9.4  IMAGINE THAT -- DOWNLOADING PICTURES


As you play with Lynx, you'll notice that some pages will have entries 
that look like this: [IMAGE].  If the word is the same color as the other 
text on your screen, you won't be able to download it.  If it's a 
different color or somehow highlighted, you should be able to put your 
cursor on it and hit enter.  You'll get one of two messages.  One says 
something about how the "client" can't display an ISMAP image.  In that 
case, there's not much you can do, except hit your left arrow key to get 
back to the previous page -- Lynx at this point can't handle this 
particular system for displaying maps.  

The other message also looks potentially frustrating: "This file cannot 
be displayed on this terminal.  D)ownload or C)ancel."  This is actually 
good news, however, because it means it's an image you can retrieve.  If 
you hit a lower-case d, you'll be asked if you want to save the image to 
your host system, or if you want to use Zmodem to download it directly to 
your own computer.  If you're using a communications program with Zmodem, 
selecting the latter will immediately start the process of transferring 
it to you.  The file names will always look something like: L23015.HTM.  
In most cases, the files will be GIF images, occasionally JPEG images, 
and, rarely, TIFF images. You'll need a GIF/JPEG viewer on your computer 
to view these.  If you don't have Zmodem, save the image to your host 
system.  Interestingly, when you do this, you'll get a more descriptive 
file name, OLDBONES.GIF instead of L2015.HTM, for example.  In either 
case, when you're done transferring the file, hit your left arrow key to 
get back to the previous page.  Before you actually download the file, 
you'll see a message indicating how large it is -- handy to know if 
you're using a relatively slow modem. 

Sometimes, instead of the above message, you'll get a more forbidding 
looking one: 

       showpicture -viewer xv /tmp/L229787.html
     This message contains a picture, which can currently only be
     viewed when running X11. If you read this message while running
     X11, and have your DISPLAY variable set, you will then
     be able to see the picture properly.

Yikes!  Ignore this and look for the prompt asking if you want to save
this to a file.  Hit a lower-case y and you'll be prompted for a name. 
Type in whatever you want to call the file and hit enter.  You've just
saved a copy of the file to your home directory on your Internet host,
which means that, when you're done with Lynx, you can download it to your 
home computer. 

A related function to downloading is retrieving a copy of a document.  To 
do that, hit p within a document.  You'll be given several choices as to 
how to retrieve it, including sending it to yourself via e-mail or saving 
it to a file in your home directory on your public-access site.