About Lynx

Note to users as of 8/19/06 - This information has been here for a long time.
It is highly unlikely that you would want to use a text-based browser.

Lynx is a World Wide Web browser which displays text, but not graphics. This "text-based" browser uses keyboard commands to negotiate the Web as opposed to graphical browsers which promote a point and click interface. Despite this relative downfall, Lynx is a fast and comparatively easy method of "surfing" the Web.

Keyboard Commands

Most functions of Lynx are controlled by the keyboard. The following is a list of keystrokes in order to achive the functions they describe.

[Up arrow]...Highlight the previous link.
[Right arrow] OR [Enter]...Select/Jump to the highlighted link.
[Left arrow]...Return to the previous Web page.

[+] OR [space]...Scroll down to the next page of text.
[-] OR [b]...Scroll up to the previous page of text.

[?]...View the on-line help screen.
[a]...Add the current link to your bookmark file.
[c]...Send a comment to the document owner.
[d]...Download the current link.
[e]...Edit the current file.
[g]...Goto a user specified URL or file.
[i]...Show an index of documents.
[m]...Return to main screen.
[o]...Set your options.
[p]...Print to a file, mail, printers, or other.
[q]...Quit.
[Q]...Capitol "q," quick quit.
[/]...Search for a string within the current document.
[s]...Enter a search string for an external search.
[n]...Go to the next search string hit.
[v]...View your bookmark file
[z]...Cancel transfer in progress.
[backspace]...Go to the history page.
[=]...Show file and link info.
[\]...Toggle document source/rendered view.
[!]...Spawn your default shell. NOTE: don't bother, the option is disabled.
[ctrl-r]...Reload current file and refresh the screen.
[ctrl-w]...Refresh the screen.
[ctrl-u]...Erase the input line.
[ctrl-g]...Cancel input or transfer.

Dowloading Files

From Lynx, simply hit the [d] key. This will bring up the download options menu. The "Save to disk" option has a bug in it, so you must choose the "Zmodem" option to start the download. There is also a bug in the "Zmodem" option that unfortunately renames the file to something ambiguous such as "L73070.HTML" (note the name of the file before you download it). This will download the highlighted link to your PC, placing the file(s) in the preset default location according to your Comm program. Once the file is downloaded you should rename it back to it's original name.

How do I get to a particular URL?

From Lynx, hit the [g] key. At the "URL to go to:" prompt, type the location in the format "http://someplace.like.this/" without the quotation marks. For example, Yahoo's URL would be "http://www.yahoo.com/", again without the quotation marks.

Also, if you have a Web Page on CCIL your URL would be: "http://www.ccil.org/~username/filename". Or, If you have a file named index.html in your HTML directory your URL would be: "http://www.ccil.org/~username".