https://shkspr.mobi/blog Regular nonsense about tech and its effects 🙃 Fri, 11 Dec 2020 11:56:39 +0000 en-GB © Terence Eden. 🄯 CC BY-SA. See https://shkspr.mobi/blog/copyright-and-copyleft/ hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.1.4 https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/cropped-avatar-32x32.jpeg https://shkspr.mobi/blog 32 32 https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2020/12/how-and-why-to-use-lynx-the-faster-web-browser/ https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2020/12/how-and-why-to-use-lynx-the-faster-web-browser/#comments Fri, 11 Dec 2020 12:34:15 +0000 https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=37392 <p>Lynx is a text based browser. You think the people who browse without JavaScript are weird? Lynx doesn't even do images or CSS!</p> <p>It downloads HTML and renders it at blazing fast speed. If you ever wondered just how slow modern web development has made the web - Lynx will show you the meaning of haste.</p> <p>I use Lynx most days. Not as my exclusive browser - I'm not a masochist - but as a handy tool. If I'm on a bandwidth constrained connection, or a site is overloaded, or I just want to browse without distraction. Lynx is where it's at. It is also brilliant for seeing what weird markup bugs your site has.</p> <p>Linux users can install it with <code>sudo apt install lynx</code> or similar. Everyone else can <a href="https://lynx.invisible-island.net/">download Lynx from the official website</a>.</p> <p>This is what it looks like: <img src="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Screenshot-from-2020-11-29-09-36-02-fs8.png" alt="The Google home page rendered in text." width="1026" height="711" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-37400"></p> <p>Using it is simple. On the command line, type <code>lynx example.com</code> to go to example.com.</p> <p>Arrow keys up and down move you... up and down. Left goes back a page, right follows a link. Q quits. And that's all you need to know for your first five minutes.</p> <p>Pressing the letter <code>O</code> gets you to the option screen. There are a bunch of things you can change here - and it shows off the UI pretty well.</p> <img src="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Screenshot-from-2020-11-29-09-37-36-fs8.png" alt="Options on a screen." width="1026" height="711" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-37402"> <p>There are some things you can't change here. If you want to <em>always</em> accept or reject cookies - rather than be prompted every time - you'll need to edit the <code>~/.lyncrc</code> file.</p> <p>Set <code>accept_all_cookies=TRUE</code>.</p> <h2 id="why-is-this-important"><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2020/12/how-and-why-to-use-lynx-the-faster-web-browser/#why-is-this-important">Why is this important</a></h2> <p>Computers lie to us. CSS hides our worst sins. JavaScript covers-up our poor architectural choices. With Lynx, there's no escape. You see the HTML rendered and <em>that's it</em>. Lynx renders all the HTML5 elements:</p> <img src="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Screenshot-from-2020-11-29-10-58-22-fs8.png" alt="HTML elements rendered in different colours." width="1026" height="711" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-37403"> <p>It also does interactive elements as well:</p> <img src="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Screenshot-from-2020-11-29-10-59-11-fs8.png" alt="Form elements." width="1026" height="711" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-37404"> <p>I've found <em>so</em> many bugs this way. Little quirks of markup which show up in the most unexpected places.</p> <p>To be clear, Lynx isn't about accessibility testing. You should do that with proper tools which expose ARIA, show colour contrast, and the like. But Lynx is a good first pass at seeing how the text renders and flows, whether images have alt text, and if the general structure is easy to navigate.</p> <p>Take some time to use it on your favourite sites today.</p> <img src="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/themes/edent-wordpress-theme/info/okgo.php?ID=37392&amp;HTTP_REFERER=RSS" alt="" width="1" height="1" loading="eager"> https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2020/12/how-and-why-to-use-lynx-the-faster-web-browser/feed/ 11