Three ways to Optimize Your Website for Text-Only Browsers: Part 1 Download and install Lynx on a Mac

This is the first in a series of three tutorials on how to optimize your website for text-only browsers. If you're interested, check out the other tutorials in the series:

Part II Writing Logical HTML Code
Part III Images and Text-Only Browsers

Today I’m going to show you how to download and install the Lynx web browser on an Intel based Mac, but first I should explain why it’s important to optimize a site for a text-only browser.

A text-only web browser will only show what’s in the HTML of a page. It won’t show JavaScript, Flash, images, or even CSS. So, if your HTML isn’t well organized your site won’t make any sense in a text-only browser. This is significant because text-only browsers closely mimic the way search engine spiders read your site. If your most important keywords are contained in images, JavaScript, or Flash, or they aren’t placed near the top of your HTML code, then you’re going to have SEO problems. In short, if your site reads well in a text-only browser, it will also read well to a search engine spider.

Believe it or not there are people out there who use text-only browsers to surf the net. There are others who use conventional browsers, but without Flash plug-ins, or with JavaScript and images disabled. There is no reason to leave these potential users behind when, with a few simple techniques, you can include them and still use all the latest features and toys. A text-only browser is one of the tools you can use to maintain this backwards compatibility.

But before you can use this tool you have to get it from the hardware store and add it to your toolbox.

Lynx is the most commonly used text-only web browser. It was developed at the University of Kansas as a campus wide information system. In the beginning it had its own hypertext language, but later adopted standard HTML conventions. Today it can be used on any system that supports a command line interface. Because Intel based Macs are built on Unix, and provide access to a command line interface through Terminal, they can easily be made to run Lynx.

If you are running Mac OS X 10.5.1 ‘Leopard’ you can get a free download of the latest version of Lynx for Mac at the Apple website. If you are running an older version of OS X you can find a version of Lynx for your system at the GNU Mac OS X Public Archive.

Once you have downloaded the program double click on the mounted disk image to access the files. Once you open the disk image this is what you will see:

The first thing we have to do is set up the Unix command line terminal to run Lynx. Find Terminal in Applications --> Utilities and open it.

If your day-to-day account doesn’t have administrator privileges, then first login to Terminal with an admin account, then drag the install.command icon into the Terminal window. Next, make a folder called ‘Lynx’ in your Applications folder and drag all of the other files from the disk image into it. Whenever you want to use Lynx just double click on the Lynx.command icon. You have now installed Lynx.

There are just a few more things to clear up before we finish. First, you might want to make the terminal window bigger to reduce unnecessary scrolling. Click on ‘Terminal’ in the options menu and choose ‘Window Settings’ in the drop down menu. In the dialog box choose ‘Window,’ and set the dimensions to whatever works best on your screen. Click ‘Use Settings as Defaults’ and close the dialog. The next time you open Lynx it will open a window the size you chose.

Another thing to keep in mind is that this installation process will open Lynx by default whenever you open a Terminal shell. If you want to use Terminal for another purpose you will have to quit Lynx and then login again. Press Q to quit Lynx, and then choose ‘New Command’ from the 'File' drop down menu. Type ‘login,’ and hit enter. A new Terminal window will open. Enter your username and password and you are off to the races.

That’s all for today. In Part II I will present some tips for creating logical and well-organized HTML code that will look good in a text-only browser.

I’m still working on the design and usability review of my open source web directory software. I want to give a warm thank you to everyone who has sent me suggestions and advice. But it’s not too late to help me out. If you’re so inclined, take a look at my sample web directory and let me know what you think. I’ll be sure to give you credit when I roll out the new and improved design.