Ä Area: Blind Talk ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ Msg#: 1395 Date: 23 Feb 97 20:36:13 From: "gregory j. rosmaita" Read: Yes Replied: No To: All Mark: Subj: Lynx 2.7 Question (Forward) ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ From: "gregory j. rosmaita" Subject: Lynx 2.7 Question (Forward) first of all, please excuse the promiscuous cross-posting... secondly, since this is a rather large and varied answer, some of which may not be of interest to the general public, i've separated this emessage into 3 sections: SECTION 1: changes in lynx 2.7 SECTION 2: what's next for lynx? SECTION 3: lynx and SSL/https (yes, it is possible, but entails some work to initially set up) SECTION 4: where can i get lynx 2.7? simply search-for the text-string section x (where x is the number of the section you wish to read) to locate the begining of that section... ----------------------------------------------------------------------- SECTION 1: CHANGES IN LYNX 2.7 > 1. In terms of its user interface, what substantial changes were made? It > seems to me that forms handling is cleaner and smoother. there have been significant changes to the code since Lynx 2.6, including a great many bug fixes... some of the changes are: * ability to force lynx to SHOW_CURSOR _without_ using the command line switch via a personal lynx.cfg file (this is espcially helpful for persons who can only start lynx from a menu) you can download speech- and braille-enhanced lynx.cfg and .lynxrc files from BLYNX the speech and brialle-enhanced Lynx documentation site, which is located at: http://leb.net/blinux/blynx/ * Conversion of select-option pop-up boxes into radio boxes (for those who prefer pop-up boxes, they are now searchable, via the '/' (slash) command, and navigatable using the dash and plus keys, control-A (go-to-top of box) and control-E (go-to-bottom of box), as well as the page-up/page-down keys if numbers are set to act as arrows * Enhanced multiple bookmark pages * Single-session cookie support * A # (that is a number/american pound sign) in the upper left hand corner when the current document has a TOOLBAR/BANNER several new keystroke commands, including: * (uppercase) V, which invokes a "Visited links" page * (uppercase) G, edit the current document's URL and goto it * control-K, to view the Cookie Jar as well as innumerable bug fixes, including: * more efficient use of system resources through the fix of a memory allocation bug (play this angle up when emailing your sys admin to ask for an upgrade) * correction of redirection problem when using forms/scripts which use the POST convention -!- warning: begin techno-babble--- until the release of 2.6, when Lynx encountered a redirect in response to a POST, it would automatically issue a GET request for the specified location specified... in order to conform to the HTTP 1.0 specs, this was changed with the release of Lynx 2.6, which asked the user whether or not he or she wanted to P)rocede and have his or her POST content redirected... however, this caused any non-compliant CGI-script (such as those used in many interactive forms) to freak out, and instead of being redirected to the specified location the user would receive a either the standard 302 error message or the site's customized error message... handling of the redirection has now been fixed... when one encounters a POST using Lynx 2.7, the user is presented with status-line menu which asks if he or she would like to: P)roceed, see U)rl, use G)et, or C)ancel Using G)et will make non-compliant scripts work, and is generally the best option to chose when presented with this particular status-line menu... for a more detailed, and even more jargon-riddled explanation of the redirect/POST problem and its resolution in 2.7, consult: http://www.crl.com/~subir/lynx/why.html#post-redirect -!- end techno-babble--- a full hypertexutalized listing of the CHANGES from lynx 2.6 to lynx 2.7 can be found at: http://www.peru.edu/~kincaid/lynx/changes.html ----------------------------------------------------------------------- SECTION 2: WHAT'S NEXT FOR LYNX? Lynx 2.7 will probably be the final release for the foreseable future, as the next release, tenatively entitled Lynx 3.0, will incorporate many fundatmental changes to the Lynx source code. Lynx 3.0 will, for example, incorporate a new lib-www, will be completely international, and more streamlined than the current version of Lynx. as for the blind, speech, and braille-specific documentation for lynx 2.7, the user's guide is available at BLYNX: http://leb.net/blinux/blynx/Lynx_users_guide.html that is to say: h t t p colon slash slash l e b dot n e t slash b l i n u x slash b l y n x slash upper-case l y n x underscore u s e r s underscore g u i d e dot h t m l (note: only the 'L' in 'Lynx' is capitalized) and is accessible using the 'h' keystroke when using the blind/vi user lynx.cfg file available at: http://leb.net/blinux/blynx/defaults/lynx.cfg i am working on revising and updating the interactive tutorial, "navigating with lynx", as well as correcting and encoding the BASIC LYNX FAQ, but have not made as much progress with the BLYNX materials as i would have liked due to the damn recurring respiratory infection that has kept me mostly offline for the past few weeks... ----------------------------------------------------------------------- SECTION 3: LYNX and SSL/https as for the second part of your question, regarding HTTPS, or "secure hypertext transfer protocol" > 2. Does Lynx version 2.7 support secure transactions? I went to an online > store and was ready to place my order but was concerned about whether the > transaction would be secure, without my vital statistics such as address, > phone, and more importantly, credit card info being easily available to > just anyone. yes, it is possible to use https with lynx, only owning to u.s. laws which restrict the free distribution of cryptographic software, the general release of lynx is not distributed with SSL/https capability... addding SSL/https capability, however, is quite simple... first, the https proxy can be defined in the lynx.cfg and SSL can be built into the binary through the use of one of the following patches: 1. the proxy code for Lynx 2.7 with SSL distribution is available from: ftp://ftp.replay.com/pub/replay/pub/crypto/SSLapps/SSLlynx the file eassl0.6.tgz contains the proxy by itself, while edssl0.6.tgz contains everything, including the lynx 2.7 release note that ftp.replay.com is located in the netherlands, and that the proxy uses SSLeay, which is available from: ftp://ftp.psy.uq.oz.au/pub/Crypto/SSL 2. a lynx 2.7 binary for linux with SSL built in is available from: ftp://shadow.cabi.net/pub/Linux ----------------------------------------------------------------------- SECTION 4: where can i get lynx 2.7? finally, for those of you who need to alert your system's administrator that Lynx 2.7 has been released, send them a note asking them to please upgrade (or just forward this post to him/her).... a complete listing of distribution sites is located at: http://www.crl.com/~subir/lynx/sources.html if you don't get any reply within 5 business days, go to one of the following URLs: ftp://ftp.more.net/pub/mirrors/lynx/readme.html ftp://ftp.fu-berlin.de/pub/unix/network/www/lynx ftp://shadow.cabi.net/pub/Linux (2.7 with SSL) http://www.slcc.edu/lynx/fote/ and download one of the following files: 1. lynx2-7.zip (1108k) the 2.7 distribution zipped 2. lynx2-7.tar.Z (1472k) the 2.7 distribution compressed 3. lynx2-7.tar.gz (976k) the 2.7 distribution gzipped and email it to your system administrator... if there is a hard cap on the size of attachements on your system, you might have to try downloading one of the above-listed files to your home directory... then, try moving it to /usr/contrib/bin or /usr/local/bin or wherever it is on your system that lynx is stored (to locate lynx, try issuing the following command) whereis lynx once you've downloaded the distribution, email your sys admin and alert him/her as to its location, thereby leaving your sys admin has absolutely no excuse _not_ to upgrade other than sheer laziness, incompetence, or apathy... of course, if your sys admin won't upgrade (and from the number of people using lynx 2.37 and lynx 2.4.2 posting to the lists, there are a lot of sys admins who don't care whether their system's version of lynx is current or not), and you are intimidated by the idea of compiling lynx on your own, you can always grab a pre-compiled version of lynx, store it in your remote home directory, and run it with a personal lynx.cfg file... you can find an exhaustive listing of sites from which binaries can be downloaded at: http://www.crl.com/~subir/lynx/binaries.html before downloading, however, MAKE SURE THAT THE BINARY YOU DOWNLOAD HAS BEEN COMPILED FOR THE _EXACT_ ENVIRONMENT IN WHICH YOU PLAN ON USING IT! that is to say, make sure that the OS for which the binary has been compiled matches that on the server on which you plan on running lynx 2.7 and, as for lynx.cfg and .lynxrc files, remember that there are blind/vi tailored default versions of these files available at: http://leb.net/blinux/blynx/defaults/lynx.cfg http://leb.net/blinux/blynx/defaults/.lynxrc safe surfing, y'all--keep a sharp ear cocked for riptides! gregory. h t t p colon slash slash l e b dot n e t slash b l i n u x slash b l y n x -!- ! 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