Re: LYNX-DEV lynx not showing .??? files

[Al Gilman]

  X-Personal_name: Daniel Katz
  From: address@hidden
  Subject: LYNX-DEV lynx not showing .??? files

  Hey, I was wondering if you guys could tell me how to tell lynx to 
  display .asc files just like .txt or .html files..  
  
The problem is, there are two answers.  It depends on whether the
file is coming from near or far.  The Lynx documentation talks
about "local" files.  One has to take this as local-to-lynx,
i.e. on the computer where Lynx is running.

If you are having this trouble accessing local files, then you
can fix it by telling Lynx that you want files that end in .asc
treated as text/plain .  You do this in a personal lynx.cfg or
mime.types file.  Look, for example, at

  http://www.leb.net/blinux/blynx/ 

for a lynx.cfg file and read the comments there. 

If you are having this trouble with files you get from a server
via an http: URL, then truly fixing the problem requires the
cooperation of the keepers of the server.  Lynx uses the type
information (for example the text/plain that you want) from the
HTTP headers provided by the server.  If the server does not
recognize .asc files as text files, then the server will wrongly
tell Lynx that they are something else, which should be
application/octet-stream but may be anything.

In the latter case, you can work around the problem by
downloading the .asc file to a "local" file (see options under
download menu) and then using g)o to view the local copy of the
file.  This time, if you have instructed your Lynx to treat .asc
as text, it will present the text to you for viewing.  If you
haven't done that, just change the name to .txt as you save it to
the local file and you can read it.  These extra steps are a
nuisance, but you can't get the server keepers to clean up their
site on a moment's notice.

If you are working in an environment where this is continually
happening, there is a more involved workaround by which you
install your favorite paging program -- most, more, less, etc. --
as one of the options under the download menu and you can get to
view the contents of the file with a few keystrokes.

--
Al Gilman
http://www.access.digex.net/%7Easgilman/lynx/FAQ/

The flip side of your problem, which hangs on the same facts, is
talked about a little in the FAQ under "trouble downloading" --
files treated as text that should be treated as binary.