+++ Options Screen Help +++
The Options Screen allows you to set and
modify many of Lynx's features. The following
options may be set.
Editor - If non-empty it defines the editor to spawn
when editing a local file or sending mail.
Any valid text editor may be entered here.
DISPLAY variable - If non-empty it specifies your X terminal
display address.
Multi-bookmarks - When OFF, the default bookmark file is used
for the 'v'iew bookmarks and 'a'dd bookmark
link commands. 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 instead are prompted for the
letter of the desired bookmark file, but can
enter '=' to invoke the STANDARD selection
menu, or RETURN for the default bookmark file.
Bookmark file - If non-empty and multi-bookmarks is OFF, it
specifies your default 'Bookmark file'.
If multi-bookmarks is 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 (e.g, ./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 - You may set your mail address here so that
Address 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 '/' command will be case
sensitive substring searches. The
default is 'Case Insensitive' substring
searches
Preferred Document - The language you prefer if multi-language files
Language are available from servers. Use RFC 1766 tags,
e.g., en for English, fr for French, etc. Can be
a comma-separated list, which may be interpreted
by servers as descending order of preferences.
You can also make your order of preference explicit
by using q factors as defined by the HTTP protocol,
for servers which understand it, for example:
da, en-gb;q=0.8, en;q=0.7
Preferred Document - The character set you prefer if sets in addition
Charset 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, unicode-1-1;q=0.8
Display Character - This option allows you to set up the default
set character set for your specific terminal.
The character set provides a mapping of 8-bit ISO
Latin character entities and/or Asian (CJK) or
Unicode characters into viewable characters and
should be set according 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 - Toggles whether 8-bit characters are assumed to
mode correspond with the selected character set and
therefore are processed without translation via
the chartrans conversion tables. Should be ON
by default when the selected character set is one
of the Asian (CJK) sets and the 8-bit characters
are Kanji multibytes. Should be OFF for the other
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 included 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. The setting also can be
toggled via the RAW_TOGGLE command, normally mapped
to '@', and at startup via the -raw switch.
Show color - This option will be present if color support is
available. If set to ON or ALWAYS, color mode will
be forced on if possible. If (n)curses color
support is available but cannot be used for the
current terminal type, selecting ON is rejected
with a message. If set to OFF or NEVER, color mode
will be turned off.
ALWAYS and NEVER are not offered in anonymous
accounts. If saved to a '.lynxrc' file in
non-anonymous accounts, ALWAYS will cause Lynx to
set color mode on at startup if supported. If Lynx
is built with the slang library, this is equivalent
to having included the -color command line switch
or having the COLORTERM environment variable
set. If color support is provided by curses or
ncurses, this is equivalent to the default behavior
of using color when the terminal type supports it.
If (n)curses color support is available but cannot
be used for the current terminal type, the
preference can still be saved but will have no
effect.
A saved value of NEVER will cause Lynx to assume a
monochrome terminal at startup. It is similar to
the -nocolor switch, but (when the slang library is
used) can be overridden with the -color switch.
If the setting is OFF or ON when the current
options are saved to a '.lynxrc' file, the default
startup behavior is retained, such that color mode
will be turned on at startup only if the terminal
info indicates that you have a color-capable
terminal, or (when the slang library is used) if
forced on via the -color switch or COLORTERM
variable. This default behavior always is used in
anonymous accounts, or if the 'option'_save
restriction is set explicitly. If for any reason
the startup color mode is incorrect for your
terminal, set it appropriately on or off via this
option.
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 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).
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 - Lynx normally uses a popup window for the
fields 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.
Show cursor for - Lynx normally hides the cursor by positioning it
current link or to the right and if possible the very bottom of
option 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.
Keypad mode - This option gives the choice between navigating
with the keypad (as arrows; see Lynx Navigation)
and having every link numbered (numbered links)
so that the links may be selected by numbers
instead of moving to them with the arrow keys.
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 - Applies to Directory Editing. Files and
style 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 - 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/2.7.1 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 - If set to 'ALWAYS ON', Lynx will locally execute
links 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.