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<title>Lynx, Gopher, and video files</title>
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<h1>Bloggings</h1>
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<h2>Lynx, Gopher, and video files</h2>
<h3>2025-09-21</h3>
<h4>Getting Lynx to open video files</h4>
<p>I've been using Lynx as a Gopher browser on Artix Linux,
and I like it a lot as it renders cleanly, has logical
keybindings, and enables following html links.</p>
<p>But...</p>
<p>Trying to open video files with an external application
wasn't working. Luckily on one test I saw an error
concerning "mpeg_play".</p>
<p>The only mention of this file is as a VIEWER entry in
lynx.cfg. But changing it to something else has no effect
at all.</p>
<p>Somewhere in lynx, mpeg_play is hardcoded. 🤔. Checking the Lynx source code, I found it in HTInit.c</p>
<p>Why short circuit the config file this way? Anyway, I wrote a bash script named mpeg_play:</p>
<p>
#!/usr/bin/env bash<br>
/usr/bin/mpv --title="Mpv" >/dev/null 2>&1 $1
</p>
<p>chmod +x mpeg_play and put it in my PATH</p>
<p>and it works!<br>
Lynx can now play media files in Gopher holes.
(Note the --title parameter is to get it to play nice with dwm).</p>
<p>The question remains: why is this hard coded?</p>
<p>As for mpeg_play, it appears in Linux mailcap
entries in the 90's and seems to have been bundled
in ximagetools.</p>
<p>Mpeg_play appears to date back a long way as a UNIX application:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/software/mpeg_play">http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/software/mpeg_play</a></p>
<h3>Update 2025-09-23</h3>
<p>A little tweak made this script capable of opening playlists</h3>
<p>----------</p>
<p>
#!/usr/bin/env bash<br>
# necessary for Lynx browser video files<br>
# chmod +x and place in your PATH<br>
<br>
# mpv can sometimes take a few seconds to open when streaming<br>
# so I use notification that it's happening<br>
<br>
dunstify -t 2000 -a "Video" -u low -i "media-playback-start-symbolic"\<br>
-h string:x-dunst-stack-tag:"Media" "MPV Launching" &<br>
<br>
# detect if playlist<br>
# Lynx uses an anonymous file in /tmp, so we can only<br>
# detect a file type by it's contents, not it's extension<br>
<br>
if [ "$(grep -c "EXT3MU" "$1")" -eq 1 ]; then<br>
# this is a playlist<br>
# I use dwm, the mpv options used here make it compatible<br>
mpv --geometry=1068x600 --ontop --idle=yes --force-window=yes\<br>
--playlist="$1" >/dev/null 2>&1 &<br>
else<br>
mpv --geometry=1068x600 --ontop --idle=yes --force-window=yes\<br>
"$1" >/dev/null 2>&1 &<br>
fi<br>
<br>
exit 0<br>
</p>
<p>----------</p>
<p>The latest version can be found at <a href="https://git.wittamore.fr">git.wittamore.fr</a></p>
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