Using Full Screen

Power Browsing Tools has given your Netscape Navigator a new button on Navigator's toolbar. This button is labelled "Wide" when Full Screen is off and "Unwide" when Full Screen is on. By pressing that button you can toggle Full Screen on or off.

When Full Screen is on you will be able to use your entire screen to view web pages without the menu bar, toolbar, location bar or personal toolbar obstructing your view. When Full Screen is off, your Navigator looks like it normally does with its toolbar, menu bar, location bar and personal toolbar all displayed per your preferences.

When Full Screen is on, you can quickly see the toolbar, location bar and personal toolbar by touching your cursor to the top edge of the screen. These bars will remain visible as long as the cursor is over these bars. When you move the cursor off these bars they disappear allowing you to once again utilize the entire screen for browsing.

If you move the cursor to the top of the screen and hold it there for more than a second then the menu bar is displayed as well as the other three bars. This two stage displaying of the menu bar and the other bars is a solution to Windows' insistence on reloading the web page whenever the menu bar is newly displayed. So to save you the added time of a forced page reload whenever you want to use the toolbar, location bar or personal toolbar, the menu bar is displayed only when you hold the cursor to the top edge of the screen for more than a second or two. With a little practice and experimentation you will soon grow to appreciate this feature.

Full Screen can be customized.

Saving web pages and their images

There are many interesting pages on the web. Often it is desirable to save these pages to be viewed or shown later, especially when using a slow connection or paying for a limited amount of on-line time. Before now the only option was Navigator's "Save As..." menu item under "File" which only saves the text of the page and maybe an image or two if it happens to be in cache. To save each image, a user had to right-click on each image and use the "Save Image As..." menu item.

Now, with Save With Images, you simply click once and everything is automatically saved for you. And, unlike the earlier "Save As..." option, Save With Images stores the web page with all its links active.

To use Save With Images, click on Navigator's "File" menu, then on the "Save With Images As..." menu item. A dialog box is displayed letting you name the file the web page will be stored as and the folder this file will be stored in.

Downloading files

Download Manager's main feature is its ability to resume a download that has been interrupted so the time spent on the partial download was not wasted. Download Manager is activated automatically whenever you download a file. It prompts for the folder to store the file into and gives an opportunity of renaming the file being downloaded. Each step of downloading is shown on the status display. It even has a log you can read of all actions and commands between your computer and the download server. This is very handy when debugging a download connection or getting its connection details. Also included is the elapsed time of the download which is often neglected by download software.

Download Manager is customizable with its list of MIME types that it will handle automatically. Any file type not on this list will simply be handled by Netscape's download software.

Using the enhanced scrolling feature

This is automatically enabled only if your system is using a three button mouse. This gives the middle button on your mouse the capability of scrolling the web page simply by holding down the middle button and moving the page up or down. The cursor can be anywhere on the web page. It no longer has to be only on the scroll bar to the right of the page which sometimes can be very tiny making it difficult and tedious to catch hold of and keep hold of when scrolling.

This scrolling feature also works with the individual frame the cursor is in. 

You can customize

User customizable options are provided for Full Screen, Save With Images and Download Manager. To access these options select Navigator's "Edit" menu item, then select "Preferences". You will find Power Browsing Tools at the bottom of Navigator's Preferences list. Click on Power Browsing Tools for info on this software package or on its plus sign (+) to open the list of Power Browsing Tools modules. Then select the module to display its options.

Full Screen options

Full Screen's options give you many choices for personal customization. The choices are arranged in these four different areas:
"In Full Screen Mode" (options that are useful only when Full Screen is toggled on),
"Status Bar Setting" (when you want Navigator's status bar displayed)
"Keyboard Mapping" (to enable keyboard shortcuts)
"Misc." (extra options).

"In Full Screen Mode" the first option is "Override Windows taskbar". This gives you the choice of having the Windows taskbar covered up or not. With this option checked the Windows taskbar will never be seen while using Netscape. Unchecked, the Windows taskbar will display as it normally does (which itself can be configured by right-clicking on the Windows taskbar to display its menu, selecting "Properties" and then checking or unchecking the Taskbar Options).

"In Full Screen Mode" the second option is "Restore to maximized window". With this checked the Navigator window will be maximized when you toggle Full Screen off. Otherwise, the window will be about 3/4 size.

"Status Bar Setting" has three radio buttons which means only one selection can be specified. The options here are "Always visible", "Always hidden" and "Visible while loading only" which give you the choices of having Navigator's status bar always displayed, never displayed or displayed sometimes depending on how the checkbox labelled "Visible when cursor is on a link for ___ milliseconds" is marked. With this checkbox selected (checked) the status bar will be displayed when the cursor is over any hot link and immediately hidden again when the cursor is moved off a hot link.  By changing the amount of milliseconds in its box the speed the status bar is displayed is varied. If the number entered is "0" (zero) then the status bar flips on without a lag. If this flashing on and off of the status bar is distracting to you as you move the cursor over a page with many hot links you can increase the lag time before the status bar is displayed. If the checkbox labelled "Visible when cursor is on a link for ___ milliseconds" is not selected (checked) then the status bar will be displayed only when a hot link is clicked and the new page is loading. Some experimentation is recommended for these settings so you have a better idea how you'd prefer your status bar displayed.

"Keyboard mapping (Enable/Disable)" gives you the choice of accessing some Full Screen functions directly using your keyboard. This is handy for people, such as computer programmers or typists, who use the keyboard extensively. "F11", if selected, will enable you to toggle Full Screen off and on with the F11 key while still being able to use your mouse and the "Wide/Unwide" buttons. Control-L brings up the location bar and makes it ready to receive the URL you would like to type.
The ALT key will display Navigators' menu bar alone when Full Screen is active and will activate the menu bar when Full Screen is toggled off. There is no reason not to have the keyboard shortcuts unless you are using a handy keyboard macro program such as Hot Keyboard.

"Misc" has a checkbox that when selected will cause your browser to start up with Full Screen toggled on (i.e. no Navigator toolbars or menu bar or location bar showing).
 
 

Save With Images options

There are two options here. "Close Save dialog when done" when checked will automatically close the dialog box used by Save With Images after all the images and files are saved to your disk. Leave this checkbox blank if you would like to close the dialog box yourself.

The other option given with Save With Images is a keyboard shortcut. If this checkbox is selected Control-E can be used to save the current web page being viewed along with all its images and links. Leave this checkbox blank if you have another use for Control-E.

Downloading options

"Close Download Window after successful download" if checked will automatically close the dialog box used by Download Manager. Leave this checkbox blank if you prefer to close this window manually after viewing the download log.

"Handled Mime Types" are all the types of files you would like to be automatically handled by Download Manager instead of Netscape's downloading software.

Misc. options

These are options for modules that will be added as they are created for you by inQuare Software. Presently there is one miscellaneous module which is the middle mouse button scroll. This checkbox is available only when there is a three button mouse registered as part of your computer system. When this checkbox is selected you can use your middle mouse button to scroll the web page you are viewing simply by clicking the middle mouse button anywhere on the web page and moving it up or down. Leaving this checkbox blank makes this handy feature unavailable. This feature is so useful to most people that it is worth the price of a new mouse just to use it! 

Keyboard Shortcuts

There are four keyboard shortcuts available with Power Browsing Tools. Full Screen has three of these and Save With Images has one. Help with each of these shortcuts can be found in the following two sections: Full Screen options and Save With Images options.

   F11: Toggles Full Screen On/Off
CTRL-L: Selects the Location bar
   ALT: Shows the menu bar when in full screen mode
CTRL-E: Saves the current page, all its images and its links