Chapter 2

Using Navigator

You use the Netscape Navigator web browser to find and view information on the World Wide Web.

About the Navigator browser window

The Navigator browser window displays a home page, the page you see each time you start Communicator. Communicator is preset to display the Netscape home page, but you can change this to any page you want. See "Choosing a home page" to learn how to do this.

You can use the Personal toolbar to create buttons for favorite pages. See "Creating a button for a page (Windows and Unix only)" for more information.

 Use the component bar to switch between Communicator's different components.

What's a URL?

Near the top of the Navigator browser window, the Location field contains the address of the page being viewed. This address is called a URL (Uniform Resource Locator). Each page on the web has its own unique URL that identifies its location. Like an address, the URL tells Navigator where to find the page.
Note Sometimes the word Netsite appears in place of the Location field. This indicates that the current page is located on a computer that uses Netscape server software. See "Viewing other pages" for more information about servers.
A URL has the format protocol://computer/directory/filename. The protocol tells Navigator which transfer method to use to get the page. Some commonly used protocols are http (hypertext transfer protocol), ftp (file transfer protocol), news (the protocol used by Usenet news groups), and gopher (an alternative transfer protocol). The second part of the URL (after the //) tells Navigator the name of the computer, the directory where the page can be found, and the page's filename. Pages typically have filenames that end with an .htm or .html extension. The extension means that the file is a hypertext markup language (HTML) file that can be displayed in a web browser such as Navigator. Here are some sample URLs:

 http://home.netscape.com/index.html

ftp://ftp.netscape.com/pub/guide.html

gopher://mysystem.com/new/report.htm

Note Some pathnames use special characters. When typing a URL into the Location field, you'll need to enter the characters exactly as specified in the URL. For example, some URLs contain the tilde character (~), which designates a particular home directory on a server.

Arranging your toolbars

You can change the order in which the Navigation, Location, and Personal (Windows and Unix only) toolbars appear at the top of the Navigator window, and minimize, shrink, or eliminate them if you want to see more of your favorite web pages.

Rearranging a toolbar

Minimizing and expanding a toolbar

Hiding and showing a toolbar (Windows and Macintosh only)

You can hide a toolbar if you won't be using it often, or if you want to maximize the amount of space used for displaying web pages; otherwise you're probably better off minimizing it.

 To hide a toolbar:

To restore a hidden toolbar:

Switching to Communicator's other components

The component bar, in the bottom right corner of the Navigator browser window, lets you easily open or switch to your Navigator browser, Messenger Inbox, Collabra discussion groups, Composer editor, or Netscape Netcaster.

Moving the component bar

Whenever you start Communicator, it remembers where you moved the component bar.

 To move the component bar:

  1. Drag the component bar by its left edge to place it wherever you want or, click the left edge of the component bar to detach it from the bottom of the Navigator window.

  2. (Windows and Unix only) To switch between horizontal and vertical orientation, click the title bar (at the top of the detached component bar) with the right mouse button and choose Horizontal or Vertical.

  3. (Windows and Macintosh) To return the component bar to its original position, click its close box. (Unix) To return the component bar to its original position, choose Close from the component bar's menu.

Viewing page information

To display a web page, Navigator transfers a copy of the page from the computer where the page is stored to your computer. Navigator loads the page into the browser window and remembers the location of the original page. This way, if the page's contents change, you can update the page in the browser window by clicking the Reload button in the Navigation toolbar.

Navigator provides several ways for you to see page information:

Viewing other pages

Most of the information on the World Wide Web is organized in pages that are linked to each other. Pages are located on different computers that are connected to the Internet. When you tell Navigator that you want to look at a particular page, it sends a request for that page out to the other computers on the Internet. The network of computers passes the request to the computer storing the page that you want to see. That computer receives your request, finds the page, and responds by sending you a copy of the page over the Internet. When the page arrives at your computer, Navigator displays it in the browser window.

 The computer that sends you a copy of the page is usually a larger, more powerful computer called a server. When Navigator receives the page and displays it, it is acting as a client, sending requests for pages and displaying them on your behalf.

 Some pages are divided into rectangular areas called frames. Each frame contains a separate page.

 To look at another page, you can:

Clicking links

A link contains the address (URL) of the page you want to see. When you click the link, Navigator gets a copy of the page and displays it on your computer.

By default, a blue link represents a page you haven't viewed yet, and a purple link represents one that you have.

 To tell whether something is a link, place your mouse pointer over it. If the pointer changes into a hand, you've found a link.

Typing a URL

Most of the time, you won't need to know a page's URL because it's included as part of the link. But increasingly, you see URLs on business cards, and in magazine and newspaper articles and advertisements. You might have to type the specific URL of a page you want to view if you can't get to the page by clicking a link.

 To go to a page by entering its URL:

  1. Click in the Location (sometimes called "Netsite") field.

  2. Type the page's URL.

  3. (Windows) Press Enter. (Macintosh and Unix) Press Return.

    4. Tip If the URL begins with http://, you can leave off this part of the URL and Navigator will automatically add it. For example, to go to the URL
    http://home.netscape.com/, you can just type home.netscape.com in the Location field.
See "What's a URL?" for more information on URLs.

Seeing where you've been

Navigator lets you quickly return to pages you've already seen during the current session.

 You can also add bookmarks so that you can easily go to pages you visit often. See "Creating a bookmark" for more information.

Returning to a specific page

  1. To see the list of pages you've visited since you started Communicator (called a history list), click the Go menu. The bottom of the menu contains a list of page titles.

  2. To return to a specific page, choose its title from the list.

Moving between pages you've already seen

  1. Click the Back button to return to the previous page in the history list.

  2. Click the Forward button to display the next page in the history list. Forward is only available after you click Back or click a page in the history list.

    3. Tip Hold down the Back or Forward button to see a menu of the pages that you can go back to or forward to.

    Tip  To display comprehensive history information, choose History from the Communicator menu to display the History window. (Windows and Unix) The History window displays information about pages you've visited during the current and previous sessions. You can specify the number of days that page visit information is stored by choosing the Preferences command on the Edit menu and clicking the Navigator category. (Macintosh) The History window displays page information only for the current session (until you quit Communicator).

    Important When you quit Communicator, your history list is discarded. To save the location of a favorite page, you must create a bookmark for the page. See "Working with bookmarks" for more information.

Returning to your home page

You choose the URL of your home page using your preferences. See "Choosing a home page" for more information.

Creating a button for a page (Windows and Unix only)

If there's a page (other than your home page) that you visit often, you can add a button to your personal toolbar so that clicking the button takes you to the page.
  1. Go to the page you want to create a button for.

  2. Drag the page proxy icon to the Personal toolbar. The page proxy icon is located to the left of the Location field in the Location toolbar. The icon looks like a small green flag on a yellow square and represents the page that you are viewing in the browser window.

You can also create a list of bookmarks to mark pages that you visit often. See "Working with bookmarks" for more information.

Working with bookmarks

Bookmarks provide a permanent way for you to mark pages you often visit. Unlike the history list, which gets discarded when you quit Communicator, bookmarks stay in the bookmark list until you remove them.

Creating a bookmark

  1. Go to the page you want to mark.

  2. (Windows and Unix only) Hold down the Bookmarks button to display the Bookmarks menu.

  3. From the Bookmarks menu, choose Add Bookmark to add a bookmark for the current page to the bottom of the Bookmarks menu.
You can organize bookmarks by putting them into folders. See "Adding a bookmark to a folder (Windows and Unix only)" and "Organizing your bookmarks" for more information.

Viewing the bookmark list

Returning to a page using a bookmark

Adding a bookmark to a folder (Windows and Unix only)

  1. Go to the page you want to create a bookmark for.

  2. Drag the page proxy icon (located to the left of the Location field) over the Bookmark button, so that the list of bookmarks appears.

  3. Choose the folder into which you want to put the bookmark. When you release the mouse button, Navigator adds the new bookmark to the chosen folder.

Organizing your bookmarks

Because bookmarks are such a powerful and convenient feature, Navigator provides a Bookmarks window so you can organize your bookmarks. When you change the arrangement of bookmarks in the Bookmarks window, Navigator updates the Bookmarks menu.

 To display the Bookmarks window:

The Bookmarks window displays bookmarks and bookmark folders in a list, arranged like files and folders on your hard disk. The bookmark names are the same ones that appear in the Bookmarks menu, except that the Bookmarks window provides many more commands for organizing your bookmarks.

Creating a new folder for bookmarks

  1. From the File menu in the Bookmarks window, choose New Folder.

  2. Type a name for the folder and click OK.

  3. Drag bookmarks from the Bookmarks window into the new folder.
For more information about working with bookmarks in the Bookmarks window, see Navigator's online Help.

Choosing a home page

You can choose any page to be your home page (the page you see each time you start Communicator). Typically, the preset home page is Netscape's home page and has this URL:

 http://home.netscape.com/index.html

To choose a new home page:

  1. Go to the page that you want to use as your home page.

  2. From the Edit menu, choose Preferences.

  3. Click Navigator in the Category list.

  4. Click Use Current Page or type the page's URL.

  5. Click OK.

Searching for information on the web

To look for information on a specific subject, or for a specific page, you can use a search engine (sometimes called a search utility). You can read descriptions of how the search engines perform their searches (some search just page titles, headers, or indexes, while others search entire pages). Most search engines give you instructions and advice on how to perform an effective search.

 If you don't find what you're looking for using one search engine, try using another one.

Tip To quickly find information that matches a specific word or phrase, type the word or phrase into Navigator's Location field, and press Enter (Windows) or Return (Macintosh and Unix). Navigator performs a search and displays a search results web page that contains links to other web sites that contain matching information.

Using the Guide button

You can use the Guide button to locate Internet information.

Searching for text within a page

To find a word or phrase within a page:
  1. From the Edit menu, choose Find in Page. If the page you are viewing contains frames, this command may instead appear as Find in Frame. You may have to click the part of the page you want to search to activate the Find in Frame command.

  2. Type the word or phrase you're looking for.

  3. Choose the search options you want.

  4. (Windows) Click Find Next to start or continue searching. (Macintosh) Click Find to find the next occurrence.

    5. (Unix) Click Find to start or continue searching.

  5. (Windows and Unix) Click the close box when you are done searching.

  6. From the Edit menu, choose Find Again to find the next occurrence.

Speeding up web browsing

How fast a page loads depends on the speed of your Internet connection or modem, the length of the page, and the number of images and sounds the page contains.

 To speed up page loading, you can tell Navigator to replace the images in pages with small icons when it loads the page.

 To turn off automatic image loading in subsequent pages:

  1. From the Edit menu, choose Preferences.

  2. Choose Advanced in the Category list.

  3. (Windows) Uncheck Automatically load images. (Macintosh and Unix) Uncheck Automatically load images and other data types.

  4. Click OK.
To view all images at a later time: To view just one image without loading other images:

Saving pages and images

You can save copies of pages or images as files on your hard disk so that you can view them or work with them without a network connection.

Saving a page

  1. Go to the page that you want to save.

  2. From the File menu, choose Save As.

  3. (optional) Type a new file name.

  4. Choose the format you want to use to save the page. A file saved in HTML (source) format retains the formatting of the original page and can be viewed in the Navigator browser. A file saved in Plain Text (Text on Unix) format contains unformatted text without the HTML codes. Choose Plain Text (Text on Unix) if you want to open the file in a word processing program.

  5. (Windows and Macintosh) Click Save. (Unix) Click OK.

What's an HTML file?

An HTML file contains special formatting codes, called HTML codes, that Communicator understands and knows how to display as a web page in the Navigator browser. HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is the programming language that provides the formatting codes to mark up text so that the text appears formatted when viewed in a web browser. You don't need to understand HTML in order to use Communicator, but it's important to know that Communicator's features are based on HTML.

Saving an image

  1. Position the mouse pointer over the image you want to save.

  2. (Windows and Unix) Click the right mouse button. (Macintosh) Hold down the mouse button.

  3. (Windows) Choose Save Image As. (Macintosh and Unix) Choose Save this Image as.

  4. Choose the location on your hard disk where you want to save the image.

  5. (Windows and Macintosh) Click Save. (Unix) Click OK.

Opening a page that you've saved (Windows and Unix)

  1. From the File menu, choose Open Page.

  2. Click Choose File.

  3. Locate the file you want to open.

  4. (Windows) Click Open in the Open dialog box. (Unix) Click OK in the Open dialog box.

  5. Click Open in the Open Page dialog box.

Opening a page that you've saved (Macintosh)

  1. From the File menu, choose Open, and then choose Page in Navigator.

  2. Locate the file you want to open.

  3. Click Open.

Sending a page

You can automatically attach a page to a mail message.
  1. Go to the page you want to send.

  2. From the File menu, choose Send Page.

  3. Type the email address of the person you want to send the page to.

  4. Edit the Subject field if necessary.

  5. Click Send.
See "Composing messages" in Chapter 3, "Using Messenger," for more information about composing mail messages.

Printing a page

  1. Go to the page you want to print.

  2. From the File menu, choose Print or click the Print button in the Navigation toolbar.

  3. Choose the printing options you want.

  4. (Windows) Click OK. (Macintosh and Unix) Click Print.
Note Some pages are divided into frames, which are rectangular areas that display their own pages. When printing a page containing frames, the Print Frame command replaces the Print command. To select the frame you want to print, click anywhere inside the frame. From the File menu, choose Print Frame to print the page of the currently selected frame.

What are plug-ins?

Plug-ins are extra software programs that you add to the Netscape plugins folder to enhance Communicator's capabilities. Some popular plug-ins are automatically installed with your Communicator software. Others are available from plug-in providers by copying them from the provider's web site and by following the provider's installation instructions.

 To find out which plug-ins are installed:

Changing fonts and colors

You can change the fonts and colors Navigator uses to display web pages.
  1. From the Edit menu, choose Preferences.

  2. Click Appearance.

  3. Click Fonts or click Colors. 

  4. Change the preferences as desired.

  5. Click OK.

Ensuring privacy

The Internet consists of millions of computers linked together to form a public network. As data travels between your computer and its final destination, the data almost always has to travel through several other connections. This is called routing. During routing, many computers have access to your data. If you are asked to provide information such as passwords, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, or other confidential information, you should be concerned about the privacy and security of that information.

Communicator provides security features that allow you to send and receive private information when browsing with Netscape Navigator and when using Netscape Messenger.

 See "Sending and receiving private email" in Chapter 3, "Using Messenger," for more information about sending and receiving private email.

Submitting confidential information

Navigator provides security features to make it more difficult for others to get access to your confidential information. For example, if you type your bank account number into a form on a web page, and then submit that information to a server that is operating with security features, Navigator automatically encrypts (scrambles) the information you send and decrypts (unscrambles) any information you receive from that server. For encryption to be in effect, you must be interacting with a server that offers encryption.
Important If you submit confidential information in a form and Navigator displays a warning message that the submission you are about to make is not secure, you might want to cancel the submission and contact the company or organization that sponsors the site to find out about other ways you can submit your confidential information.

Checking to see if encryption is in effect

Check the following indicators to make sure that Navigator's encryption features are in effect: