Notes on Using the Chebucto Community Net with the
Lynx Browser
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ip-mugns@chebucto.ns.ca if
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Contents
Overview
A communications program, such as ZTerm for the Macintosh or Telix for
the PC, is used to handle the connection through your modem, receipt of
information from your keyboard, and the display of data on your screen.
After completion of the sign on procedure the data displayed on the
screen is generated by the Lynx browser at CCN.
Each registered user of CCN is assigned a Chebucto Home Directory for
the storage of files. The Lynx browser allows you to use commands to
generate files for storage in your Chebucto Home Directory, to view these
files, to edit them, to delete them, and to attach them to e-mail
messages. The files in your Chebucto Home Directory are stored at CCN
and not in your own computer.
Each file that you view by use of the Lynx browser, whether the file
is stored at CCN or at a site accessible from CCN, may be copied into
your Chebucto Home Directory by use of Lynx commands.
There are Lynx download commands that allow files in your Chebucto
Home Directory to be copied and stored on your own computer system.
There are also Lynx upload commands that allow files on your own computer
system to be copied and stored in your Chebucto Home Directory. When you
choose a download or upload command the Lynx browser transfers control to
your communications program, which performs the download or upload and
then transfers control back to the Lynx browser. When your communications
program is in control then any dialog boxes or menus that it displays are
not generated by the Lynx browser and will vary according to the
communications program that you use.
The Lynx browser has a Print command. When you choose this command the
Lynx browser sends a message to your communications program but most
communication programs, with the exception of BlackKnight for the
Macintosh, will not handle the printing. Therefore if you wish to print a
file displayed by the Lynx browser you should copy it to your Chebucto
Home Directory, download it to your own computer system, and then print
the downloaded file.
To view a file at another site on the Internet
Each file displayed on the Internet has an address called a
Universal Resource Locator (URL). To request the Lynx browser to display
such a file, type g followed by the URL. For example, to view the inland
weather forecast for Nova Scotia, type:
g http://atlenv.bed.ns.doe.ca/bbsfree/FPCN11CWHX.TXT
To view the China Home Page, which is maintained in China and has various
links to other Chinese sites on the Internet, type:
g http://www.ihep.ac.cn/china.html
The URL must be typed correctly with preservation of upper and lower
case, correct inclusion of periods, no additional spaces, etc. It is
important to distinguish between ell (as in html) and one (as in FPCN11).
To view your Chebucto Home Directory
Type: g files
To create and edit a file in your Chebucto Home Directory
- Type g files to view your Chebucto Home Directory, type
c for create, then f for file, and then type a name for the
file followed by a Return.
- Highlight the file name and type e to enter the Pico editor.
- Edit the document.
- To save the file, type Control x, and answer y to save
changes. When asked for a file name press Return (or modify the suggested
name and press Return).
To copy a file from CCN, or another site, to your Chebucto Home
Directory
The file may be either a file at the CCN site or a file at some other
site accessible from CCN.
- Highlight a link to the file and type d.
(The link may be on either a CCN page or a page at another site.)
- When messages are displayed, highlight "Save to your Chebucto
Home Directory" and press Return.
- When asked for a file name press Return (or modify the suggested name
and press Return).
Note 1: Using a 14.4 modem, and downloading at a rate of 1 K
bytes/sec, requires 16 minutes to download a file of size 1 MB. Remember
that CCN requires you to log off after 60 minutes.
Note 2: If the Lynx browser assigns the copied file a name
that begins with the characters http:- then the file is displayed with
its text formatted in Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). When viewed (by
highlighting its name and pressing Return) it will be seen to contain a
number of HTML formatting tags such as <BR>, <P>, etc. If
downloaded to your own computer it may be viewed by an Internet browser
such as Netscape or Internet Explorer. These browsers do not display the
tags but use them to control the formatting in order to show underlined
or bold text and other features.
To download a file from your Chebucto Home Directory
- Type g files in order to view the list of links to files (and
folders) in your Chebucto Home Directory. If the required file is in a
folder then highlight the folder and press the right arrow.
- Highlight the name of the file and type d.
- When messages are displayed highlight "Use Zmodem" and press
Return.
- When asked to choose a file name press Return (or modify the
suggested name and press Return).
Your communications program may display a window to report progress as
the file is downloaded to your own computer. The file will be stored in
a folder determined by settings in your communications program.
To upload a file to your Chebucto Home Directory
- Type g files to view your Chebucto Home Directory.
- Type u, then highlight "Using Zmodem" and press
Return, then type a file name followed by Return. This is the name
that the file should have when stored in your Chebucto Home Directory.
(Using ZTerm a file name must be entered but is overridden by the name of
the file in your computer)
- If using ZTerm then in its "File" menu set "Transfer
Data Mode" to
Binary Data and choose "Send ZModem". When the ZTerm dialog box
is displayed highlight the name of the file in your computer and choose
"Add" and then "Start".
A window is displayed to report progress as the file is uploaded.
Note: If the uploaded file is a text file it may be viewed by
highlighting its name in the Chebucto Home Directory and pressing Return.
Using links contained in a file stored in your Chebucto Home
Directory
If a file stored in your Chebucto Home Directory was copied from CCN or
another Internet site, and was not assigned a default name beginning with
the characters http:- then it might contain links to other files. Links
to files on other sites will contain the full URL, but links to files on
the same site may be relative links that contain only part of the complete
URL. Choosing a link that contains the full URL will direct
the Lynx browser to access the corresponding site, but if you choose a
relative link then the Lynx browser will report that the link cannot
be followed.
For example, suppose you type g http://www.finweb.com
You will be told to follow a link,which is actually to the risknet site:
- http://risknet.com/finweb.html
which contains a large number of links to financial and economic
information, journals, etc:
If you highlight the link and type d then all the information in
the file http://risknet.com/finweb.html, including the links, is
downloaded and may be stored in your Chebucto Home Directory.
Subsequently you may display the Directory and follow whatever links you
are interested in without accessing the remote sites finweb or risknet.
About e-mail
The Lynx command g mail launches the Pine program which handles
e-mail. It displays a list of the names of incoming messages that are
stored in an e-mail folder named INBOX.
To quit the Pine program type m.
After launching Pine, to view a list of all e-mail folders type
l (ell, not one). Then:
- To view the names of the messages in an e-mail folder, highlight the
name of the e-mail folder and type v.
- To create an additional e-mail folder type a.
- To delete an e-mail folder and all its contents, highlight its name
and type d.
When viewing the names of the messages in an e-mail folder:
- To view the content of a message, highlight its name and type v.
- To save a message in another e-mail folder highlight its name, type
s, and type the name of the e-mail folder in which the message is
to be saved.
- To save a message as a file in your Chebucto Home Directory highlight
its name, type e, and type the name to be assigned to the saved
file.
Your Chebucto Home Directory contains a sub-directory named mail/
which has files whose names are those of your e-mail folders.
Highlighting the names of any of these files and pressing Return displays
the contents of all the e-mail messages contained in the folder. Any of
these files may be downloaded to your own computer. You may therefore save
all your e-mail on your own computer and delete it from the files at CCN.
Further information about Pine is provided by the University of
Washington's Pine Information Centre at
www.cac.washington.edu/pine/user-guide/index.html
To download an e-mail message from CCN
- Either view the mail message using Pine or highlight the name of the
message in one of your mail directories, type e, and type some
file name followed by Return. The file is exported to your Chebucto Home
Directory and given the chosen name.
- If you viewed the mail message by use of Pine then exit Pine.
- Type g files to view your Chebucto Home Directory.
- Highlight the name of the file, and type d
- When messages are displayed highlight Zmodem and press the right
arrow.
- When asked for the file name press Return (or modify the suggested
name and press Return). The file downloads as a
text file and is best read by a word processor such as MacWritePro or
WordPerfect that interprets line feeds correctly.
To insert text for transmission in an e-mail message
- Store the text as a file in your Chebucto Home Directory. (You may
generate the text either while connected to CCN or by uploading a text
file from your own computer.)
- Create a blank e-mail message and move the cursor to a position in
the Message portion.
- Type Control r, then type the file name and return (or else
type Control t to view your Chebucto Home Directory, highlight the
file and type s).
The text is inserted into the e-mail message at the position of the
cursor.
About mail attachments
An e-mail message is transmitted as a sequence of textual characters.
Data that is not in the form of text may be placed in a file attached to
an e-mail message and transmitted in association with the message. The
receiver will receive the e-mail message and also the attached file.
Spreadsheets, filemaker documents, graphics files and applications are
examples of files that may be sent as e-mail attachments. A textual
document may also be sent as an e-mail attachment, and must be sent as an
attachment if you wish to preserve formatting such as bold, underlining,
italics, tables or coloured text.
Before a Macintosh file is used as an attachment it must be converted
into a form that can be handled by Unix and IBM computers. The conversion
may be effected by use of the program HQXer which transforms the file
into a BinHex4.0 file whose name ends with the extension .hqx. Each
BinHex4.0 file begins with the textual message "This file must be
converted with BinHex4.0". The message is followed by the transformed
data preceded and followed by a colon.
If a Macintosh file is sent as an attachment from another site on the
Internet by use of the program Eudora with a setting of BinHex then the
conversion is performed by Eudora before the attachment is transmitted.
Similarly if an attachment in BinHex4.0 is received at another site by
Eudora then Eudora converts the attachment from BinHex4.0 to Macintosh
format.
However, the e-mail handler at CCN does not perform such conversions
and so the program HQXer on your local Macintosh must be used before a
file in Macintosh format is uploaded to your Home Directory at CCN and
after a BinHex4.0 attachment is downloaded from your Chebucto Home Directory.
To send e-mail from CCN with an attachment
- Log on to CCN and upload the file to be attached. It is placed in
your Chebucto Home Directory.
- Compose the e-mail letter, highlight Attachment, and type Control
j.
- Type Control t to view the names of all the files in your
Chebucto Home Directory.
- Highlight the name of the file to be attached and type s.
- When asked for "Attachment Comment" press; Return if no
comment is required.
- Type Control x to send the message and attachment.
To save, view or download an e-mail attachment
- View the e-mail message and type v to view the Attachment Index.
- To save in Chebucto Home Directory:
- Highlight the attachment name and type s, then type
Return (or file name followed by Return)
- The attachment file is saved in your Chebucto Home Directory.
- To view the attachment:
- Type v.
- If the file is not text the display will be meaningless, except
that a BinHex4.0 file will begin with the text "This file must be
converted with BinHex4.0".
- To download the attachment from your Chebucto Home Directory:
- In your Chbucto Home Directory highlight the name of the file and type
d.
- When messages are displayed, highlight "Use Zmodem" and
press the right arrow.
- When asked to choose a file name press Return (or modify the
suggested name and press Return).
- A window is displayed to report progress as the file is downloaded.
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(Updated December 15, 1996 by aa010@chebucto.ns.ca)