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" Describes Lynx's built-in line-editor, when it is used, and the keys used for the default binding. There are alternate and special bindings.">
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<ul>
<li><a href="#overview">Overview</a></li>
<li><a href="#regular_keymap">Regular Keymap</a></li>
<li><a href="#editing_keymap">Editing Keymap</a></li>
<li><a href="#examples">Try it yourself</a></li>
<li><a href="#notes">Notes</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
<h2><a name="overview" id="overview">Overview</a></h2>
<p><strong>Lynx</strong> invokes a built-in <em>Line Editor</em>
for entering strings in response to prompts, in forms, and for
email messages if an external editor has not been defined.
Alternative key bindings are normally available (unless
<strong>Lynx</strong> was configured with
<code>--disable-alt-bindings</code>). If available, they may be
selected via the “o”ptions menu, or by editing
lineedit_mode in the “.lynxrc” file.</p>
<p>Two such alternative key bindings, which may be available on
your system, are the</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="alt_edit_help.html">Alternative Binding</a> keymap
and the</li>
<li><a href="bashlike_edit_help.html">Bash-like Binding</a>
keymap.</li>
</ul>
<p>You can always see the current set of key-bindings in
<strong>Lynx</strong> by opening the special URL <a href=
"LYNXEDITMAP:">LYNXEDITMAP:</a>. This page is provided for those
not using Lynx.</p>
<p><strong><em>Note:</em></strong> setting emacs/vi keys ON has
no effect on line-editor bindings.</p>
<h2><a name="regular_keymap" id="regular_keymap">Regular
Keymap</a></h2>
<p>This is the <em>Default Binding</em> keymap:</p>
<pre>
ENTER Input complete - RETURN
TAB Input complete - TAB, Do
ABORT Input cancelled - Ctrl-G, Ctrl-O, (Ctrl-C on some systems)
ERASE Erase the line - Ctrl-U
BACK Cursor back char - Left-Arrow
FORW Cursor forward char - Right-Arrow
BACKW Cursor back word - Ctrl-P
FORWW Cursor forward word - Ctrl-N
BOL Go to begin of line - Ctrl-A, Home, Find
EOL Go to end of line - Ctrl-E, End, Select
DELP Delete prev char - Backspace, Delete, Remove
DELN Delete next char - Ctrl-D, Ctrl-R (<em><a href=
"#note_1">see note 1</a></em>)
DELPW Delete prev word - Ctrl-B
DELNW Delete next word - Ctrl-F
DELEL Delete to end of line - Ctrl-_
UPPER Upper case the line - Ctrl-T
LOWER Lower case the line - Ctrl-K
LKCMD Invoke cmd prompt - Ctrl-V (in form text fields, only) (<em><a href="#note_2">see note 2</a></em>)
SWMAP Switch input keymap - Ctrl-^ (if compiled in)
</pre>
<h2><a name="editing_keymap" id="editing_keymap">Editing
Keymap</a></h2>
<p><a name="TASpecial" id="TASpecial">These are special commands
for use only in textarea fields</a> (<em><a href="#note_3">see
note 3</a></em>):</p>
<pre>
Textarea external edit - Ctrl-X e
Insert file in textarea - Ctrl-X i
Grow textarea - Ctrl-X g
</pre>
<h2><a name="emacs_bindings" id="emacs_bindings">Emacs-like
commands</a></h2>
<pre>
TPOS Transpose characters - Ctrl-t
SETMARK Set mark at current position in line - Ctrl-@
XPMARK Exchange current position with mark - Ctrl-x Ctrl-x
KILLREG Kill region between mark and position - Ctrl-x Ctrl-w (<em><a href="#note_3">see note 3</a></em>)
YANK Insert text last killed (with KILLREG) - Ctrl-y
</pre>
<h2><a name="examples" id="examples">Try it yourself</a></h2>
<p>Here is a little textarea for practice:</p>
<form action="">
<p>
<textarea name="practice" cols="40" rows="5">
This text cannot be submitted. Normally lines like
these would be part of a form that is filled out and
then submitted. You can move around here and delete
or add text as you like, using the Line-Editor keys.
</textarea><input type="reset" value="[reset content]"></p>
</form>
<h2><a name="special_keys" id="special_keys">Special
keys</a></h2>
<p><samp><dfn>Ctrl-</dfn><strong>key</strong> means
Control+<strong><kbd>key</kbd></strong>.
<dfn><code>Ctrl-x</code></dfn> <strong>key</strong> means first
Control+<kbd>x</kbd>, then <strong><kbd>key</kbd></strong>.
<dfn>M-</dfn>key means Meta+<strong><kbd>key</kbd></strong>,
where Meta is a modifier that can be entered in a variety of
ways:</samp></p>
<ul>
<li>First ESC, then the <strong><kbd>key</kbd></strong>. This
does not work with all systems or on all connections, and if it
does may not work for some keys (because the ESC character is
also part of code sequences for "normal" function keys).</li>
<li>Alt+<strong><kbd>key</kbd></strong>. This works if the
terminal, console, or comm program is set up to interpret Alt
as a modifier to send ESC. The Linux console acts like that by
default for most keys; Kermit can be set up to do it, xterm can
be for some keys, and so on. But the same caveats as for the
previous item apply. This Alt mapping may also be possible,
independent of the ESC character, for some keys in
<strong>Lynx</strong> for DOS/i386 or for Win32.</li>
<li>Ctrl-x <strong><kbd>key</kbd></strong>. Actually, currently
the same internal table is used for Meta and the Ctrl-x prefix.
Therefore all M-<strong><kbd>key</kbd></strong> combinations
can also be typed as Ctrl-x <strong><kbd>key</kbd></strong>,
and vice versa.</li>
</ul>
<p>A few key names may be less familiar now than when
<strong>Lynx</strong> was first written: <em>Find</em>,
<em>Select</em> and <em>Remove</em>. The <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/xterm/xterm.faq.html#xterm_keypad">XTerm
FAQ</a> shows some typical keypad layouts of emulators for VT220
and other DEC terminals.</p>
<p>The VT220 did not have a “backspace” key but
<strong>Lynx</strong>'s default bindings mention it. Both ASCII
<samp>BS</samp> (backspace) and <samp>DEL</samp> are bound by
default to the same functions. <samp>DEL</samp> (occasionally
referred to as <samp>RUBOUT</samp>) is not the same as
<samp>Delete</samp>: the former is a single character while the
latter is usually a sequence of characters.</p>
<h2><a name="notes" id="notes">Notes</a></h2>
<ol>
<li id="note_1">"next" means the character "under" a box or
underline style cursor; it means "to the immediate right of" an
I-beam (between characters) type cursor.</li>
<li id="note_2">Follow Ctrl-V with any recognized key command,
to "escape" from a text input field.</li>
<li id="note_3">For other key combinations using Ctrl-X as a
prefix key, see the Help page for the <a rel="Sibling" title=
"Bash-Like Binding" href=
"bashlike_edit_help.html">Bash-Like</a> Binding.</li>
</ol>
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