From Sy

Web/browsers > Twibright Labs Links

http://links.twibright.com
aka: Links2

Sy wrote this. Please be aware of the personal nature of this article and its opinions. See Sy's writing for more, or see the (in)complete list. See Sy's reviews for more reviews or the list.

A fast, open source, cross-platform Web browser based on the Links web browser.

Of all the Links browser flavours, TwiBright Labs' is most impressive, having integrated graphics (with and without X11) and JavaScript support -like W3m has as well. They even went so far as to include color/brightness/contrast setting functions and an excellent testing diagram, helping users get the best visual experience. This software is extremely fast and pretty, and features all the right keyboard shortcuts often missing from graphical browsers.

While there are some obvious formatting flaws when comparing links to one of the other massive browsers out there, Links is extraordinarily pretty and fast. The fonts are remarkable.

TwiBright's Links is for *nix, OS/2, BeOS, OS X, Win32, among others.

The software hasn't been updated in a long while, and improvement is dependent solely on donations (money to the developers, or code by programmers). So basically the project has been abandoned for years now.

• /things I would pay for to improve

[edit] Installing

./configure --enable-graphics
cd intl
./gen-intl
cd ..
make
make install

[edit] 2.1pre30

I don't know how to get GPM support working..

[edit] 2.1pre29

Man, it's so fast.

annoyances

things which would be nice to implement

• 'g' and then type a partial match and press page up or page down to cycle through the matches. Maybe implement a typeahead search and a dropdown box to easily see all matches. Maybe list the history of pages in that list, and not just the manually-typed URLs.
• implement a 'home' feature
  • implement alt-home to go to the home page
• implement a complete browsing history, to be able to alt-left and then alt-right through multiple pages in history.
  • There might have been a patch at one time: [1]
  • elinks and hacked links both partially support this.
• tabbed browsing
  • hacked links does this.
• printing
  • hacked links does this.

[edit] 2.1pre11

note that this has since been updated. Check out http://links.twibright.com/development.php for info on changes. I don't know if there's a handy changelog somewhere.

• be able to search within URLs
• be able to search, and then tab / cursor from that point

• be able to copy/cut and paste from/into links
• be able to cursor <up> and get to the bottom of a menu.
• create quick hotkey bookmarks like in mozilla..
• be able to tab between text fields

• be able to edit the current URL. Display it when one presses 'g'. Have it highlit and have typover delete it, but allow cursoring to edit it.

• be able to page up/down while within an edit box to view more text than displayed in it's window.

• be able to ctrl-left/right within a textbox (or the 'g' url editing box)
• when reverse-videoing a line in a menu, ensure that an underlined entry is still visible!

[edit] Older

[edit] RFE

• Add ctrl-n to open a new window
• Be able to right-click in black space and select functions like 'open a new window'.
• Be able to link user scripts to mouse menus etc. e.g. right-click on a webpage and have an option to summon wget and get the entire page.
• Be able to highlite from the browser so text can be copied into other programs.
• Save a history, so that visited links have a changed colour.
• Add an option to exit all open sessions of links.
• Have a user-configurable button bar to link to a specific bookmark, or to quickly toggle some options (display graphics, etc etc)
• allow user-definable hotkeys:
  • ctrl-b for bookmarks.
  • Add <left> to go back a page in history.
  • Add 'x', or <right> to go forward a page in history.
• location bar (g) - be able to type in just the base url without www. and .com, assume that prefix/suffix.
• right-clicking a link and having it open in a new window is nice.. but I want to be able to open something in a new window, in the background.
• support mozilla-like bookmark descriptions
• if a web page doesn't have a title, use the URL, not "Links"

[edit] Problems

[edit] Bookmark Manager

• Scrolling using the mouse with the scroll bar is terrible. This could be because of a large bookmarks.html file.
• No real keyboard-only functionality. Add in a keyboard function to mark an item/folder.
• Cannot ctrl-tab to tab backwards in that list.
• If no item is selected, and 'move' is used, then lock the current bookmark with the cursor, such that cursoring up/down moves that bookmark up/down.
• cannot <tab> in text fields when, say, inputting a username/password.
• input boxes do not have their user-typed text remembered for when I go back and forth through history.
• Cannot fully view some URLs etc, because the status line at the bottom of the screen is only one line high.
• cannot look at my local disk, and view images.
• doesn't honour text being changed colour to the same as the background colour to make it invisible.

[edit] Other older notes

• Isn't there an X app which allows one to fiddle with the gamma settings? Using something like that instead of the internal stuff for links might be a good idea. It would be nice to be able to change settings and test them without clicking 'ok' constantly.

• scroll bar is reverse color. The useful portion should be lighter.

• cannot cut/paste
• does not display horizontal bars
• edit boxes are really ugly with underscores everywhere. Requests for wider edit boxes are ignored by links.
• be able to click on the title bar (url) to edit it or copy/paste etc. (give a hotkey as well) - or maybe have an alternate 'g' command to pull up a goto with the current url in place.
• no history list.
• no hotkey (like ctrl/shift - click) to open a link in a new window. Forced to go through the right-click menu.

• be able to link save as to a convertor.. be able to save as other formats.