Navigating With Lynx 2.6

• How to Navigate Using LYNX
  1. Moving to and Choosing Links
  2. Online Help
  3. A Short Summary of Some Simple Lynx Commands
• What's the Web Spun From?

How to Navigate Using LYNX

Part 1: How Lynx Works

Lynx allows you to perform two of the most basic navigational tasks: read documents and follow links to other documents. When reading a document, hit the space bar when you want to go to the next screen, and press either the 'b' key or the '-' (minus/hyphen) key when you want to go back to the previous screen.

Links are pointers which can take you to other documents, or to another section of an individual document, such as the explanatory notes in the body of a large document. At the top of this document there is a table of contents which serves two purposes: first, it informs you what information this document contains, and second, it provides you with the ability to jump directly to the section which interests you the most. Embedded in this sentence is another example of a jump-to link, which will take you back to the top of the page.

Some documents are merely a list of links. BLYNX's Lynx Help! is an example of this type of document.

Whenever you choose a link, Lynx moves to a different document, or a different place in the same document. Even if the document is on a computer on the other side of the globe, Lynx will retrieve it automatically and almost instantaneously--depending, of course, on the time of day and the number of other people who are trying to access the document you selected. No matter where you are, the peak time for activity on the internet extends from approximately noon to midnight.

Part 2: Moving to and Choosing Links

If you don't have Lynx set to display a bracketed number to the left of each link, you should--especially if you're using a speech-synthesizer. To set Lynx to display numbered links:

1. Press 'o' to load the "Lynx Options Menu"
2. Press 'k' to activate the "(K)eypad as Arrows or numbered links" text-entry field.
3. Press any key to change the value of the option from "numbers act as arrows" to "links are numbered"
4. Press the enter key or hit the carriage return.
5. Type a '>' (greater-than sign) to save this setting in the .lynxrc file, so that everytime you load Lynx, a bracketed number will appear to the immediate left of every hyperlink, alerting you to its presence.

To choose a link, simply type the corresponding number, and then hit either enter or press the carriage return key. Here are a few links for you to practice on--simply type the number that appears in the brackets and press enter...

• door number one
• door number two

You can also navigate from link to link by using the arrow keys on the keyboard. The up and down arrows move to the next and to the previous link, respectively. The current link (that is, the link to which you would be taken if you pressed enter) will be displayed on the terminal in an easily distinguishable manner--usually in reverse video, although the actual appearance of the highlighted link depends on the type of terminal emulation you're using. If you are using speech-synthesis or a refreshable braille display, can track the highlit link by loading Lynx using the -show_cursor command line switch. This will force Lynx to indicate the current link or currently active field with a cursor, thereby allowing you to read the hyperlink text with your screen-reader's "Say Word" or "Say Line" command. (Users of Lynx 2.7 or greater should consult the Technical Note at the end of this section.)

Once you've reached the link you want to go to, press enter (or hit the carriage return) to choose that link.

Use the following list of links to practice navigating with the up and down arrow keys by moving from one link to the other and then pressing enter (or carriage return) to discover where the highlighted link leads.

• door number three
• door number four

Part 3: Online Help

Lynx has two built-in help features. If you type 'h' or '?', Lynx will (if your system's administrator compiled the program correctly) transport you to either the Lynx Help Menu, the Lynx Enhanced Pages, the BLYNX Speech- and Braille-Friendly Help Menu, or a local mirror containing help and support files. If you are using an old version of Lynx, typing 'h' or '?' will probably transport you to a list of help files located on a computer at the University of Kansas, where Lynx was originally developed.

The second help feature is a list of keystroke commands, which you can view by pressing 'k'. Try it, and remember to press either 'u' or the left-arrow key to return to this page.

Part 4: A Short Summary of Some Simple Lynx Commands:

• Use the spacebar to move forward through a document page by page, and use 'b' or '-' (the minus key) to go back a page.
  
  
• Use the up-arrow to move back one link and the down-arrow or 'tab' key to move forward one link.
  
  
• There are two ways to follow a link:
  
  1. If the link is preceded by a bracketed number, simply type the number, and then press either the carriage return or enter.
  2. Move to the desired link with the up-arrow or down-arrow keys. When the link you want to follow is highlit (displayed in reverse video) press either the carriage return key or enter.
  
  
• Once you've followed a link, you can always return to the document you just left by pressing either the 'u' key or the left-arrow key.
  
  
• You can search for a specified text-string in a document by pressing '/' (the forward slash). To find the next occurance of the text-string, press 'n'.
  
  
• Whenever you load a searchable index, Lynx will prompt you to press either an upper or lower case 's'. If you want to perform a case-sensitive search, press shift-s; if you want to perform a case-insensitive search, simply press an 's', and Lynx will prompt you to "Enter a database query:" Type in the string for which you want to search, and then press enter to execute the search.
  
  
• If you want hard copy of the current document, press the 'p' key. Pressing 'p' generates the "Print Options Menu", which will present you with a choice of writing out a copy of the document to a file, sending it to yourself via email, or printing it. While email might seem like an odd choice, if you're on a terminal where you can't print out a copy of the document or can't save it as a file on your remote home directory, email might be the only way you can get a copy of the file. It's also a good way to send a copy of a document to a friend.
  
  
• Given the nature of hypertext and the web, it is often difficult to relocate a resource or a really cool site a couple of days after you first stumbled accross it. To preserve a customized lists of your favorite links in "bookmark files" follow the following steps:
  
  
  1. Press 'o' to load the "Lynx Options Menu"
  2. Press 'b' to activate the "(B)ookmark file" text-entry field.
  3. To change the name of the bookmark file from the default--lynx_bookmarks.html--hold down the control key and press the 'u' key, then type in a filename that
     1. corresponds to the type of links contained in the file (for example, news.html)
     2. will be easy for you to remember, and
     3. which ends with an .html extention
  4. Press enter or the carriage return key to accept the value you set.
  5. To exit the Lynx Options Menu press either 'r', which signals Lynx to use the file you just defined as the (B)ookmark file for the duration of the current session, or '>:' (greater-than), which instructs Lynx to use the file you just defined as the default (B)ookmark file.
  6. Once you have defined your personal (B)ookmark file, typing the letter 'a' followed by 'd' (to save the currently displayed document), 'l' (to save the highlighted link), or 'c' to cancel the operation.
     • Note: choosing 'l' the is perfect way to save a link that sounds interesting, but to which Lynx was unable to connect.)
  
  
• Type a lowercase 'v' to view the currently chosen bookmark file, and use the up and down arrows to move to a desired link.
  
  
• Type an upper-case 'V' to view the visited link page, and use the up and down arrows to move to a desired link. (Note: this command was implemented in Lynx 2.7)
  
  
• If, for any reason, the screen becomes garbled, hold down the control key and type 'w' or 'l' to refresh the screen. To reload the current page, hold down the control key and type 'r'.

press 'd' to download a blind/vi tailored lynx.cfg file

• return to BLYNX's front page
• return to the BLYNX Help Menu
• return to the begining of this document

What's the Web Spun From?

Most of the easily accessible information contained on the internet is based on two technological protocols: hypertext--files marked up in HTML (hypertext markup language)--and gopher, an information retreival protocol developed at the University of Minnesota.

You can find explore the technical underpinnings and inner workings of the World Wide Web (WWW or W3 for short) at the following sites:

• WWW overview
• Introduction to HyperText Markup Language (HTML)
• Introduction to Universal Resource Locators (URLs), the way documents are specified.

An excellent indication of the networked nature of the Web is that the documents listed above are located on computers in Switzerland and Illinois.

comments? criticism? corrections? suggestions?
email: oedipus@leb.net

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  • Speech-Friendly Lynx Help
  • Speech-Friendly Search Engine Query Submission Forms
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