DosLynx is a distributed hypertext browser with some World Wide Web capabilities.
This file provides information about installing, configuring, and using DosLynx v0.71a.
DosLynx is copyrighted by the University of Kansas and is free for instructional and research educational use. Non-educational use will be licensed at a later date.
DosLynx is available in its binary form only.
System Requirements
One of DosLynx's goals is to provide support for as many DOS users as
possible. We have scaled DosLynx towards this end.
DosLynx's system requirements are not well defined at this point due to the number of computers it has been tested on. The alpha release will provide more information about system requirements. The known system requirements are:
If your system is also not supportable, we would very much like to know your system configuration. Please mail the DosLynx developer at this Internet address:
doslynx@falcon.cc.ukans.edu
URL notation is ftp://ftp2.cc.ukans.edu/pub/WWW/DosLynx/DLX0_71A.EXE
DosLynx will be updated periodically as new changes are made to the application. You will be able to find the new versions via binary anonymous FTP to ftp2.cc.ukans.edu in the pub/WWW/DosLynx directory under an appropriately named archive.
URL notation for the directory is ftp://ftp2.cc.ukans.edu/pub/WWW/DosLynx/
Required Files
DosLynx version 0.71 alpha has the following files shipped with it. If you do
not have all of the files listed below we suggest obtaining a complete
release from the Internet address listed above.
Obtain a copy of DosLynx and place it in an appropriately named directory on your hard drive.
Enter the command "DLX0_71A" from your DOS prompt in the directory which you placed the DosLynx v0.71a archive.
The required files should be written by the self-extracting archive into the directory. You may now remove the DLX0_71A.EXE from the directory if you wish by entering the command "del DLX0_71A.EXE".
For those users with a TCP/IP stack already loaded (such as Lan Workplace for DOS) you will need to configure your computer so that you can unload the TCP/IP stack at your convienience. When you are ready to run DosLynx, you must first unload your TCP/IP stack; for LWP, the command is "tcpip /u". Next, if need be, load a packet driver emulator for your system configuration. You should now be ready to run DosLynx. After using DosLynx, you may want to return your system to its previous configuration. Do this by unloading the packet driver emulator if one was loaded. Load your TCP/IP stack again to finish this process.
Configuring DosLynx
Edit the DosLynx v0.71a configuration file named DOSLYNX.CFG with any text
editor. Go through each keyword and provide the appropriate value. Ample
configuration instructions are included in the distribution configuration
file. Once finished, save the modifed file as ASCII text. If you wish to
save your hotlist which was used in your old version of DosLynx, simply
change the hotlist keyword in the configuration file to point to your
old hotlist file.
Command Line Options
DosLynx has the following command line switches and options. All command
line options supercede their configuration file equivalents. All command
line options are case insensitive except for URLs.
doslynx /PC:\DLX
To avoid having to retype the /P option every time you wish to use DosLynx, create a DOS batch file automatically specifying the /P option for you and place the batch file a directory specified in your DOS PATH environment variable.
doslynx /TC:\TEMP\
doslynx /L5
doslynx readme.htm
doslynx file:///readme.htm
A user has several ways to activate the DosLynx menu; pressing F10, pressing ALT and one of the highlighted menu letters, and by a single left button mouse click.
Following are a listing of all menu items and their functionality. Menu titles and the appropriate menu choice are presented side by side with the '|' character as a separator.
As DosLynx is developed further, you can expect more documentation on how to use DosLynx to better your understanding of its possible uses.
All hotkey equivalents are listed beside the menu choices while running DosLynx. In addition to the listed keys, you can use the UNIX vi keys (HJKL) or your numeric keypad with your number lock on for anchor navigation. This differs from the 0.7a release of DosLynx that allowed the user to use the Lynx arrow keys for anchor navigation which is no longer supported. Page up, page down, the arrow keys, and the space bar allow you to look through a document that is longer than your display itself. Further, if you utilize a mouse with DosLynx, you can select an anchor by using a single left button click, and activate an anchor by using a double left button click.
Items contained in the status bar (the bottom line of your screen while running DosLynx) correlate directly with items in the navigate menu which are selectable by the mouse only. In addition, the right mouse button is the same as issuing the Window|Clone Window command.
Special Notes on Usage
As of the DosLynx v0.71a release, only the following URL types are supported:
file ftp gopher http news waisFor the best DosLynx performance, specify the temporary file directory in your configuration file or on the command line to be a directory on a RAMDRIVE. See your DOS documentation for setting up a RAMDRIVE specific to your system.
DosLynx is a MDI (multiple document interface) application. This may confuse new users that are used to other World Wide Web clients. As a rule of thumb, when you open any URL or document through DosLynx's menu or equivalent hotkeys, then it will exists in it's very own window. Windows are numbered in their upper right corner and you can switch between windows by pressing the ALT key and the window number simultaneously.
Each window represents an open file at any given time. If you open more windows than you have FILES specified in your CONFIG.SYS file then DosLynx may crash. Increase the number of open files your machine can have if you plan to use multiple windows a lot.
When DosLynx has used most of your computer's memory attempting to use the File|Dos Shell command will not work. Your computer simply does not have enough memory to execute your command interpretor.
When you ftp a file or activate an anchor that DosLynx cannot display as text, you are asked to give a file name to save the information in. No file name is suggested at this point. These files are not removed by DosLynx when you exit the application. This allows you as the user to do what you will with such files after exiting DosLynx.
DosLynx has been known to crash when it encounters a file containing a large number of selectable anchors in it. This is due to an unavoidable memory limitation. Large files with few anchors will be loaded fine. Future releases of DosLynx will address this problem in a more stable manner.
When DosLynx terminates unexpectedly, the temporary files it creates remain in the temporary file directory you specified in the configuration file or on the command line. The temporary files follow the pattern of DLX*.$$$. You will have to remove these files yourself if this occurs. As DosLynx is improved upon you can expect it to become a more stable application and prevent you from having to worry about this temporary file problem.
If you are wondering, the menu bar contains the current time in the upper right had corner. In the status bar are three numbers in the lower right corner. The numbers are from left to right the current network activity in bytes, the size in bytes of the temporary drive you specified, and the amount of available heap memory in bytes. These were originally run-time debugging tools for the developer of DosLynx but were left in as they are harmless and give the user some information of what is currently happening when DosLynx is at work.
If your computer does not use a packet driver, which DosLynx requires, to access the network, ask your local network administrator if there is a packet emulator available for your particular workstation configuration. For instance, if your computer utilizes an ODI driver for network access, in order to use DosLynx you will need to install the a packet driver emulator if one is available to you.
Once one program is utilizing your computer's packet driver, like DosLynx, no other program may do so at the same time. If you have need to run more than one packet driver utilizing program at the same time, we suggest asking your local network administrator if your computer can be configured to use a packet multiplexor. If so, you will need to find a suitable packet multiplexor and install it on your computer.
To correctly view the ISO Latin I characters supported by HTML, you must configure DOS to use multilingual code page of 850. Consult your DOS manuals on how to specify the appropriate code page for your computer.
To force DosLynx into a supported black and white video mode, type "mode BW80" at your DOS prompt. Consider doing this if you monitor is black and white but DosLynx considers it a color monitor (monochrome EGA monitors).
If you are interested in registering with the DosLynx development listserv group, send a mail message to listserv@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu. Please do not send subscribe requests to the doslynx-dev list directly. In the body of the message, send only the following information where username@node is your internet mailing address:
subscribe doslynx-dev Your Name HereRemember that this version of DosLynx is an alpha and has been released as a feedback tool only. Expect problems, and when you encounter one please mail the developer at the following address and inform the creator of the problem you encountered and your system configuration.
doslynx@falcon.cc.ukans.edu
The following new features were added in this release of DosLynx:
Credits
The University of Kansas would like to thank the following organizations and
people for their aid in the creation of DosLynx.
Generous financial assistance given by O'Reilly and Associates and Intel Corporation. Fundamental GIF display routines by David Koblas GIF support and dithering routines by Thomas Boutell World Wide Web Source Library by CERN Waterloo TCP by Erick Engelke FTP code from James W. Matthews, Dartmouth Software Development Borland C/C++ and TurboVision by Borland InternationalFurther, The University by Kansas recognizes the following:
/* +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ */ /* | Copyright 1990, David Koblas. | */ /* | Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software | */ /* | and its documentation for any purpose and without fee is hereby | */ /* | granted, provided that the above copyright notice appear in all | */ /* | copies and that both that copyright notice and this permission | */ /* | notice appear in supporting documentation. This software is | */ /* | provided "as is" without express or implied warranty. | */ /* +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ */
Last Modified: 05-24-94 by Garrett Arch Blythe
Report errors, suggestions, and support to the following address:
doslynx@falcon.cc.ukans.edu