a bookmark file, if an external editor has been defined
via the <em>Options menu</em>) to delete or re-order links in the
bookmark file, or to modify a link name by editing the content of
the <em>A</em>nchor element for the link, but you should not
change the format within the line for the link, consisting of an
<em>LI</em> element followed by the <em>A</em>nchor 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 <em>HREF</em> attribute in the <em>A</em>nchor
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 <em>HREF</em> value and
<em>A</em>nchor content, but you should not add any other HTML
markup to the bookmark file. If the format and spacing (other
than the <em>A</em>nchor content or <em>HREF</em> value) within
lines is changed or other HTML markup is added, the
'<em>a</em>'dd and '<em>r</em>'emove commands may not work
properly.</p>
<p>When multi-bookmarks (see <a href=
"#InteractiveOptions">Options Menu</a>) 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 '<em>=</em>' to invoke the STANDARD selection menu, or
<em>RETURN</em> for the default bookmark file. [<a href=
"#ToC-Bookmarks">ToC</a>]</p>
<h2 id="id-Jumps"><a name="Jumps" id="Jumps"><em>Jump
Command</em></a></h2>
<p>Similar to the bookmarks file is the jumps file: for an
example, look in the <em>samples</em> subdirectory in the
distribution package. To use the jumps command, create a
<em>jumps file</em> with the same format as the sample file, but
containing your own URLs & short-cut names. Once you have
done that, typing '<em>j</em>' 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 '<em>g</em>'. If you
want to check which short-cuts are available, type '<em>?</em>'
at the jump prompt for the full list.</p>
<p>You can set up a jumps file which makes Lynx prompt for
parameters, e.g., as part of a search. Do this by putting a "%s"
marker in the URL at each point where you want Lynx to fill in
text. When you activate the corresponding jump, Lynx will prompt
you for the parameters, one by one.</p>
<p>All jump short-cuts you have entered are saved in a circular
buffer in the same way as with '<em>g</em>' and '<em>/</em>'
(search):<br>
previous entries can be retrieved with <em>up-arrow</em> or
<em>down-arrow</em>.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>For more advice how to set up the jumps command on your system
and how to define short-cut names, read <a href=
"#lynx.cfg">lynx.cfg</a> .</p>
<p>[<a href="#ToC-Jumps">ToC</a>]</p>
<h2 id="id-DirEd"><a name="DirEd" id="DirEd"><em>Directory
Editing</em></a></h2>
<p>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 <em>file://localhost/path/</em>, 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</p>
<dl>
<dt><code>C)reate</code></dt>
<dd>Type '<em>c</em>' to create a new file. New file will be
empty.</dd>
<dt><code>D)ownload</code></dt>
<dd>Type '<em>d</em>' to download using one of the pre-defined
options.</dd>
<dt><code>E)dit</code></dt>
<dd>Type '<em>e</em>' to spawn the editor defined in
<em>Options Menu</em> and load a selected file for
editing.</dd>
<dt><code>F)ull Menu</code></dt>
<dd>Type '<em>f</em>' to show full menu of options available
for selection. Menu may vary according to type of file selected
and compression facilities available.
<!-- List of full menu options --></dd>
<dt><code>M)odify</code></dt>
<dd>Type '<em>m</em>' to modify the name or location of file.
Then type '<em>n</em>' to rename the file or '<em>l</em>' to
move the file to a different location.</dd>
<dt><code>R)emove</code></dt>
<dd>Type '<em>r</em>' to remove the selected file or
directory.</dd>
<dt><code>T)ag</code></dt>
<dd>Type '<em>t</em>' to tag highlighted file. Further
operations will be performed on tagged files instead of
highlighted ones.</dd>
<dt><code>U)pload</code></dt>
<dd>Type '<em>u</em>' to upload a file to the present
directory. An uploading method must have been pre-defined in
<a href="#lynx.cfg">lynx.cfg</a> .</dd>
</dl>
<p>[<a href="#ToC-DirEd">ToC</a>]</p>
<h2 id="id-ColorMouse"><a name="ColorMouse" id=
"ColorMouse"><em>Using Color & the Mouse</em></a></h2>
<p>A limited range of colors & mouse commands are available,
if the user chooses: see <em>lynx.cfg</em> for details. [<a href=
"#ToC-ColorMouse">ToC</a>]</p>
<h2 id="id-MiscKeys"><a name="MiscKeys" id=
"MiscKeys"><em>Scrolling and Other useful commands</em></a></h2>
<p>A summary of all the keystroke commands and their key bindings
can be invoked via the KEYMAP command, normally mapped to
'<em>k</em>' and '<em>K</em>'. The following describes some of
the most commonly used commands.</p>
<dl>
<dt><em>^A</em></dt>
<dd><em>Control-A</em> jumps you to the beginning of the
current document. It is a synonym for the Keypad <em>Home</em>
key, and can be used also when <em>Links are numbered</em> mode
is on. The <em>Find</em> Function key also is a synonym, and
ideally the latter has been mapped to the Function key labeled
<em>Home</em> if you are using an IBM Enhanced Keyboard.</dd>
<dt><em>^E</em></dt>
<dd><em>Control-E</em> jumps you to the end of the current
document. It is a synonym for the Keypad <em>End</em> key, and
can be used also when <em>Links are numbered</em> mode is on.
The <em>Select</em> Function key also is a synonym, and ideally
the latter has been mapped to the Function key labeled
<em>End</em> if you are using an IBM Enhanced Keyboard.</dd>
<dt><em>^B</em></dt>
<dd><em>Control-B</em> normally jumps you to the previous page
of the current document, and thus is a synonym for the Keypad
and Function <em>Page-Up</em> keys. However, <em>Control-B</em>
acts as <em>right-arrow</em> when emacs-like key movement is
enabled (see <a href="#InteractiveOptions">Lynx Options
Menu</a>).</dd>
<dt><em>^F</em></dt>
<dd><em>Control-F</em> normally jumps you to the next page of
the current document, and thus is a synonym for the Keypad and
Function <em>Page-Down</em> keys. However, <em>Control-F</em>
becomes <em>right-arrow</em> when emacs-like key movement is
enabled.</dd>
<dt><em>^N</em></dt>
<dd><em>Control-N</em> normally jumps you forward two lines in
the current document. The <em>Remove</em> Function key (labeled
<em>Delete</em> on IBM Enhanced keyboards, and distinct from
their <em>Backspace</em> key) is a synonym. <em>Control-N</em>
becomes <em>down-arrow</em> when emacs-like key movement is
enabled.</dd>
<dt><em>^P</em></dt>
<dd><em>Control-P</em> normally jumps you back two lines in the
current document. The <em>Insert</em> Function key is a
synonym. <em>Control-P</em> becomes <em>up-arrow</em> when
emacs-like key movement is enabled.</dd>
<dt><em>)</em></dt>
<dd>The <em>)</em> command jumps you forward half a page in the
current document.</dd>
<dt><em>(</em></dt>
<dd>The <em>(</em> command jumps you back half a page in the
current document.</dd>
<dt><em>#</em></dt>
<dd>The '<em>#</em>' command jumps you to the pseudo Toolbar or
Banner if present in the current document. Use
<em>left-arrow</em> to return from there to your previous
position in the document.</dd>
<dt><em>!</em></dt>
<dd>When '<em>!</em>' is pressed your default shell will be
spawned. When you quit or exit the shell you will return to
Lynx (usually <em>exit</em> under Unix and <em>logout</em>
under VMS). This command is usually disabled for anonymous
users. On VMS, '<em>$</em>' normally is a synonym. On Win32,
this has no effect [???].</dd>
<dt><em>g</em></dt>
<dd>The '<em>g</em>' command allows any URL to be viewed.
Pressing the '<em>g</em>' 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
<em>up-arrow</em> or <em>down-arrow</em> keys.</dd>
<dt><em>G</em></dt>
<dd>The '<em>G</em>' command allows you to edit the URL of the
current document and then use that as a goto URL. Pressing the
'<em>G</em>' 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 '<em>g</em>' command.</dd>
<dt><em>E</em></dt>
<dd>The '<em>E</em>' command allows you to edit the URL (or
ACTION) of the current link and then use that as a goto URL.
Pressing the '<em>E</em>' 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 '<em>g</em>' command. Note that lower case
'e' invokes the external editor for the current document.</dd>
<dt><em>=</em></dt>
<dd>The '<em>=</em>' 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.</dd>
<dt><em>^T</em></dt>
<dd><em>Control-T</em> toggles Lynx trace mode on and off. This
is useful for diagnosing bad html. If you get a <em>Bad
HTML</em> statusline message when loading a document, enter
<em>Control-T</em> and then <em>Control-R</em> to reload the
document in trace mode. You may then examine the <em>Lynx Trace
Log</em> file with the <em>;</em> command if enabled (see
below), watch out especially for lines marked with a number of
asterisks '<code>*****</code>'. 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.</dd>
<dt><em>;</em></dt>
<dd>The <em>;</em> command shows the <em>Lynx Trace Log</em>
(<em>Lynx.trace</em> 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
<em>-trace</em> command line switch, or via the
<em>Control-T</em> 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 <em>-tlog</em> switch.
Note that this ability is probably disabled in anonymous or
validation accounts.</dd>
<dt><a name="asterisk-key" id=
"asterisk-key"><em>*</em></a></dt>
<dd>The '<em>*</em>' command toggles image_links mode on and
off. When on, links will be created for all images, including
inline images. 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.</dd>
<dt><em>@</em></dt>
<dd>The '<em>@</em>' 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.</dd>
<dt><a name="lbracket-key" id=
"lbracket-key"><em>[</em></a></dt>
<dd>The '<em>[</em>' command toggles pseudo_inlines mode on and
off. When on, inline images which have no ALT string specified
will have an <em>[INLINE]</em> 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.</dd>
<dt><em>]</em></dt>
<dd>The '<em>]</em>' 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.</dd>
<dt><em>^K</em></dt>
<dd><em>Control-K</em> invokes the <a href=
"keystrokes/cookie_help.html">Cookie Jar Page</a> if it
contains cookies.</dd>
<dt><em>^X</em></dt>
<dd><em>Control-X</em> invokes the <a href="#Cache">Cache Jar
Page</a> if it contains cached documents.</dd>
<dt><em>z</em></dt>
<dd>Lynx supports completely interruptible I/O processes. Press
the '<em>z</em>' 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.</dd>
<dt><em>numbers</em></dt>
<dd>Lynx offers other, advanced navigation features when
numbers are used to invoke the <a href=
"keystrokes/follow_help.html">Follow Link (or goto link or
page) number:</a> or <a href=
"keystrokes/follow_help.html#select-option">Select Pop-up
Option Number:</a> prompts.</dd>
</dl>
<p>[<a href="#ToC-MiscKeys">ToC</a>]</p>
<h2 id="id-Forms"><a name="Forms" id="Forms"><em>Lynx and HTML
Forms</em></a></h2>
<p>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.</p>
<p>An HTML Form provides for the use of buttons to perform an
action (such as <em>submit</em>), checkboxes, radio buttons or
popups to select options from a list, and fields for entering
text.</p>
<dl>
<dt>Buttons:</dt>
<dd>Buttons are displayed in the same way that Lynx displays
links in a document. To "push" the button press the
<em>right-arrow</em> or <em>Return</em> key. If it is a form
submission button, you also can use the NOCACHE ('<em>x</em>')
or DOWNLOAD ('<em>d</em>') keystroke commands to "push" the
button (see below).</dd>
<dt>Checkboxes and Radio buttons</dt>
<dd>Checkboxes are displayed as square brackets: <em>[ ]</em>
and radio buttons are displayed as parenthesis: <em>( )</em>.
When a box is checked or a button selected, an <em>x</em>
appears in the brackets: <em>[x]</em> or an asterisk appears
within the parenthesis: <em>(*)</em>. To check a box or select
a radio button press the <em>right-arrow</em> or
<em>Return</em> key.</dd>
<dt>Selection Fields</dt>
<dd>Selection fields are displayed as brackets with the default
option displayed between them: <em>[default__]</em>. To select
an option press the <em>right-arrow</em> or <em>Return</em>
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 <em>up-arrow</em>,
<em>down-arrow</em>, <em>page-up</em>, <em>page-down</em>, and
other navigation keys to move the cursor among options, and the
<em>right-arrow</em> or <em>Return</em> key to select an
option. You also can use the '<em>/</em>' and '<em>n</em>'ext
<a href="#Search">searching</a> commands for navigating to
options which contain particular strings. <em>NOTE</em> that
the popup menu feature can be disabled via compilation and/or
configuration options, or via the <a href=
"#InteractiveOptions">Options Menu</a>, 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 <em>-popup</em> command line
switch.</dd>
<dt>Text Entry Fields</dt>
<dd>
Text entry (INPUT) fields are displayed as a row of
underscores the length of the entry field: <em>_______</em>.
You may enter text directly by typing at the keyboard. Use
the <a href="keystrokes/edit_help.html">Line Editor</a> 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 <em>up-arrow</em>, and <em>down-arrow</em>,
<em>TAB</em> or <em>Return</em> keys to move up, or down from
the text entry field. NOTE, however, that <em>Return</em>
also will <a href="#submit">submit</a> the form if the text
entry field is the only non-hidden field in the form. If
<a name="tna" id="tna">"Textfields Need Activation"</a> mode
is turned on (with the <kbd>-tna</kbd> command-line option or
in <a href="#lynx.cfg">lynx.cfg</a>), 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 <em>Return</em> or
<em>Right Arrow</em>. This mode can be used to avoid "getting
stuck" in input fields, especially by users who rarely fill
out forms.
<p><a name="CtrlVNote" id="CtrlVNote">NOTE:</a> 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 <a href="keystrokes/edit_help.html">Line Editor</a> as
either text entries or editing commands. Select a button or
box when you want to use Lynx keystrokes; or prefix your
keystroke with <em>^V</em> to temporarily escape from line
editing.</p>
<p>Some flavors of UNIX, shells & terminal settings
require that you enter <em>^V^Ve</em> in order to start the
external editor, as they also use <em>^V</em> 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.</p>
<p><code> #!/bin/sh<br>
stty lnext undef<br>
$HOME/bin/lynx "$@"<br>
stty lnext ^V<br>
exit</code></p>
<p>NB when NOT in the Line Editor, <em>^V</em> 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 <em>lynx.cfg</em>. For
example,</p>
<p> KEYMAP:^V:DO_NOTHING<br>
KEYMAP:#:SWITCH_DTD</p>
<p>would map SWITCH_DTD away from <em>^V</em> to <em>#</em>,
while leaving its default Line Editor function as a command
escape in place. On the other hand,</p>
<p> KEYMAP:^V::NOP:1<br>
KEYMAP:^_::LKCMD:1</p>
<p>would move <em>^V</em>'s Line Editor binding as command
escape to <em>^_</em> for the first Line Edit style, letting
<em>^V</em> still act as SWITCH_DTD outside of text input
fields.</p>
</dd>
<dt>TEXTAREA Fields</dt>
<dd>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 <em>up-arrow</em>, and
<em>down-arrow</em> or <em>Return</em> keys move you to the
preceding, or next line of the overall message, as for INPUT
fields. The <em>TAB</em> key will move you down beyond the
bottom of the TEXTAREA field, and <em>Back Tab</em> (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.</dd>
<dt>Editing TEXTAREA Fields and Special TEXTAREA Functions</dt>
<dd>
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
<pre>
<strong>(Textarea) Enter text. </strong>[ ..... ]<strong> (^Xe for editor).</strong>
</pre>An external editor has to be defined, for example in the
<a href="#InteractiveOptions">Options Menu</a>, before you can
start using this function.
<p>A key to invoke external TEXTAREA editing is normally
provided by the <a href=
"keystrokes/edit_help.html">Line-Editor Key</a> Bindings. A
KEYMAP directive in <em>lynx.cfg</em> can also be used to
make a different key invoke external editing; it will then
normally be necessary to prefix that key with <em>^V</em> to
"escape" from line-editing. Two variants exist,<br>
KEYMAP:e:EDITTEXTAREA<br>
or<br>
KEYMAP:e:DWIMEDIT<br>
(the first is only functional for TEXTAREA editing, while the
second allows to use the same key for normal <a href=
"#FileEdit">file editing</a> <em>as long as both functions
don't conflict</em>).</p>
<p>Please see the <a href="#CtrlVNote">note above</a> for
details about <em>^V</em> behavior.</p>You can also use two
other special TEXTAREA functions. Again, these are already
bound to key sequences in the <a href=
"keystrokes/edit_help.html#TASpecial">Line-Editor
Bindings</a>, by default <em>^Xg</em> and <em>^Xi</em>. You
can use different keys by adding KEYMAP bindings to your
<em>lynx.cfg</em> file, e.g.
<p> KEYMAP:$:GROWTEXTAREA<br>
KEYMAP:#:INSERTFILE</p>
<p>With these bindings, (in a TEXTAREA only) <em>^V$</em>
would add 5 lines to the TEXTAREA and <em>^V#</em> 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
<em>Enter</em> with the cursor on the last line adds a new
line to the TEXTAREA, with the cursor on it.</p>
<p>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 <em>^E</em>
key for the DWIMEDIT action, and the <em>Insert</em> key for
the INSERTFILE action, use<br>
KEYMAP:^E:DWIMEDIT:PASS<br>
KEYMAP:0x10C:INSERTFILE:PASS<br>
(see lynx.cfg for other keystroke codes to use).</p>
<p>Note that the default bindings that use <em>^X</em> as a
prefix key <em>may</em> also work by substituting the
<kbd>Escape</kbd> key for ^X. If your keyboard has a modifier
(Meta) key that gets transmitted as an ESC prefix, for
example <kbd>Alt</kbd>, you can then even use <em>Alt-e</em>
instead of <em>^Xe</em>, <em>Alt-g</em> instead of
<em>^Xg</em>, 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).</p>
</dd>
</dl>In general, you can move around the form using the standard
Lynx navigation keys. The <em>up-arrow</em> and
<em>down-arrow</em> keys, respectively, select the previous or
next field, box, or button. The <em>TAB</em> key selects the next
field, box, or button.
<p>To <a name="submit" id="submit"><em>submit</em></a> the form
press <em>right-arrow</em> or <em>Return</em> 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 <em>GET</em>, 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 ('<em>x</em>') when
positioned on the submit button. The <em>right-arrow</em> and
<em>Return</em> 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:<br></p>
<pre>
<em><META HTTP-EQUIV="Pragma" CONTENT="no-cache"></em>
<em><META HTTP-EQUIV="Cache-Control" CONTENT="no-cache"></em>
</pre>or the server sent a "Pragma" or "Cache-Control" MIME header
with a no-cache directive.
<p>You also can use the DOWNLOAD ('<em>d</em>') 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.</p>
<p>Forms which have <em>POST</em> as the METHOD, or a <a href=
"lynx_url_support.html#mailto_url">mailto:</a> URL as the ACTION,
are always resubmitted, even if the content has not changed, when
you activate the <em>submit</em> button. Lynx normally will not
resubmit a form which has <em>POST</em> as the METHOD if the
document returned by the form has links which you activated, and
then you go back via the PREV_DOC (<em>left-arrow</em>) command
or via the <a href="keystrokes/history_help.html">History
Page</a>. Lynx can be compiled so that it resubmits the form in
those cases as well, and the default can be changed via <a href=
"#lynx.cfg">lynx.cfg</a>, and toggled via the
<em>-resubmit_posts</em> command line switch.</p>
<p>If the form has one <em>text entry</em> field and no other
fields except, possibly, hidden INPUT fields not included in the
display, then that field also serves as a <em>submit</em> button,
and pressing <em>right-arrow</em> or <em>Return</em> on that
field will invoke submission of the form. Be sure to use
<em>up-arrow</em>, <em>down-arrow</em> or <em>TAB</em> 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 <em>GET</em>).</p>
<p>Forms can have multiple <em>submit</em> 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.</p>
<p>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 <a href="#USEMAP">image maps</a>, and the
x,y coordinates of the graphic client's cursor position in the
image when it was <em>clicked</em> 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.</p>
<p>Forms can have <em>hidden</em> 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 <a href="http://www.w3.org/Markup/html3/">HTML
3.0</a> <em>DISABLED</em> attribute for <em>all</em> 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.</p>
<p>Forms most commonly are submitted to http servers with the
content encoded as
<em>ENCTYPE="application/x-www-form-urlencoded"</em> 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
<a href="lynx_url_support.html#mailto_url">mailto</a> 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
<em>ENCTYPE="text/plain"</em> in the form markup, so that the
content will not be encoded, but remain readable as plain
text.</p>
<p>Lynx also supports
<em>ENCTYPE="application/sgml-form-urlencoded"</em> for which all
reserved characters in the content will be hex escaped, as with
<em>application/x-www-form-urlencoded</em>, but semicolons
('<em>;</em>') instead of ampersands ('<em>&</em>') will be
used as the separator for name=value pairs in the form content.
The use of semicolons is preferred for forms with the
<em>GET</em> METHOD, because the <em>GET</em> METHOD causes the
encoded form content to be appended as a <em>?searchpart</em> for
the form's ACTION, and if such URLs are used in
<em>text/html</em> documents or bookmark files without conversion
of the ampersands to SGML character references
(<em>&amp;</em> or <em>&#38;</em>), their being followed
by form field NAMEs which might correspond to SGML entities could
lead to corruption of the intended URL.</p>
<p>NOTE, in this regard, that Lynx converts ampersands to
<em>&amp;</em> 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 <em>GET</em> METHOD, and which thus
have the content appended as a <em>?searchpart</em>, but not if
the METHOD was <em>POST</em>, because the content would be lost
and the link thus would be invalid.</p>
<p>Lynx supports <em>ENCTYPE="multipart/form-data"</em> 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 <em>TYPE="file"</em> or
<em>TYPE="range"</em> and will set the <em>DISABLED</em>
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.</p>
<p>A
<em>Content-Disposition: file; filename=name.suffix</em>
header can be used by CGI scripts to set the suggested filename
offered by Lynx for '<em>d</em>'ownload and '<em>p</em>'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:</p>
<pre>
<em><META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Disposition"
CONTENT="file; filename=name.suffix"></em>
</pre>
<p>[<a href="#ToC-Forms">ToC</a>]</p>
<h2 id="id-Images"><a name="Images" id="Images"><em>Lynx and HTML
Images</em></a></h2>
<p>As a text browser, Lynx does not display images as such -- you
need to define a viewer in <em>lynx.cfg</em>: see there -- , but
users can choose a number of ways of showing their presence.</p>
<p>There are 3 choices in <em>lynx.cfg</em>, with 2 corresponding
keys:</p>
<pre>
MAKE_LINKS_FOR_ALL_IMAGES * IMAGE_TOGGLE
MAKE_PSEUDO_ALTS_FOR_INLINES [ INLINE_TOGGLE
VERBOSE_IMAGES no corresponding key
</pre>
<p>You can also use the <em>Options Menu</em>, as outlined
below:</p>
<pre>
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.
</pre>
<p>In the Form-based Menu, the 3-way `Show images' selection
combines the effects of the `*' & `[' keys, as follows:</p>
<pre>
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
</pre>
<h2 id="id-Tables"><a name="Tables" id="Tables"><em>Lynx and HTML
Tables</em></a></h2>
<p>HTML includes markup for creating <em>tables</em> structured
as arrays of cells aligned by columns and rows on the displayed
page.</p>
<p>Lynx recognizes the TABLE element and all of its associated
elements as described in <a href=
"http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1942.html">RFC 1942</a> and will
process any ID attributes in the start tags for handling as
NAME-ed anchors, but does not create actual <em>tables</em>.
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 <em>table</em> readable, preserves most of the intra-cell
organization, and makes all of the links in the <em>table</em>
accessible, but any information critically dependent on the
column and row alignments intended for the <em>table</em> will be
missed.</p>
<p>If inherently tabular data must be presented with Lynx, one
can use PRE formatted content, or, if the <em>table</em> includes
markup not allowed for PRE content, construct the <em>table</em>
using <a href="#Tabs">HTML Tabs</a>. An example <em>table</em>
using <em>TAB</em> elements is included in the test subdirectory
of the Lynx distribution.</p>
<div id="TRST">
<p>Starting with version 2.8.3, Lynx renders some tables in
tabular form. This tabular representation for <em>simple</em>
tables (<dfn>TRST</dfn>) does not attempt to implement full
support for any table model. Limitations are:</p>
<ul>
<li>All data constituting a table row generally has to fit
within the display width without inserting line breaks.</li>
<li>Cell contents have to be simple. In general, only inline
markup is acceptable, no <code><P></code>,
<code><BR></code> etc. (although
<code><BR></code> may be ignored at the beginning of
the first cell or at the end of the last cell of a row).</li>
<li>When tables are nested, only the innermost level is a
candidate for tabular representation.</li>
<li>Most attributes are ignored, including borders,
<code>WIDTH</code>, vertical alignment.</li>
</ul>Horizontal alignments (<code>LEFT</code>,
<code>CENTER</code>, <code>RIGHT</code>), <code>COLSPAN</code>,
and <code>ROWSPAN</code> are interpreted according to HTML
4.01. (<code>ROWSPAN</code> 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
<kbd>README.TRST</kbd> of the source distribution.
</div>
<p>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 <kbd>DOWNLOADER</kbd>, <kbd>PRINTER</kbd>,
<kbd>EXTERNAL</kbd>, <kbd>TRUSTED_LYNXCGI</kbd> in <a href=
"#lynx.cfg">lynx.cfg</a> and <a href=
"lynx_url_support.html#cgi_url"><code>lynxcgi:</code></a> in
<em>Supported URLs</em> for information on various ways for
setting this up).</p>
<p>[<a href="#ToC-Tables">ToC</a>]</p>
<h2 id="id-Tabs"><a name="Tabs" id="Tabs"><em>Lynx and HTML
Tabs</em></a></h2>
<p>Lynx implements the <a href=
"http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/html3/Contents.html">HTML 3.0</a> 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 <em>en</em> 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 <em>table</em> using TAB elements in the test
subdirectory of the Lynx distribution as a model for using this
functionality.</p>
<p>Note that this <em>Users Guide</em> and the <a href=
"lynx_url_support.html">Supported URLs</a> page include TAB
markup in a manner which <em>degrades gracefully</em> for WWW
browsers which do not support it. Toggle to display of <a href=
"#LocalSource">source</a> and <a href="#Search">search</a> for
<em><tab</em> to examine the use of TAB markup in these
documents.</p>
<p>[<a href="#ToC-Tabs">ToC</a>]</p>
<h2 id="id-Frames"><a name="Frames" id="Frames"><em>Lynx and HTML
Frames</em></a></h2>
<p>Some implementations of HTML include markup, primarily
designed for graphic clients, that is intended to create an array
of simultaneously displayed, independently scrolling windows.
Such windows have been termed <em>frames</em>.</p>
<p>Lynx recognizes the Netscape and Microsoft Explorer FRAME,
FRAMESET, and NOFRAMES elements, but is not capable of windowing
to create the intended positioning of <em>frames</em>. Instead,
Lynx creates labeled links to the <em>frame</em> sources,
typically positioned in the upper left corner of the display, and
renders the NOFRAMES section. If the document provider has
disregard for text clients and sight-challenged Webizens, and
thus does not include substantive content in the NOFRAMES section
or a link in it to a document suitable for text clients, you can
usually guess from the labeling of the <em>frame</em> links which
one has the substantive material (if there is any), or you can
try each of those links to see if anything worthwhile is
returned.</p>
<p>[<a href="#ToC-Frames">ToC</a>]</p>
<p>Some sites -- in ignorance of Lynx capabilities -- may tell
you (for example) "to view this page you need Netscape
Navigator". You can simply ignore such warnings and access the
frames via the Lynx-generated links as above.</p>
<h2 id="id-Banners"><a name="Banners" id="Banners"><em>Lynx and
HTML Banners</em></a></h2>
<p>Some implementations of HTML markup include provisions for
creating a non-scrolling window to be positioned at the top of
each page, containing links with brief, descriptive link names,
analogous to a Windows toolbar. Such windows have been termed
<em>banners</em>.</p>
<p>Lynx recognizes and processes all of the <a href=
"http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/html3/Contents.html">HTML 3.0</a> REL
attribute tokens in LINK elements for creating a <em>banner</em>,
and a number of others which have subsequently been proposed.
These <em>banner</em> tokens are <em>Home</em>, <em>ToC</em>,
<em>Contents</em>, <em>Index</em>, <em>Glossary</em>,
<em>Copyright</em>, <em>Up</em>, <em>Next</em>,
<em>Previous</em>, <em>Prev</em>, <em>Help</em>, <em>Search</em>,
<em>Top</em>, <em>Origin</em>, <em>Navigator</em>,
<em>Child</em>, <em>Disclaimer</em>, <em>Sibling</em>,
<em>Parent</em>, <em>Author</em>, <em>Editor</em>,
<em>Publisher</em>, <em>Trademark</em>, <em>Meta</em>,
<em>URC</em>, <em>Hotlist</em>, <em>Begin</em>, <em>First</em>,
<em>End</em>, <em>Last</em>, <em>Pointer</em>,
<em>Translation</em>, <em>Definition</em>, <em>Chapter</em>,
<em>Section</em>, <em>Subsection</em>, <em>Alternate</em>,
<em>Documentation</em>, <em>Biblioentry</em>,
<em>Bibliography</em>, <em>Start</em>, <em>Appendix</em>,
<em>Bookmark</em> and <em>Banner</em>. Any LINK elements with
those tokens as the REL attribute value, and an HREF attribute
value in the LINK, will invoke creation of a <em>banner</em> at
the top of the first page, with the element's HREF as the link,
and the token as the default link name. If a TITLE attribute is
included in the LINK, it's value will be used as the link name
instead of the default. <em>Bookmark</em> and <em>Banner</em> are
intended to be accompanied by a TITLE attribute, which in effect
makes the namespace for REL <em>banner</em> tokens infinite.</p>
<p>If the special token <em>Help</em> is used as the REL value
and no HREF is included in the LINK, Lynx will use it own
<em>HELPFILE</em> URL for that link. For the special token
<em>Home</em> without an HREF, Lynx will use the default
<em>STARTFILE</em> (i.e., derived from the configuration files or
the WWW_HOME environment variable, <em>not</em> the command line
<em>startfile</em> if one was used). However, if a
<em>-homepage=URL</em> was specified on the command line, it's
URL will be used as the HREF. For the special token
<em>Index</em> without an HREF, Lynx will use the
<em>DEFAULT_INDEX_FILE</em> derived from the configuration files,
or if an <em>-index=URL</em> was specified on the command line,
it's URL will be used as the HREF.</p>
<p>Lynx does not waste screen real estate maintaining the
<em>banner</em> at the top of every page, but the Lynx TOOLBAR
keystroke command ('<em>#</em>') will, any time it is pressed,
position you on the <em>banner</em> so that any of its links can
be activated, and pressing the <em>left-arrow</em> when in the
<em>banner</em> will return you to where you were in the current
document. The toolbar is indicated by a '<em>#</em>" preceding
its first link when present on the screen, that is, when the
first page of the document is being displayed. The availability
of a toolbar is indicated by a '<em>#</em>' at the top, left-hand
corner of the screen when the second or subsequent pages of the
document are being displayed.</p>
<p>Lynx also recognizes the <a href=
"http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/html3/Contents.html">HTML 3.0</a>
BANNER container element, and will create a <em>banner</em> based
on its content if one has not already been created based on LINK
elements. Lynx treats the Microsoft MARQUEE element as a synonym
for BANNER (i.e., presenting it's markup as a static
<em>banner</em>, without any horizontal scrolling of its
content). Lynx does not prefix the BANNER or MARQUEE content with
a '<em>#</em>' because the content need not be only a series of
links with brief, descriptive links names, but does add a
'<em>#</em>' at the top, left-hand corner of the screen when the
content is not being displayed, to indicate it's accessibility
via the TOOLBAR keystroke command.</p>
<p>[<a href="#ToC-Banners">ToC</a>]</p>
<h2 id="id-Footnotes"><a name="Footnotes" id="Footnotes"><em>Lynx
and HTML Footnotes</em></a></h2>
<p>Lynx implements the <a href=
"http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/html3/Contents.html">HTML 3.0</a> FN
element similarly to a named <em>A</em>nchor within the current
document, and assumes that the footnotes will be positioned at
the bottom of the document. However, in contrast to named
<em>A</em>nchors, the FN container element is treated as a block
(i.e., as if a new paragraph were indicated whether or not that
is indicated in its content) with greater than normal left and
right margins, and the block will begin with a <em>FOOTNOTE:</em>
label. For example, if the document contains:</p>
<pre>
See the <em><A HREF="#fn1"></em><a href=
"#an1">footnote</a><em></A></em>.
</pre>activating that link will take you to the labeled rendering
of:
<pre>
<em><FN ID="fn1"></em><p><a name="an1" id=
"an1">Lynx does not use popups for FN blocks.</a></p><em></FN></em>
</pre>
<p>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 <em>left-arrow</em> key. The content of
an FN element can be any HTML markup that is valid in the BODY of
the document.</p>
<p>[<a href="#ToC-Footnotes">ToC</a>]</p>
<h2 id="id-Notes"><a name="Notes" id="Notes"><em>Lynx and HTML
Notes</em></a></h2>
<p>Lynx implements the <a href=
"http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/html3/Contents.html">HTML 3.0</a> NOTE
element (<em>Admonishment</em>) 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 <em>NOTE:</em> will be used. Lynx recognizes the values
<em>caution</em> and <em>warning</em>, for which, respectively,
the labels <em>CAUTION:</em> or <em>WARNING:</em> will be used.
The NOTE element can have an ID attribute, which will be treated
as a named <em>A</em>nchor, as for <a href="#Footnotes">HTML
Footnotes</a>, 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:<br></p>
<pre>
<em><NOTE CLASS="warning" ID="too-bad">
<p>The W3C vendors did not retain NOTE in the HTML 3.2 draft.</p>
</NOTE></em>
</pre>It will <em>degrade gracefully</em> for WWW browsers which do
not support NOTE, except for recognition of the ID attribute as a
named <em>A</em>nchor.
<p>[<a href="#ToC-Notes">ToC</a>]</p>
<h2 id="id-Lists"><a name="Lists" id="Lists"><em>Lynx and HTML
Lists</em></a></h2>
<p>Lynx implements the <a href=
"http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/html3/Contents.html">HTML 3.0</a> list
elements UL (<em>Unordered List</em>), OL (<em>Ordered
List</em>), and DL (<em>Definition List</em>), 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 <a href=
"http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/html-spec/html-spec_toc.html">HTML
2.0</a> MENU and DIR elements <em>both</em> are treated as
synonyms for UL with the PLAIN attribute (no <em>bullets</em>,
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 <a href=
"http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/html3/Contents.html">HTML 3.0</a> 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 <em>CAPTION:</em> or <em>CREDIT:</em> 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.</p>
<p>Lynx also supports the TYPE attribute for OL elements, which
can have values of <em>1</em> for Arabic numbers, <em>I</em> or
<em>i</em> for uppercase or lowercase Roman numerals, or
<em>A</em> or <em>a</em> 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.</p>
<p>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 <em>-29997</em> to
the system's maximum positive integer for Arabic numbers. For
Roman numerals, they can range from <em>1</em> (<em>I</em> or
<em>i</em>) to <em>3000</em> (<em>MMM</em> or <em>mmm.</em>). For
alphabetical orders, the values can range from <em>1</em>
(<em>A</em> or <em>a</em>) to <em>18278</em> (<em>ZZZ</em> or
<em>zzz</em>). 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 <em>1</em>, and if you
do not include a TYPE attribute, Lynx defaults to Arabic
numbers.</p>
<p>For UL blocks without the PLAIN attribute, Lynx uses
<em>*</em>, <em>+</em>, <em>o</em>, <em>#</em>, <em>@</em> and
<em>-</em> as <em>bullets</em> to indicate, progressively, the
depth within the six nesting levels.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>[<a href="#ToC-Lists">ToC</a>]</p>
<h2 id="id-Quotes"><a name="Quotes" id="Quotes"><em>Lynx and HTML
Quotes</em></a></h2>
<p>The <a href=
"http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/html3/Contents.html">HTML 3.0</a> 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.</p>
<p>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 <em>CREDIT:</em> label at the beginning of
its first line.</p>
<p>Lynx respects nested Q start and end tags, and will use ASCII
double-quotes (<em>"</em>) versus grave accent (<em>`</em>) and
apostrophe (<em>'</em>), respectively, for even versus odd depths
in the nest.</p>
<p>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 <em>A</em>nchors.</p>
<p>[<a href="#ToC-Quotes">ToC</a>]</p>
<h2 id="id-Eightbit"><a name="Eightbit" id="Eightbit"><em>Lynx
and HTML Internationalization: 8bit, UNICODE, etc.</em></a></h2>
<p>Lynx has superior support for HTML 4.0/I18N
internationalization issues. However, to see the characters other
than 7bit properly you <em>should</em> set your <a href=
"keystrokes/option_help.html#DC">display character set</a> from
Option Menu and save its value, this is a Frequently Asked
Question. Fine-turning is also available from <a href=
"#lynx.cfg">lynx.cfg</a></p>
<p>[<a href="#ToC-Eightbit">ToC</a>]</p>
<h2 id="id-USEMAP"><a name="USEMAP" id="USEMAP"><em>Lynx and
Client-Side-Image-Maps</em></a></h2>
<p>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
<em>clicked</em> 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
<em>click</em>, for handling by a script invoked by the server,
and have been termed <em>server-side-image-maps</em>. 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.</p>
<p>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
<em>client-side-image-maps</em>.</p>
<p>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
<em>[USEMAP]</em> 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.</p>
<p>If the IMG element also indicates a
<em>server-side-image-map</em> via an ISMAP attribute, Lynx
normally will create a link for that as well, using an
<em>[ISMAP]</em> pseudo-ALT (followed by a hyphen to indicate its
association with the <em>client-side-image-map</em>) rather than
ignoring it, and will submit a 0,0 coordinate pair if that link
is activated. Although, the <em>client-side-image-map</em> 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 (<a href=
"#lynx.cfg">lynx.cfg</a>), and the default can be toggled via the
<em>-ismap</em> command line switch.</p>
<p>Lynx also recognizes the <a href=
"http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/html3/Contents.html">HTML 3.0</a> FIG
and OVERLAY elements, and will handle them as intended for text
clients. These are the ideal way to handle
<em>client-side-image-maps</em>, 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.</p>
<p>The presently experimental OBJECT element encompasses much of
the functionality of the FIG element for
<em>client-side-image-maps</em>. 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 <em>client-side-image-maps</em>
and/or <em>server-side-image-maps</em>.</p>
<p>[<a href="#ToC-USEMAP">ToC</a>]</p>
<h2 id="id-Refresh"><a name="Refresh" id="Refresh"><em>Lynx and
Client-Side-Pull</em></a></h2>
<p>HTML includes provision for passing instructions to clients
via directives in META elements, and one such instruction, via
the token <em>Refresh</em>, 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
<em>client-side-pull</em>. An example of such an element is:</p>
<pre>
<em><META HTTP-EQUIV="Refresh" CONTENT="3; URL=http://host/path"></em>
</pre>which instructs a client to fetch the indicated URL in 3
seconds after receiving the current document. If the <em>URL=</em>
field is omitted, the URL defaults to that of the current document.
A <em>no-cache</em> directive is implied when the <em>Refresh</em>
if for the same URL.
<p>Lynx recognizes and processes <em>Refresh</em> 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.</p>
<p>[<a href="#ToC-Refresh">ToC</a>]</p>
<h2 id="id-Cookies"><a name="Cookies" id="Cookies"><em>Lynx State
Management</em></a> (Me want <em>cookie</em>!)</h2>
<p>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 <a href="#Forms">HTML Forms</a>, a
more general approach involves exchanges of MIME headers between
the server and browser. When replying to a request, the server
can send a <em>Set-Cookie</em> MIME header which contains
information (<em>cookies</em>) relevant to the browser's request,
and in subsequent requests the browser can send a <em>Cookie</em>
MIME header with information derived from previously received
cookies.</p>
<p>State Management via cookie exchanges originally was
implemented by Netscape, and such cookies are now designated as
<em>Version 0</em>. A more elaborate format for cookies,
designated as <em>Version 1</em>, is being standardized by the
IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force). Lynx supports both
<em>Version 0</em> and <em>Version 1</em> cookie exchanges. This
support can be disabled by default via the SET_COOKIES symbol in
the compilation (<em>userdefs.h</em>) and/or run time (<a href=
"#lynx.cfg">lynx.cfg</a>) configuration files, and that default
setting can be toggled via the <em>-cookies</em> 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.</p>
<p>When cookie support is enabled, <em>Set-Cookie</em> MIME
headers received from an http server invoke confirmation prompts
with possible replies of '<em>Y</em>'es or '<em>N</em>'o for
acceptance of the cookie, '<em>A</em>'lways to accept the cookie
and to allow all subsequent cookies from that <em>domain</em>
(server's Fully Qualified Domain Name, or site-identifying
portion of the FQDN) without further confirmation prompts, or
ne'<em>V</em>'er to never allow cookies from that <em>domain</em>
to be accepted (silently ignore its <em>Set-Cookie</em> MIME
headers). All unexpired cookies are held in a hypothetical
<em>Cookie Jar</em> which can be examined via the COOKIE_JAR
keystroke command, normally mapped to <em>Ctrl-K</em>, for
invoking the <a href="keystrokes/cookie_help.html">Cookie Jar
Page</a>. 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.</p>
<p>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 <em>From</em> 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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
<em>Gobble</em> (delete) the cookies and/or change the 'allow'
setting for its <em>domain</em> via the <a href=
"keystrokes/cookie_help.html">Cookie Jar Page</a>.</p>
<p>[<a href="#ToC-Cookies">ToC</a>]</p>
<h2 id="id-Cache"><a name="Cache" id="Cache"><em>Cached
Documents</em></a></h2>
<p>A list of documents which are in lynx's internal cache is
accessible through hypothetical <em>Cache Jar</em> which can be
examined via the CACHE_JAR keystroke command, normally mapped to
<em>Ctrl-X</em>.</p>
<p>Entries in the <em>Cache Jar</em> are ordered from oldest (at
the top) to newest. The user can easily access any document which
is in the cache, especially those which may be soon removed due
to configurable limits on the maximum number of cached documents,
as well as the maxmimum amount of memory used by the cache.</p>
<p>The structure of <em>Cache Jar</em> is simple:</p>
<ul>
<li>Each entry starts with its ordinal number (within the
session), recently added documents in cache have a smaller
number than documents which are added before, and are
positioned at the end of <em>Cache Jar</em></li>
<li>Following its ordinal number is the document title, which
is also a link. On activating this link, the user is prompted
if they want to delete the document from <em>Cache Jar</em>.
The document's address (also a link) follows the title. It is
distinguished by a <code>URL:</code> label preceding the link.
Activating this link, lynx displays the corresponding cached
document.</li>
<li>Below each cached document URL lynx shows the document
properties which include:
<ul>
<li>Lines,</li>
<li>Size,</li>
<li>File-Cache,</li>
<li>Content-Type,</li>
<li>Content-Language,</li>
<li>Content-Encoding,</li>
<li>Content-Location,</li>
<li>Subject,</li>
<li>Owner,</li>
<li>Date,</li>
<li>Expires,</li>
<li>Last-Modified,</li>
<li>ETag,</li>
<li>Server, and</li>
<li>Source-Cache-File.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p>This feature can be enabled by default using the USE_CACHEJAR
symbol in the compilation (<code>userdefs.h</code>), as well as
enabled in lynx.cfg</p>
<p>[<a href="#ToC-Cache">ToC</a>]</p>
<h2 id="id-Sessions"><a name="Sessions" id=
"Sessions"><em>Sessions</em></a></h2>
<p>Lynx's current state (all information about the user's current
activity with lynx) is called a session. Sessions are useful in
particular if you are in the middle of exploring something on the
web and you were forced to stop abruptly, losing any trace of
your current work.</p>
<p>A session can be automatically restored as lynx starts after a
clean exit. The session data is saved if lynx is invoked with the
<em>-session=FILENAME</em> switch. The <em>FILENAME</em> is the
name of the file where the session will be stored.</p>
<p>There are also switches for only restoring:
<em>-sessionin=FILENAME</em> and for only saving:
<em>-sessionout=FILENAME</em> sesions:</p>
<p>If you do not want to specify these options at each lynx
startup, there is an option in <em>lynx.cfg</em> to enable
automatic saving/restoring of session. To keep lynx startup/exit
reasonable fast there is also an option in <em>lynx.cfg</em>
specifying how much information about the current lynx session
will be stored in file.</p>
<p>The syntax of the session file is simple. You can use a text
editor to modify, add new entries, or remove URLs you no longer
want.</p>
<p>[<a href="#ToC-Sessions">ToC</a>]</p>
<h2 id="id-Invoking"><a name="Invoking" id="Invoking"><em>The
Lynx command line</em></a></h2>
<p>A summary of the Lynx command line options (switches) is
returned to stdout if Lynx is invoked with the <em>-help</em>
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:</p>
<dl>
<dt><code>Command</code></dt>
<dd><code>lynx [options]</code></dd>
<dd><code>lynx [options] startfile</code></dd>
</dl>where
<dl>
<dt><code>startfile</code></dt>
<dd>
is the file or URL that Lynx will load at start-up.
<ul>
<li>If startfile is not specified, Lynx will use a default
starting file and base directory determined during
installation.</li>
<li>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.</li>
<li>If a URL is specified, the file will be retrieved, and
only the server base directory will be relevant to further
accesses.</li>
<li>If more than one local file or remote URL is listed on
the command line, Lynx will open only the last
interactively. All of the names (local files and remote
URLs) are added to the G)oto history.</li>
</ul>
</dd>
<dt><code>options</code></dt>
<dd>
Lynx uses only long option names. Option names can begin with
double dash as well, underscores and dashes can be intermixed
in option names (in the reference below options are with one
dash before them and with underscores).
<p>Lynx provides many command-line options. Some options
require a value (string, number or keyword). These are noted
in the reference below. The other options set boolean values
in the program. There are three types of boolean options:
set, unset and toggle. If no option value is given, these
have the obvious meaning: set (to true), unset (to false), or
toggle (between true/false). For any of these, an explicit
value can be given in different forms to allow for operating
system constraints, e.g.,</p>
<pre>
<code>
-center:off
-center=off
-center-</code>
</pre>Lynx recognizes "1", "+", "on" and "true" for true values,
and "0", "-", "off" and "false" for false values. Other
option-values are ignored.
<p>The default boolean, number and string option values that
are compiled into lynx are displayed in the help-message
provided by lynx -help. Some of those may differ according to
how lynx was built; see the help message itself for these
values. The -help option is processed before any option,
including those that control reading from the lynx.cfg file.
Therefore runtime configuration values are not reflected in
the help-message.</p>
<p>Capitalized items in the option summary indicate that a
substitution must be made. These are the options:</p>
<dl>
<dt><code>-</code></dt>
<dd>If the argument is only '<code>-</code>' (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 <em>-get_data</em> or
<em>-post_data</em> 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 <em>-auth</em> or
<em>-pauth</em> options are used. On VMS, the dash must be
encased in double-quotes ("-") and the keyboard input
terminated with <em>Control-Z</em> or the command file
input terminated by a line that begins with '<em>$</em>'.
On Unix, the keyboard input terminator is
<em>Control-D</em>. On Win32, [???].</dd>
<dt><code>-accept_all_cookies</code></dt>
<dd>accept all cookies.</dd>
<dt><code>-anonymous</code></dt>
<dd>apply restrictions appropriate for an anonymous
account, see <em>-restrictions</em> below for some
details.</dd>
<dt><code>-assume_charset=MIMENAME</code></dt>
<dd>charset for documents that don't specify it.</dd>
<dt><code>-assume_local_charset=MIMENAME</code></dt>
<dd>charset assumed for local files, i.e., files which lynx
creates such as internal pages for the options menu.</dd>
<dt><code>-assume_unrec_charset=MIMENAME</code></dt>
<dd>use this instead of unrecognized charsets.</dd>
<dt><code>-auth=ID:PW</code></dt>
<dd>set authorization ID and password for protected
documents at startup. Be sure to protect any script files
which use this switch.</dd>
<dt><code>-base</code></dt>
<dd>prepend a request URL comment and BASE tag to text/html
outputs for -source dumps.</dd>
<dt><code>-bibp=URL</code></dt>
<dd>specify a local bibp server (default
http://bibhost/).</dd>
<dt><code>-blink</code></dt>
<dd>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.</dd>
<dt><code>-book</code></dt>
<dd>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.</dd>
<dt><code>-buried_news</code></dt>
<dd>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.</dd>
<dt><code>-cache=NUMBER</code></dt>
<dd>set the <em>NUMBER</em> of documents cached in memory.
The default is 10.</dd>
<dt><code>-center</code></dt>
<dd>Toggle center alignment in HTML TABLE.</dd>
<dt><code>-case</code></dt>
<dd>enable case-sensitive string searching.</dd>
<dt><code>-cfg=FILENAME</code></dt>
<dd>specifies a Lynx configuration file other than the
default <a href="#lynx.cfg">lynx.cfg</a>.</dd>
<dt><code>-child</code></dt>
<dd>exit on left-arrow in startfile, and disable save to
disk.</dd>
<dt><code>-child_relaxed</code></dt>
<dd>exit on left-arrow in startfile, but allow save to disk
and associated print/mail options.</dd>
<dt><code>-cmd_log=FILENAME</code></dt>
<dd>write keystroke commands and related information to the
specified file.</dd>
<dt><code>-cmd_script=FILENAME</code></dt>
<dd>
read keystroke commands from the specified file. You can
use the data written using the <em>-cmd_log</em> 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:
<dl>
<dt><code>exit</code></dt>
<dd>causes the script to stop, and forces lynx to exit
immediately.</dd>
<dt><code>key</code></dt>
<dd>the character value, in printable form. Cursor and
other special keys are given as names, e.g., <code>Down
Arrow</code>. Printable 7-bit ASCII codes are given
as-is, and hexadecimal values represent other 8-bit
codes.</dd>
<dt><code>set</code></dt>
<dd>followed by a "name=value" allows one to override
values set in the lynx.cfg file.</dd>
</dl>
</dd>
<dt><code>-color</code></dt>
<dd>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.</dd>
<dt><code>-connect_timeout=N</code></dt>
<dd>Sets the connection timeout, where N is given in
seconds.</dd>
<dt><code>-cookie_file=FILENAME</code></dt>
<dd>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.</dd>
<dt><code>-cookie_save_file=FILENAME</code></dt>
<dd>specifies a file to use to store cookies. If none is
specified, the value given by <code>-cookie_file</code> is
used.</dd>
<dt><code>-cookies</code></dt>
<dd>toggles handling of Set-Cookie headers.</dd>
<dt><code>-core</code></dt>
<dd>toggles forced core dumps on fatal errors. (Unix
only)</dd>
<dt><code>-crawl</code></dt>
<dd>with <em>-traversal</em>, output each page to a
file.<br>
with <em>-dump</em>, format output as with
<em>-traversal</em>, but to stdout.</dd>
<dt><code>-curses_pads</code></dt>
<dd>toggles the use of curses "pad" feature which supports
left/right scrolling of the display.</dd>
<dt><code>-debug_partial</code></dt>
<dd>separate incremental display stages with MessageSecs
delay</dd>
<dt><code>-display=DISPLAY</code></dt>
<dd>set the display variable for X rexe-ced programs.</dd>
<dt><code>-display_charset=MIMEname</code></dt>
<dd>set the charset for the terminal output.</dd>
<dt><code>-dont_wrap_pre</code></dt>
<dd>inhibit wrapping of text in <pre> when -dump'ing
and -crawl'ing, mark wrapped lines in interactive
session.</dd>
<dt><code>-dump</code></dt>
<dd>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:<br>
<em>lynx -dump http://www.w3.org/</em></dd>
<dt><code>-editor=EDITOR</code></dt>
<dd>enable external editing using the specified
<em>EDITOR</em>. (vi, ed, emacs, etc.)</dd>
<dt><code>-emacskeys</code></dt>
<dd>enable emacs-like key movement.</dd>
<dt><code>-enable_scrollback</code></dt>
<dd>toggles behavior compatible with the scrollback keys in
some communications software (may be incompatible with some
curses packages).</dd>
<dt><code>-error_file=FILENAME</code></dt>
<dd>the status code from the HTTP request is placed in this
file.</dd>
<dt><code>-exec</code></dt>
<dd>enable local program execution (normally not
configured).</dd>
<dt><code>-fileversions</code></dt>
<dd>include all versions of files in local VMS directory
listings.</dd>
<dt><code>-find_leaks</code></dt>
<dd>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.</dd>
<dt><code>-force_empty_hrefless_a</code></dt>
<dd>force HREF-less 'A' elements to be empty (close them as
soon as they are seen).</dd>
<dt><code>-force_html</code></dt>
<dd>forces the first document to be interpreted as
HTML.</dd>
<dt><code>-force_secure</code></dt>
<dd>toggles forcing of the secure flag for SSL
cookies.</dd>
<dt><code>-forms_options</code></dt>
<dd>toggles whether the Options Menu is key-based or
form-based.</dd>
<dt><code>-from</code></dt>
<dd>toggles transmissions of From headers to HTTP or HTTPS
servers.</dd>
<dt><code>-ftp</code></dt>
<dd>disable ftp access.</dd>
<dt><code>-get_data</code></dt>
<dd>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 '---'.</dd>
<dt><code>-head</code></dt>
<dd>send a HEAD request for the mime headers.</dd>
<dt><code>-help</code></dt>
<dd>print this Lynx command syntax usage message.</dd>
<dt><code>-hiddenlinks=<em>option</em></code></dt>
<dd>
control the display of hidden links. Option values are:
<dl>
<dt><code>merge</code></dt>
<dd>hidden links show up as bracketed numbers and are
numbered together with other links in the sequence of
their occurrence in the document.</dd>
<dt><code>listonly</code></dt>
<dd>hidden links are shown only on <em>L</em>ist
screens and listings generated by <code>-dump</code> or
from the <em>P</em>rint menu, but appear separately at
the end of those lists. This is the default
behavior.</dd>
<dt><code>ignore</code></dt>
<dd>hidden links do not appear even in listings.</dd>
</dl>
</dd>
<dt><code>-historical</code></dt>
<dd>toggles use of '>' or '-->' as a terminator for
comments.</dd>
<dt><code>-homepage=URL</code></dt>
<dd>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 <code>URL</code> for
the '<em>m</em>'ain menu command.</dd>
<dt><code>-image_links</code></dt>
<dd>toggles inclusion of links for all images.</dd>
<dt><code>-ismap</code></dt>
<dd>toggles inclusion of ISMAP links when client-side MAPs
are present.</dd>
<dt><code>-index=URL</code></dt>
<dd>set the default index file to the specified
<em>URL</em></dd>
<dt><code>-justify</code></dt>
<dd>do justification of text.</dd>
<dt><code>-link=NUMBER</code></dt>
<dd>starting count for lnk#.dat files produced by
<em>-crawl</em>.</dd>
<dt><code>-localhost</code></dt>
<dd>disable URLs that point to remote hosts.</dd>
<dt><code>-locexec</code></dt>
<dd>enable local program execution from local files only
(if lynx was compiled with local execution enabled).</dd>
<dt><code>-lss=FILENAME</code></dt>
<dd>specify filename containing color-style information.
The default is lynx.lss.</dd>
<dt><code>-mime_header</code></dt>
<dd>include mime headers and force source dump.</dd>
<dt><code>-minimal</code></dt>
<dd>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.</dd>
<dt><code>-nested_tables</code></dt>
<dd>toggles nested-tables logic (for debugging).</dd>
<dt><code>-newschunksize=NUMBER</code></dt>
<dd>number of articles in chunked news listings.</dd>
<dt><code>-newsmaxchunk=NUMBER</code></dt>
<dd>maximum news articles in listings before chunking.</dd>
<dt><code>-nobold</code></dt>
<dd>disable bold video-attribute.</dd>
<dt><code>-nobrowse</code></dt>
<dd>disable directory browsing.</dd>
<dt><code>-nocc</code></dt>
<dd>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.</dd>
<dt><code>-nocolor</code></dt>
<dd>force color mode off, overriding terminal capabilities
and any <em>-color</em> flags, <em>COLORTERM</em> variable,
and saved .lynxrc settings.</dd>
<dt><code>-noexec</code></dt>
<dd>disable local program execution. (DEFAULT)</dd>
<dt><code>-nofilereferer</code></dt>
<dd>disable transmissions of Referer headers for file
URLs.</dd>
<dt><code>-nolist</code></dt>
<dd>disable the link list feature in dumps.</dd>
<dt><code>-nolog</code></dt>
<dd>disable mailing of error messages to document
owners.</dd>
<dt><code>-nomargins</code></dt>
<dd>disable left/right margins in the default style
sheet.</dd>
<dt><code>-nomore</code></dt>
<dd>disable -more- string in statusline messages.</dd>
<dt><code>-nonrestarting_sigwinch</code></dt>
<dd>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 <em>may</em> cause Lynx to react more immediately to
window changes when run within an xterm.</dd>
<dt><code>-nopause</code></dt>
<dd>disable forced pauses for statusline messages.</dd>
<dt><code>-noprint</code></dt>
<dd>disable most print functions.</dd>
<dt><code>-noredir</code></dt>
<dd>don't follow URL redirections</dd>
<dt><code>-noreferer</code></dt>
<dd>disable transmissions of Referer headers.</dd>
<dt><code>-noreverse</code></dt>
<dd>disable reverse video-attribute.</dd>
<dt><code>-nosocks</code></dt>
<dd>disable SOCKS proxy usage by a SOCKSified Lynx.</dd>
<dt><code>-nostatus</code></dt>
<dd>disable the retrieval status messages.</dd>
<dt><code>-notitle</code></dt>
<dd>disable title and blank line from top of page.</dd>
<dt><code>-nounderline</code></dt>
<dd>disable underline video-attribute.</dd>
<dt><code>-number_fields</code></dt>
<dd>force numbering of links as well as form input
fields.</dd>
<dt><code>-number_links</code></dt>
<dd>force numbering of links.</dd>
<dt><code>-partial</code></dt>
<dd>toggles displaying of partial pages while loading.</dd>
<dt><code>-partial_thres=<em>NUMBER</em></code></dt>
<dd>number of lines to render before repainting display
with partial-display logic.</dd>
<dt><code>-pauth=ID:PW</code></dt>
<dd>set authorization ID and password for a protected proxy
server at startup. Be sure to protect any script files
which use this switch.</dd>
<dt><code>-popup</code></dt>
<dd>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 <a href=
"#lynx.cfg">lynx.cfg</a>. It also can be set and saved via
the 'o'ptions menu. The command line switch toggles the
default.</dd>
<dt><code>-post_data</code></dt>
<dd>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 '---'.</dd>
<dt><code>-preparsed</code></dt>
<dd>show source preparsed and reformatted when used with
-source or in source view ('<em>\</em>'). May be useful for
debugging of broken HTML markup to visualize the difference
between SortaSGML and TagSoup <a href=
"keystrokes/option_help.html#tagsoup">recovery modes</a>,
switched by '<em>^V</em>'.</dd>
<dt><code>-prettysrc</code></dt>
<dd>do syntax highlighting and hyperlink handling in source
view.</dd>
<dt><code>-print</code></dt>
<dd>enable print functions. (default)</dd>
<dt><code>-pseudo_inlines</code></dt>
<dd>toggles pseudo-ALTs for inline images with no ALT
string.</dd>
<dt><code>-raw</code></dt>
<dd>toggles default setting of 8-bit character translations
or CJK mode for the startup character set.</dd>
<dt><code>-realm</code></dt>
<dd>restricts access to URLs in the starting realm.</dd>
<dt><code>-reload</code></dt>
<dd>flushes the cache on a proxy server (only the first
document affected).</dd>
<dt><code>-restrictions</code></dt>
<dd>allows a list of services to be disabled selectively
and takes the following form:</dd>
<dd><em>lynx
-restrictions=[option][,option][,option]...</em></dd>
<dd>
The list of recognized options is printed if none are
specified.
<dl>
<dt>?</dt>
<dd>if used alone, lists restrictions in effect.</dd>
<dt>all</dt>
<dd>restricts all options listed below.</dd>
<dt>bookmark</dt>
<dd>disallow changing the location of the bookmark
file.</dd>
<dt>bookmark_exec</dt>
<dd>disallow execution links via the bookmark
file.</dd>
<dt>change_exec_perms</dt>
<dd>disallow changing the eXecute permission on files
(but still allow it for directories) when local file
management is enabled.</dd>
<dt>chdir</dt>
<dd>disallow command which changes Lynx's working
directory.</dd>
<dt>default</dt>
<dd>same as command line option <em>-anonymous</em>.
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.<br>
Note that this is the only option value that may have
the effect of <em>removing</em> some restrictions, if
they have been set by other options, namely for those
services that <em>are</em> allowed by default according
to userdefs.h. However, if the separate command line
option form (<em>-anonymous</em>) is used, Lynx takes
care to set the default restrictions before handling
additional <em>-restrictions=</em> options (even if
they precede the <em>anonymous</em> option), so that
this cannot happen.</dd>
<dt>dired_support</dt>
<dd>disallow local file management.</dd>
<dt>disk_save</dt>
<dd>disallow saving to disk in the download and print
menus.</dd>
<dt>dotfiles</dt>
<dd>disallow access to, or creation of, hidden (dot)
files.</dd>
<dt>download</dt>
<dd>disallow some downloaders in the download menu.
This does <em>not</em> 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 <em>and</em> no download methods are defined
in a <a href="#lynx.cfg">Lynx configuration file</a>
that are marked as "always ENABLED" (or, alternatively,
if the -validate switch is used).</dd>
<dt>editor</dt>
<dd>disallow external editing.</dd>
<dt>exec</dt>
<dd>disable execution scripts.</dd>
<dt>exec_frozen</dt>
<dd>disallow the user from changing the local execution
option.</dd>
<dt>externals</dt>
<dd>disallow some "EXTERNAL" configuration lines, if
support for passing URLs to external applications (with
the EXTERN_LINK or EXTERN_PAGE command) is compiled
in.</dd>
<dt>file_url</dt>
<dd>disallow using G)oto, served links or bookmarks for
file: URLs.</dd>
<dt>goto</dt>
<dd>disable the '<em>g</em>' (goto) command.</dd>
<dt>inside_ftp</dt>
<dd>disallow ftps for people coming from inside your
domain.</dd>
<dt>inside_news</dt>
<dd>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.</dd>
<dt>inside_rlogin</dt>
<dd>disallow rlogins for people coming from inside your
domain.</dd>
<dt>inside_telnet</dt>
<dd>disallow telnets for people coming from inside your
domain.</dd>
<dt>jump</dt>
<dd>disable the '<em>j</em>' (jump) command.</dd>
<dt>lynxcgi</dt>
<dd>disallow execution of Lynx CGI URLs.</dd>
<dt>mail</dt>
<dd>disallow mailing feature.</dd>
<dt>multibook</dt>
<dd>disallow multiple bookmarks.</dd>
<dt>news_post</dt>
<dd>disallow USENET News posting,</dd>
<dt>options_save</dt>
<dd>disallow saving options in .lynxrc.</dd>
<dt>outside_ftp</dt>
<dd>disallow ftps for people coming from outside your
domain.</dd>
<dt>outside_news</dt>
<dd>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.</dd>
<dt>outside_rlogin</dt>
<dd>disallow rlogins for people coming from outside
your domain.</dd>
<dt>outside_telnet</dt>
<dd>disallow telnets for people coming from outside
your domain.</dd>
<dt>print</dt>
<dd>disallow most print options.</dd>
<dt>shell</dt>
<dd>disallow shell escapes.</dd>
<dt>suspend</dt>
<dd>disallow <em>Control-Z</em> suspends with escape to
shell on Unix.</dd>
<dt>telnet_port</dt>
<dd>disallow specifying a port in telnet G)oto's.</dd>
<dt>useragent</dt>
<dd>disallow modifications of the User-Agent
header.</dd>
</dl>
</dd>
<dt><code>-resubmit_posts</code></dt>
<dd>toggles forced resubmissions (no-cache) of forms with
method POST when the documents they returned are sought
with the PREV_DOC (<em>left-arrow</em>) command or from the
<em>History Page</em>.</dd>
<dt><code>-rlogin</code></dt>
<dd>disable recognition of rlogin commands.</dd>
<dt><code>-scrollbar</code></dt>
<dd>toggles showing scrollbar.</dd>
<dt><code>-scrollbar_arrow</code></dt>
<dd>toggles showing arrows at ends of the scrollbar.</dd>
<dt><code>-selective</code></dt>
<dd>require .www_browsable files to browse
directories.</dd>
<dt><code>-session=FILENAME</code></dt>
<dd>resumes from specified file on startup and saves
session to that file on exit.</dd>
<dt><code>-sessionin=FILENAME</code></dt>
<dd>resumes session from specified file.</dd>
<dt><code>-sessionout=FILENAME</code></dt>
<dd>saves session to specified file.</dd>
<dt><code>-short_url</code></dt>
<dd>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.</dd>
<dt><code>-show_cursor</code></dt>
<dd>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 <a href=
"#lynx.cfg">lynx.cfg</a>. It also can be set and saved via
the 'o'ptions menu. The command line switch toggles the
default.</dd>
<dt><code>-show_rate</code></dt>
<dd>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.</dd>
<dt><code>-soft_dquotes</code></dt>
<dd>toggles emulation of the old Netscape and Mosaic bug
which treated '<em>></em>' as a co-terminator for
double-quotes and tags.</dd>
<dt><code>-source</code></dt>
<dd>
works the same as dump but outputs HTML source instead of
formatted text. For example
<pre>
<tt>
lynx -source . >foo.html
</tt>
</pre>generates HTML source listing the files in the current
directory. Each file is marked by an HREF relative to the parent
directory. Add a trailing slash to make the HREF's relative to the
current directory:
<pre>
<tt>
lynx -source ./ >foo.html
</tt>
</pre>
</dd>
<dt><code>-stack_dump</code></dt>
<dd>disable SIGINT cleanup handler.</dd>
<dt><code>-startfile_ok</code></dt>
<dd>allow non-http startfile and homepage with
<em>-validate</em>.</dd>
<dt><code>-stderr</code></dt>
<dd>When dumping a document using <code>-dump</code> or
<code>-source</code>, Lynx normally does not display alert
(error) messages that you see on the screen in the status
line. Use the <code>-stderr</code> option to tell Lynx to
write these messages to the standard error.</dd>
<dt><code>-stdin</code></dt>
<dd>read the startfile from standard input (UNIX
only).</dd>
<dt><code>-syslog=<em>text</em></code></dt>
<dd>information for syslog call.</dd>
<dt><code>-syslog-urls</code></dt>
<dd>log requested URLs with syslog.</dd>
<dt><code>-tagsoup</code></dt>
<dd>initialize DTD with "TagSoup" tables, <a href=
"keystrokes/option_help.html#tagsoup">more
details</a>.</dd>
<dt><code>-telnet</code></dt>
<dd>disable recognition of telnet commands.</dd>
<dt><code>-term=TERM</code></dt>
<dd>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.)</dd>
<dt><code>-timeout=<em>N</em></code></dt>
<dd>For win32, sets the network read-timeout, where N is
given in seconds.</dd>
<dt><code>-tlog</code></dt>
<dd>toggles use of a <em>Lynx Trace Log</em> for the
session. The log is named <em>Lynx.trace</em> and is
created in the home directory when Lynx trace mode is
turned on via the <em>-trace</em> command line switch (see
below), or via the TRACE_TOGGLE (<em>Control-T</em>)
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, '<em>;</em>') keystroke
command. If use of a Lynx Trace Log is turned off, any
trace output will go to the standard error stream.</dd>
<dt><code>-tna</code></dt>
<dd>turns on <a href="#tna">"Textfields Need
Activation"</a> mode.</dd>
<dt><code>-trace</code></dt>
<dd>turns on Lynx trace mode. If a Lynx Trace Log
(<em>Lynx.trace</em> 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, '<em>;</em>') command. If no
Trace Log file is in use, trace messages go to stderr.</dd>
<dt><code>-trace_mask=<em>value</em></code></dt>
<dd>
turn on optional traces, which may result in very large
trace files. Logically OR the values to combine options:
<dl>
<dt>1</dt>
<dd>SGML character parsing states</dd>
<dt>2</dt>
<dd>color-style</dd>
<dt>4</dt>
<dd>TRST (table layout)</dd>
<dt>8</dt>
<dd>config (lynx.cfg and .lynxrc contents)</dd>
<dt>16</dt>
<dd>binary string copy/append, used in form data
construction.</dd>
</dl>
</dd>
<dt><code>-traversal</code></dt>
<dd>traverse all http links derived from startfile. When
used with <em>-crawl</em>, each link that begins with the
same string as startfile is output to a file, intended for
indexing. See CRAWL.announce for more information.</dd>
<dt><code>-trim_input_fields</code></dt>
<dd>trim input text/textarea fields in forms.</dd>
<dt><code>-underscore</code></dt>
<dd>toggles use of _underline_ format in dumps.</dd>
<dt><code>-use_mouse</code></dt>
<dd>turn on mouse support, if available.</dd>
<dt><code>-useragent=STRING</code></dt>
<dd>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 <a href="#noteUA">note</a> in the
Options Menu section for rationale.</dd>
<dt><code>-validate</code></dt>
<dd>accept only http URLs (meant for validation).</dd>
<dd>This flag implies security restrictions generally more
severe than <em>-anonymous</em>: restriction options as for
<em>-restrictions=all</em>, 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.</dd>
<dd>Any relaxing of restriction that might be implied by an
also present (or implied) <em>-anonymous</em> flag is
overridden, the only way to possibly relax <em>some</em> of
the restrictions to the level applicable for "anononymous"
accounts is with an explicit
<em>-restrictions=default</em>.</dd>
<dt><code>-verbose</code></dt>
<dd>toggles [LINK], [IMAGE] and [INLINE] comments with
filenames of these images.</dd>
<dt><code>-version</code></dt>
<dd>print version information.</dd>
<dt><code>-vikeys</code></dt>
<dd>enable vi-like key movement.</dd>
<dt><code>-wdebug</code></dt>
<dd>enable Waterloo tcp/ip packet debug (print to watt
debugfile). This applies only to DOS versions compiled with
WATTCP or WATT-32.</dd>
<dt><code>-width=NUMBER</code></dt>
<dd>number of columns for formatting of dumps, default is
80.</dd>
<dt><code>-with_backspaces</code></dt>
<dd>emit backspaces in output if -dumping or -crawling
(like <code>man</code> does).</dd>
</dl>
</dd>
</dl>
<p>No options are required, nor is a startfile argument required.
White space can be used in place of equal sign separators
('<em>=</em>') 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.</p>
<p>[<a href="#ToC-Invoking">ToC</a>]</p>
<h2 id="Environments"><a name="Environment" id=
"Environment"><em>Environment variables used by
Lynx</em></a></h2>
<p>Lynx uses certain environment variables and sets a few of
them. Please visit a <a href=
"keystrokes/environments.html">separate page</a> for this rather
technical information.</p>
<p>[<a href="#ToC-Environment">ToC</a>]</p>
<h2 id="id-lynx.cfg"><a name="lynx.cfg" id="lynx.cfg"><em>Main
configuration file lynx.cfg</em></a></h2>
<p>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
<em>lynx.cfg</em>.</p>
<p>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: <a href=
"http://lynx.isc.org/release/lynx2-8-7/lynx_help/cattoc.html">by
category</a> or <a href=
"http://lynx.isc.org/release/lynx2-8-7/lynx_help/alphatoc.html">by
alphabet</a>.</p>
<p>To view your current configuration derived from lynx.cfg and
any included configuration files, press <em>'g'</em> and type in
'<em>lynxcfg:</em>'. If you are using the forms-based <em>Options
Menu</em>, you may press <em>'o'</em> for the Options Menu and
follow the '<em>Check your lynx.cfg</em>' link near the
bottom.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>[<a href="#ToC-lynx.cfg">ToC</a>]</p>
<h2 id="id-Hist"><a name="Hist" id="Hist"><em>Lynx development
history</em></a></h2>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p><em>Foteos Macrides</em> and members of the <a href=
"lynx-dev.html">lynx-dev</a> list have developed and supported
Lynx since release of v2.3 in May 1994.<br>
The Lynx2-3FM code set was released as v2.4 in June 1995.<br>
The Lynx2-4FM code set was released as v2.5 in May 1996.<br>
The Lynx2-5FM code set was released as v2.6 in September
1996.<br>
The Lynx2-6FM code set was released as v2.7 in February 1997.<br>
The v2-7FM code set was released as v2.7.1 in April 1997.<br>
The v2-7-1FM code set was released as v2.7.2 in January 1998.<br>
The 2.7.1 development set was released as v2.8 in March 1998.<br>
The 2.8 development set was released as v2.8.1 in October
1998.<br>
The 2.8.1 development set was released as v2.8.2 in June
1999.<br>
The 2.8.2 development set was released as v2.8.3 in April
2000.<br>
The 2.8.3 development set was released as v2.8.4 in July
2001.<br>
The 2.8.4 development set was released as v2.8.5 in February
2004.<br>
The 2.8.5 development set was released as v2.8.6 in October
2006.<br>
The 2.8.6 development set was released as v2.8.7 in July
2009.<br></p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Contributors have generally been acknowledged in the CHANGES
file. Earlier CHANGES file can be found in the docs/ subdirectory
of this distribution.</p>
<p>Information on obtaining the most current version of Lynx is
available at <a href="http://lynx.isc.org/current/index.html">the
current distribution page</a>.</p>
<p>[<a href="#Contents">ToC</a>]</p>
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