New Web Design Usability Article
Tue
5
OCT
2004
Testing Websites for Accessibility with Lynx
Need to test your Website for accessibility? Testing with Lynx, the text-only browser, can give you helpful insight. As the result of a recent discussion via the Wise-Women discussion list, I wrote up a few tips about using Lynx, including links to downloads, online testing, and more:
09:37 am, pdt
5 October, 2004 Comments, Trackbacks (5) ·
Categories: Accessibility, Browsers, Design, Development, Usability
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Comments, Trackbacks: 5 so far. Add yours!
Lynx, a text-only browser, is also a helpful tool for website designers and developers to test webpages for accessibility. In addition to links to download Lynx and find more help, the information below is geared for new users to Lynx, especially those...
05 Oct, 2004
Trackback from Articles - Brainstorms and Raves Welcome back. :)
12:09 pm, pdt
5 October, 2004Comment by MattHey, Matt! Thanks for your note. :-)
I really haven’t been away, just wrapped up in a big writing project, that’s all—I’m writing a book. :-) As others have said and warned, it really eats up time! I’m enjoying writing it, though, and hopefully it will be helpful. Quite a process!
I hope you’re doing well! I’ve been watching how well WordPress is doing, too! I’m more impressed as the days go by.
11:28 pm, pdt
5 October, 2004Comment by Shirley KaiserTry as i might, i cannot get Lynx to work (I have installed the windows version suggested on this post) through my work (open university) proxy! This is a longshot, but if anybody has managed to get Lynx to work through a UK university proxy (or, even better, the Open University proxy)), please let me know. Altering the .conf file doesn’t make it work! I just get an error saying: "No information is located here" which is from the url of the proxy: http://wwwcache.open.ac.uk:8080/
As I say, a longshot! But I’ve been wanting to use Lynx for years but never been able to.
01:55 am, pdt
6 October, 2004Comment by Guy CarberryI have no idea, but maybe someone else here will know. I did find a couple of things about this on the Web. Not sure if this is what you tried or not, though. Take a look at these discussion list threads—each one is a little different:
-- [Full-Disclosure] lynx with the proxy support
You may have seen this, too, but just in case you didn’t, here’s the information from my lynx.cfg file (I removed the # marks here for better legibility):
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Lynx version 2.2 and beyond supports the use of proxy servers that can act as firewall gateways and caching servers. They are preferable to the older gateway servers. Each protocol used by Lynx can be mapped separately using PROTOCOL_proxy environment variables (see Lynx Users Guide). If you have not set them externally, you can set them at run time via this configuration file. They will not override external settings.The no_proxy variable can be used to inhibit proxying to selected regions of the Web (see below). Note that on VMS these proxy variables are set as process logicals rather than symbols, to preserve lowercasing, and will outlive the Lynx image.
.ex 15
http_proxy:http://some.server.dom:port/ https_proxy:http://some.server.dom:port/ ftp_proxy:http://some.server.dom:port/ gopher_proxy:http://some.server.dom:port/ news_proxy:http://some.server.dom:port/ newspost_proxy:http://some.server.dom:port/ newsreply_proxy:http://some.server.dom:port/ snews_proxy:http://some.server.dom:port/ snewspost_proxy:http://some.server.dom:port/ snewsreply_proxy:http://some.server.dom:port/ nntp_proxy:http://some.server.dom:port/ wais_proxy:http://some.server.dom:port/ finger_proxy:http://some.server.dom:port/ cso_proxy:http://some.server.dom:port/ no_proxy:host.domain.dom.h2 NO_PROXY
The no_proxy variable can be a comma-separated list of strings defining no-proxy zones in the DNS domain name space. If a tail substring of the domain-path for a host matches one of these strings, transactions with that node will not be proxied..ex
no_proxy:domain.path1,path2A single asterisk as an entry will override all proxy variables and no transactions will be proxied.
.ex
no_proxy:*
This is the only allowed use of * in no_proxy.Warning: Note that setting 'il' as an entry in this list will block proxying for the .mil domain as well as the .il domain. If the entry is '.il' this will not happen.
---------------Good luck with your proxy configuration.
10:02 am, pdt
6 October, 2004Comment by Shirley Kaiser
This discussion has been closed. Thanks to all who participated.
