Lynx, Gopher, and video files EUREKA!
2025-09-21
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Getting Lynx to open video files.

I've been using Lynx as a Gopher browser on  Artix Linux, and I like
it a lot as it renders cleanly, has logical keybindings, and enables
following html links.

But...

Trying to open video  files  with  an  external  application  wasn't.
working. Luckily on one test I saw an error  concerning  "mpeg_play".

The only mention of this file is  as  a  VIEWER  entry  in  lynx.cfg.
But changing it to something else has effect at all.

Somewhere in lynx, mpeg_play is hardcoded.  🤔. 
Checking the Lynx source code, I found it in HTInit.c

Why short circuit the config file this  way? Anyway, I wrote  a  bash
script named mpeg_play:

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#!/usr/bin/env bash

if [ $(grep -c "EXT3MU" $1) -eq 1 ]; then
    # this is a playlist
    mpv --geometry=1068x600 --title="Mpv" --ontop --idle=yes \
        --force-window=yes --playlist=$1 >/dev/null 2>&1 &
else
    mpv --geometry=1068x600 --title="Mpv" --ontop --idle=yes \
        --force-window=yes $1 >/dev/null 2>&1 &
fi

exit 0
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chmod +x mpeg_play and put it in my PATH

and it works! Lynx  can now play media files in Gopher  holes. 
(Note the --title parameter is to get it to play nice with dwm).

The question remains: why is this hard coded?

As for mpeg_play, it dates from 1995 and seems to have been bundled
in ximagetools.

http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/software/mpeg_play