Viewing files in Lynx: update
Sat, 18 Oct 2025 17:03:46 +0200
+-----------------------------------------------------------------+

I've concluded that  the simplest method of dealing  with urls that
are passed to external applications from Lynx is by using curl.

Gopher URL's are different.
Here's a typical URL sent by Lynx to external applications:

gopher://spike.nagatha.fr/h/sandbox/test.html

If you wanted  to use that url you'd have  to extract the substring
that you need first, but curl will eat that url without any problem
and spit out test.html

So for example I can simply write:
 
curl $url | urlview 

in a handler script to list all the links in a text file.

Curl can  also test  the string passed  by Lynx to  check if  it is
really a usable  url, this filters out garbage.

You can  find the resulting  scripts my code  folder, or on  my git
repository:

gopher://spike.nagatha.fr/1/code
https://git.wittamore.com/scripts/tree/

lynx-urlview-handler    lists urls  in a  text file  
lynx-markdown-handler   converts markdown to html
lynx-youtube-handler    opens youtube video html links in mpv
lynx-librewolf-handler  opens the page or link in a GUI browser
lynx-rdview-handler     opens the html page in reader mode

+--- lynx.cfg ----------------------------------------------------+
# externals
KEYMAP:,:EXTERN_PAGE
KEYMAP:;:EXTERN_LINK 
EXTERNAL_MENU::Open in Librewolf:lynx-librewolf-handler %s:TRUE
EXTERNAL_MENU::Open in Reader:lynx-rdrview-handler %s:TRUE
EXTERNAL_MENU::View links:lynx-urlview-handler %s:TRUE
EXTERNAL_MENU::Open Youtube video:lynx-youtube-handler %s:TRUE
EXTERNAL_MENU::Open Markdown file:lynx-markdown-handler %s:TRUE


/--------------------\
| Open in Librewolf  |
| Open in Reader     |
| View links         |
| Open Youtube video |
| Open Markdown file |
\--------------------/