
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" <oedipus@HICOM.NET>
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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