<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"><title>Chapter 3. Introduction to the World of ELinks</title><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.76.1"><link rel="home" href="index.html" title="The ELinks Manual"><link rel="up" href="index.html" title="The ELinks Manual"><link rel="prev" href="ch02s10.html" title="ELinks doesn't erase characters from the screen when it should!"><link rel="next" href="ch03s02.html" title="The Title, Tab and Status bar"></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 3. Introduction to the World of ELinks</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="ch02s10.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center"> </th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="ch03s02.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr></div><div class="chapter" title="Chapter 3. Introduction to the World of ELinks"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title"><a name="idp6351712"></a>Chapter 3. Introduction to the World of ELinks</h2></div></div></div><div class="toc"><p><b>Table of Contents</b></p><dl><dt><span class="section"><a href="ch03.html#idp6355680">Overview of the User Interface</a></span></dt><dt><span class="section"><a href="ch03s02.html">The Title, Tab and Status bar</a></span></dt><dt><span class="section"><a href="ch03s03.html">The Main, Link and Tab Menus</a></span></dt><dt><span class="section"><a href="ch03s04.html">The Managers</a></span></dt><dt><span class="section"><a href="ch03s05.html">LED status indicators</a></span></dt><dt><span class="section"><a href="ch03s06.html">Navigation</a></span></dt><dd><dl><dt><span class="section"><a href="ch03s06.html#idp6418432">Page-Oriented Navigation</a></span></dt><dt><span class="section"><a href="ch03s06.html#idp6431968">Link-Oriented Navigation</a></span></dt><dt><span class="section"><a href="ch03s06.html#idp6446432">Position-Oriented Navigation</a></span></dt><dt><span class="section"><a href="ch03s06.html#idp6449888">Forms</a></span></dt></dl></dd><dt><span class="section"><a href="ch03s07.html">Searching</a></span></dt><dt><span class="section"><a href="ch03s08.html">Hints and Odd Features</a></span></dt></dl></div><p>The goal of this introduction is to explain the basic concepts in ELinks, give an overview of how to get started and serve as an entry point to many of the (undocumented) features of ELinks. It won't tell you all the details, but should hopefully give you an idea of how things work and make it possible for you to even figure out how to go further.</p><p>Although ELinks is text-based, the user interface has many of interaction methods normally found in graphical environments. There are menus, dialogs with buttons and hierarchic list boxes with folders. Care has been taken to make the interaction between various dialogs consistent, so the controls will quickly become familiar to new users.</p><p>The user interface can be controlled using both mouse and keyboard, but currently it is only possible to configure keybindings. Looking back, the key-controls have been more advanced than the mouse support, but during the 0.10 prereleases the mouse support has been much improved. You will now find find stuff like contextual menus when right-clicking in different document zones.</p><div class="section" title="Overview of the User Interface"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a name="idp6355680"></a>Overview of the User Interface</h2></div></div></div><p>The main user interface of ELinks consists of the document view and dialog bars displaying the information such as the title of the currently viewed document, all opened tabs and the browsing status. The 3 bars are elaborated further below.</p><p>The most important dialogs that you will meet include the Main, Link and Tab menus and the different managers. The menus serve as entry points to the actions available from different contexts, while the managers let you check the state and control the various subsystems, such as loaded cookies and the global history. The utility menus and the manager tools are investigated further below.</p><p>The document viewer in ELinks provides a feature-rich set of ways to browse documents. That is, multiple options exist for navigating, searching and displaying documents and you will hopefully figure in time what works best for you. The basic browsing possibilities are presented below.</p><p>ELinks is highly configurable, so if there is something that you would like to change, it is most likely possible. The best overview of the many options are given in the <code class="literal">elinks.conf(5)</code> man page. Keybindings are discussed in the <code class="literal">elinkskeys(5)</code> man page. It is not always up-to-date, so you should also check the keybinding manager and the overview of all the configured keybindings given in the Help -> Keys dialog. The Keys dialogs serves as a good introduction to the most common keybindings.</p></div></div><div class="navfooter"><hr><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="ch02s10.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"> </td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="ch03s02.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">ELinks doesn't erase characters from the screen when it should! </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> The Title, Tab and Status bar</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
