Options Menu Screen Help

Editor

Allows you to define an editor which will be spawned (invoked) when editing a local file or sending mail. Any valid text editor available on your system may be entered here. By default, this setting is left blank.

Examples are: PICO, EMACS, VI

DISPLAY variable

Specifies your X terminal display address.

By default, this setting is left blank.

Multi-bookmarks

There are three possible settings for this Option: OFF, STANDARD, and ADVANCED

When set to OFF, the default bookmark file is invoked when you type a lower case 'v' to view bookmarks and type an 'a' to add a link or document to the default bookmark file.

If set to STANDARD, 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 in that menu.

If set to ADVANCED, you are prompted for the letter of the desired bookmark file. NOTE: You can press the equals (=) key to invoke the STANDARD selection menu, or press RETURN for the default bookmark file.

Bookmark file

If the m)ulti-bookmarks option is OFF, it this setting specifies your default Bookmark file. If multi-bookmarks is set to STANDARD or ADVANCED, entering 'B' will invoke a menu in which you can specify the filepaths and descriptions of up to 26 bookmark files. The filepaths must be from your home directory, and begin with dot-slash (./) If subdirectories are included (for example, ./BM/lynx_bookmarks.html). Lynx will create bookmark files when you first 'a'dd a link, but any subdirectories in the filepath must already exist.

FTP sort criteria

This option allows you to specify how files will be sorted within FTP listings. The current options include "By Filename", "By Size", "By Type", and "By Date".

Personal Mail Address

You may set your mail address here so that when mailing messages to other people or mailing files to yourself, your email address can be automatically filled in. Your email address will also be sent to HTTP servers in a from: field.

Searching type

If set to 'case sensitive', user searches invoked by the slash (/) command will be case sensitive substring searches. The default is 'Case Insensitive' substring searches

Display Character set

This option allows you to set up the default character set for your specific terminal. The character set provides a mapping of 8-bit ISO Latin character entities and/or Asian (CJK) characters into viewable characters and should be set in relation to your terminal's character set if you will be viewing such characters with Lynx. You must have the selected character set installed on your terminal.

Raw 8-bit or CJK mode

Toggles whether 8-bit characters are assumed to correspond with the selected character set and therefore are processed without translation via the ISO Latin 1 conversion tables. Should be ON by default when the selected character set is ISO Latin 1, or is one of the Asian (CJK) sets. Should be OFF for the other character sets, but can be turned ON when there's a match, e.g., the document's charset is ISO-8859-2 and ISO Latin 2 has been selected. Should be OFF when an Asian (CJK) set is selected but the document is ISO-8850-1. The setting also can be toggled via the RAW_TOGGLE command, normally mapped to the 'at-sign' (@), and at startup via the -raw command line switch.

Preferred Document Language

The language you prefer if multi-language files are available from servers. Use MIME abbreviations, such as, en for English, fr for French, etc. Can be a comma-separated list in descending order of preferences.

Preferred Document Charset

The character set you prefer if sets in addition to ISO-8859-1 and US-ASCII are available from servers. Use MIME notation (e.g., ISO-8859-2) and do not include ISO-8859-1 or US-ASCII, since those values are always assumed by default. Can be a comma-separated list in descending order of preferences.

VI keys

If set to 'ON' then the lowercase h, j, k, and l, keys will be mapped to left-arrow, down-arrow, up-arrow, 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).

Emacs keys

If set to 'ON' then the CONTROL-P, CONTROL-N, CONTROL-F, and CONTROL-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).

Show dot files

If display/creation of hidden (dot) files/directories is enabled, you can turn the feature on or off via this setting.

Popups for select fields

Lynx normally uses a popup window for the OPTIONs in form SELECT fields when the field does not have the MULTIPLE attribute specified, and thus only one OPTION can be selected. The use of popup windows can be disabled by changing this setting to OFF, in which case the OPTIONs will be rendered as a list of radio buttons. Note that if the SELECT field does have the MULTIPLE attribute specified, the OPTIONs are always rendered as a list of checkboxes.

Keypad mode

This option gives the choice between navigating with the numeric keypad (Numbers act as arrows) or having a bracketed number associated with every hyperlink (Links are numbered) so that a links may be selected by typing the number associated with it and pressing enter instead of moving the cursor to the link with the arrow keys and pressing enter.

Line edit style

This option allows you to set alternate key bindings for the built-in line editor, if your system administrator has installed alternates. Otherwise, Lynx uses the Default Binding.

List directory style

Applies to Directory Editing (DIRED). Files and directories can be presented in the following ways:

Mixed style: files and directories are listed together in alphabetical order.

Directories first: files and directories are separated into two alphabetical lists. Directories are listed first.

Files first: files and directories are separated into two alphabetical lists. Files are listed first.

User Mode

there are three values for this options: Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced

Beginner: Shows two extra lines of help at the bottom of the screen

Intermediate (normal mode): The "normal" statusline messages appear.

Advanced: The URL is shown on the statusline.

User Agent

The header string which Lynx sends to servers to indicate the User-Agent is displayed here. Changes may be disallowed via the -restrictions switch. Otherwise, the header can be changed temporarily to a string such as L_y_n_x/2.7 for access to sites which discriminate against Lynx based on checks for the presence of "Lynx" in the header.

If changed during a Lynx session, the default User-Agent header can be restored by deleting the modified string in the Options Menu. Whenever the User-Agent header is changed, the current document is reloaded, with the no-cache flags set, on exit from the Options Menu. Changes of the header are not saved in the RC file.

NOTE that Netscape Communications Corp. has claimed that false transmissions of "Mozilla" as the User-Agent are a copyright infringement, which will be prosecuted. DO NOT misrepresent Lynx as Mozilla. The Options Menu issues a warning about possible copyright infringement whenever the header is changed to one which does not include "Lynx" or "lynx".

Local execution links

If set to 'ALWAYS ON', Lynx will locally execute commands contained inside of any links. This can be HIGHLY DANGEROUS so it is recommended that they remain 'ALWAYS OFF' or 'FOR LOCAL FILES ONLY' unless otherwise set by your system administrator. This option may not be available on most versions of Lynx.