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<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"><title>Chapter 9. Introduction to MIME handling</title><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.68.1"><link rel="start" href="index.html" title="The ELinks Manual"><link rel="up" href="index.html" title="The ELinks Manual"><link rel="prev" href="ch08s02.html" title="Terminal Configurations"><link rel="next" href="ch09s02.html" title="Setting up elinks.conf"></head><body bgcolor="white" text="black" link="#0000FF" vlink="#840084" alink="#0000FF"><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">Chapter 9. Introduction to MIME handling</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="ch08s02.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center"> </th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="ch09s02.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr></div><div class="chapter" lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title"><a name="id2519757"></a>Chapter 9. Introduction to MIME handling</h2></div></div></div><div class="toc"><p><b>Table of Contents</b></p><dl><dt><span class="section"><a href="ch09.html#id2519795">Handling MIME types, the ELinks way</a></span></dt><dd><dl><dt><span class="section"><a href="ch09.html#id2519801">What are MIME types and why may you want to use them?</a></span></dt><dt><span class="section"><a href="ch09.html#id2519841">Associating files to MIME types</a></span></dt><dt><span class="section"><a href="ch09.html#id2519873">Managing a given MIME type</a></span></dt><dt><span class="section"><a href="ch09.html#id2519920">Specifying the details for a handler</a></span></dt></dl></dd><dt><span class="section"><a href="ch09s02.html">Setting up elinks.conf</a></span></dt><dd><dl><dt><span class="section"><a href="ch09s02.html#id2520044">Associating a file extension to a MIME type</a></span></dt><dt><span class="section"><a href="ch09s02.html#id2520065">Defining a handler</a></span></dt><dt><span class="section"><a href="ch09s02.html#id2520144">Associating a MIME type to a handler</a></span></dt></dl></dd></dl></div><p>At some time along the 0.4 prereleases, ELinks replaced the old Links file
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<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"><title>Chapter 9. Introduction to MIME handling</title><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.68.1"><link rel="start" href="index.html" title="The ELinks Manual"><link rel="up" href="index.html" title="The ELinks Manual"><link rel="prev" href="ch08s02.html" title="Terminal Configurations"><link rel="next" href="ch09s02.html" title="Setting up elinks.conf"></head><body bgcolor="white" text="black" link="#0000FF" vlink="#840084" alink="#0000FF"><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">Chapter 9. Introduction to MIME handling</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="ch08s02.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center"> </th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="ch09s02.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr></div><div class="chapter" lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title"><a name="id2520330"></a>Chapter 9. Introduction to MIME handling</h2></div></div></div><div class="toc"><p><b>Table of Contents</b></p><dl><dt><span class="section"><a href="ch09.html#id2520369">Handling MIME types, the ELinks way</a></span></dt><dd><dl><dt><span class="section"><a href="ch09.html#id2520375">What are MIME types and why may you want to use them?</a></span></dt><dt><span class="section"><a href="ch09.html#id2520414">Associating files to MIME types</a></span></dt><dt><span class="section"><a href="ch09.html#id2520446">Managing a given MIME type</a></span></dt><dt><span class="section"><a href="ch09.html#id2520493">Specifying the details for a handler</a></span></dt></dl></dd><dt><span class="section"><a href="ch09s02.html">Setting up elinks.conf</a></span></dt><dd><dl><dt><span class="section"><a href="ch09s02.html#id2520615">Associating a file extension to a MIME type</a></span></dt><dt><span class="section"><a href="ch09s02.html#id2520637">Defining a handler</a></span></dt><dt><span class="section"><a href="ch09s02.html#id2520715">Associating a MIME type to a handler</a></span></dt></dl></dd></dl></div><p>At some time along the 0.4 prereleases, ELinks replaced the old Links file
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configuration system with its own one. Now, the configuration is stored in
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elinks.conf, much more complete and featuring a new syntax. You can set most
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options from the UI (so usually there is no need to deal with elinks.conf),
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helpful, and those options may seem a bit obscure or confusing at first. This
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document is a basic introduction to setting of MIME associations for ELinks.
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If you want to know how to automatically launch a program to view some kind of
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file (like images), then read on. Some basic knowledge of MIME is recommended.</p><div class="section" lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a name="id2519795"></a>Handling MIME types, the ELinks way</h2></div></div></div><div class="section" lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a name="id2519801"></a>What are MIME types and why may you want to use them?</h3></div></div></div><p>If, while browsing with ELinks, you need to display files that it can't show
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file (like images), then read on. Some basic knowledge of MIME is recommended.</p><div class="section" lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a name="id2520369"></a>Handling MIME types, the ELinks way</h2></div></div></div><div class="section" lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a name="id2520375"></a>What are MIME types and why may you want to use them?</h3></div></div></div><p>If, while browsing with ELinks, you need to display files that it can't show
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(like images or PDF documents), then you will likely want to pass them to
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other programs that are suitable for this task. While you may do it manually
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(saving the file to disk, running the auxiliary program to show it and then
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MIME types for the files you want to open. If you don't tell ELinks how to
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manage a given MIME type then it will show you on screen the contents of the
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file (as if it was ASCII text) instead of calling an external program to show
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them.</p></div><div class="section" lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a name="id2519841"></a>Associating files to MIME types</h3></div></div></div><p>If the file is fetched from a web server then this web server should tell
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them.</p></div><div class="section" lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a name="id2520414"></a>Associating files to MIME types</h3></div></div></div><p>If the file is fetched from a web server then this web server should tell
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ELinks what its MIME type is, so you should have generally no need to care
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about it. However, the web server might send an incorrect type, or you may be
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retrieving it by FTP or from your local filesystem, so sometimes ELinks needs
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to guess it.</p><p>The easiest method to guess a MIME type for a file is to just look at its name
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trusting it was given the right extension. ELinks supports this, letting you
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to specify a type for any given extension.</p></div><div class="section" lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a name="id2519873"></a>Managing a given MIME type</h3></div></div></div><p>This usually means specifying programs to open files of this type and the
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to specify a type for any given extension.</p></div><div class="section" lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a name="id2520446"></a>Managing a given MIME type</h3></div></div></div><p>This usually means specifying programs to open files of this type and the
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conditions in which those programs may be used. For instance, you may want to
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use zgv (a popular svgalib image viewer) when you are using the text console,
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but xli (a image viewer for X) when running the X window system.</p><div class="section" lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h4 class="title"><a name="id2519888"></a>Binding it to a handler</h4></div></div></div><p>Instead of directly attaching a program to a MIME type, ELinks lets you
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but xli (a image viewer for X) when running the X window system.</p><div class="section" lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h4 class="title"><a name="id2520461"></a>Binding it to a handler</h4></div></div></div><p>Instead of directly attaching a program to a MIME type, ELinks lets you
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associate an abstract handler to each type. Then you can specify which
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programs implement the handler and how are they used.</p><p>For instance, you may create an image_viewer handler and assign it to MIME
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types image/jpeg, image/png and image/gif. Then you would associate to
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image_viewer the programs you would like to use for viewing images and the
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details on how to use them. This is less cumbersome than repeating all these
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details for each MIME type.</p></div></div><div class="section" lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a name="id2519920"></a>Specifying the details for a handler</h3></div></div></div><p>There are three issues to specify for a handler: the program associated to it,
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details for each MIME type.</p></div></div><div class="section" lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a name="id2520493"></a>Specifying the details for a handler</h3></div></div></div><p>There are three issues to specify for a handler: the program associated to it,
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whether you want confirmation before using it and whether you want the
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terminal to be blocked while it is being used.</p><p>When specifying any of these issues, you must tell ELinks the situation in
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which it gets applied, which is typically either the text console or the X
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