Lynxlet, Lynx for Mac OS X

Lynxlet is an application for launching the text web browser Lynx in a Terminal window. Lynxlet is a Termlet - a class of applications designed to make Terminal based programs easy to use.

Lynx is developed and maintained by the Lynx-Dev Group. Lynxlet is developed by Chuck Houpt of Homo Habilis Associates. Please send bug reports and comments to chuck@habilis.net

Downloads

Lynxlet_0.8.1.dmg 2.2 MiB (lynx 2.8.6r5 Stable)
Requires Mac OS X 10.3.9+, PPC or Intel

New in 0.8.1 (full version history, below):

Updated embedded lynx to latest stable Lynx 2.8.6r5
Fixed start/help page URLs.

Useful Lynxlet Features

Because Lynxlet is a standard browser application, it can be launched in the same ways as other browsers (like Safari, FireFox, IE, etc). In addition to being a web browser, Lynx supports browsing for many other network protocols (FTP, Gopher, Finger, etc) and Local directory browsing. The Lynxlet application supports these protocols wherever possible.

Lynxlet Web Browser Launching

Double-clicking on the Lynxlet icon (or single-click in the Dock).
Click the Lynxlet Bookmarklet/Favelet from any web browser.
Drag and drop HTML or text file in the Finder.
Drag and drop URL when installed in the Dock (10.4+ only).
Preview from an HTML editor (BBedit, Dreamweaver, Golive, etc).
And for the true Lynx fanatic, Lynxlet can be set as the default web browser (via Safari preferences).

Other Ways to Launch Lynxlet

Drag and drop a folder in the Finder to browse the directory.
Drag and drop a FTP/Gopher/Finger URL when installed in the Dock (10.4+ only).
Click on a Finger URL in a web browser (other URL protocols will work as well, depending on the system defaults).

FTP/Gopher/Finger/File Examples

Command Line Lynxlet and Lynx

Lynxlet and its embedded lynx can also be launched from the command line in several ways.

Lynxlet via the Open Command

Lynxlet can be launched using the open command as follows. (Note: Up through 10.3, 'open' has a bug which causes it to always use the default browser for URLs, but files and directories work fine.)

% open -a Lynxlet http://www.w3.org/

Directly Running the Embedded Lynx

The embedded lynx can also be directly run without the Lynxlet launcher. This is particularly useful when using lynx in shell scripts or directly in local or remote interactive shells. Lynx is located in the Lynxlet application package in Lynxlet.app/Contents/Resources/lynx/bin/lynx. There are various ways to run lynx in a shell. The following examples assume the Lynxlet application has been placed in the Application folder.

Absolute Path

% /Applications/Lynxlet.app/Contents/Resources/lynx/bin/lynx

Shell Alias

% alias lynx='/Applications/Lynxlet.app/Contents/Resources/lynx/bin/lynx'
% lynx

Include lynx on the PATH

% PATH=$PATH:/Applications/Lynxlet.app/Contents/Resources/lynx/bin
% lynx

Create a Symbolic link to lynx in a directory on the PATH

% sudo ln -s /Applications/Lynxlet.app/Contents/Resources/lynx/bin/lynx /usr/bin/lynx
% lynx

Version History

0.8.1
- Updated embedded lynx to latest stable lynx 2.8.6r5 (Release Notes)
- Fixed start/help page URLs (Thanks to Nicholas Shanks for spotting problem).
0.8.0
- Built as Universal Binary for Intel and PPC.
- Upgraded to AppDNA script for bundling source code.
0.7.1
- Fixed language detection bug, which cause wrong lynx UI on some systems
0.7.0
- Updated embedded lynx to latest stable lynx 2.8.6r4.
- Added a Favelet that launches Lynxlet from any browser's bookmark.
- Switched to using default colors, so background color/picture can be changed.
- Added config to view common file types (jpg, pdf, mov, etc) outside lynx.
- Made the embedded lynx fully usable from shells and shell scripts.
- Added bridge from OS X language prefs to default preferred language settings.
0.6.0
- Added SSL support, including Root certificates.
- Activated Lynx multilingual support.
- Bundled source code within application.
0.5.0 - Initial Release.