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Communicator
Navigator
Composer
Messenger
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The Amazing Fish Cam
Try this: from Navigator, enter the following key-combination: Ctrl-Alt-F.
Good for a few laughs.
The menu bar
- MENU: File --> New
Use this to open a new Navigator window. But notice the other options:
"Message" opens Communicator's email editor, which we'll look at later, and
"Blank page" will open a new, blanks page in Composer, which we'll also
look at later, along with the options to create a new page from a template or wizard.-
- MENU: File --> Open Page
Use this to open a web page. Enter a URL or use the button
"Choose File" to open a local file. Note that you can open the document in
either Navigator or Composer. If you are looking at a remote file, and choose MENU:
File --> Open Page --> Composer --> Open, and Navigator
will download a copy of the file you are looking at, complete with images, so that you can
modify it. This is a great tool for rapidly developing pages based on others' work,
a standard technique of web authors.
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- MENU: File --> Save As...
MENU: File --> Save Frame As...
You can save copies of web pages to your local machine with these options.
You have the option of saving a page as an html page or as a plain text file.
To do the latter, choose MENU: File --> Save As... -->
Save As...: Save as type: = "Plain Text (*.txt)".
Use this to save textual information without the useless graphics. The "Save
Frame As..." option allows you to save the contents of a frame within a frameset; if
you are looking at a frameset and you don't choose this, you'll save the frameset page,
which won't contain any of the content you're looking at.
MENU: File --> Send Page
This option allows you to send a page to someone by email. Select it,
and the email editor opens up -- if you have your preferences set properly -- with the URL
in the message. Note that this is anther way to save a file for yourself, since you can
send it to yourself -- a useful feature if you are at a public terminal somewhere.
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- MENU: File --> Edit Page
MENU: File --> Edit Frame
These options are identical to using MENU: File --> Open Page -->
Composer --> Menu.-
Navigator Applets
- MENU: Communicator --> Tools --> History
This is a very useful tool. It contains a table of all the URLs that the browser has
visited since the history list was last purged (which you can do from MENU:
Edit --> Preferences --> Preferences: Navigator --> Clear History).
The column headers can be viewed and hidden by clicking on the little
back-and-forth arrows to the right of the column headers, and they can be resized by
placing your mouse on the spaces between the headings and clicking and dragging.
Click on a header to sort the list by the values in that column. Click on an entry
to open it in Navigator.
History: File --> Save As...
You can save a history list to a file with this feature, It outputs an html file
with the as a simple list. For some reason, if you choose to save the file as a text
file, it still prints out an html file.
History: Edit --> Search History List ...
Use this feature to search the history list by any of the columns contained in the History
applet. Click on a result to go to that page in Navigator, and use Search
History List: File --> Save As... to save the results of your
search to a file. Use Search History List: View --> More
Options to do more complicated searches.-
- MENU: Communicator --> Tools --> Java Console
Use this tool to tell if a Java applet is running or to find out why it isn't (if you've
encountered a Grey Box of Death).-
The Navigation Toolbar
The Navigation Toolbar is the series of cute little icons (or text labels, if you have
things configured this way) that resides just below the tool bar. If you've used
Navigator, then you've certainly used these buttons. However, there are some useful
tricks to their usage that you might not be aware of, especially if you're used to an
earlier version of Netscape.
- TOOLBAR: Back
- TOOLBAR: Forward
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- The thing to know about these buttons is that they not only move you back and forth
through the hypertextual path you have blazed while surfing, they also contain drop-down
lists that show you this path explicitly. To view the list, click on one of the
icons and leave the mouse button pressed. A list should appear, a which point you
can selec the page you want to go to. This feature saves you from the tedium of
stepping through a series of pages.
- It also worth knowing that when you use these buttons, you are not actually opening up
pages from their orginating servers; instead you are opening up cached pages, local copies
that will not reflect any changes that have been made on the orginal page that resides on
the server. This is important to know when using CGI forms or interactive pages.
If you go back to a form that been filled out, then press the forward button, you
will not be resubmitting the form. To do that you have to re-press the
submit button.
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- TOOLBAR: Reload
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- Use this button to retrieve a page from its originating server anew. There are a
number of reasons for doing this. You may want to reload a page that has regularly
updated information (such as weather report), or you may want to reload a page that
Navigator is showing you the cached version of. Also, if you are editing
a page or a script on your web account, you need to reload the page each time you make a
change.
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- TOOLBAR: Print
Just know that TOOLBAR: Print and MENU:
File --> Print... are not the same thing. The Toolbar
version will immediately start printing, without prompting you for any settings, while the
Menu version will prompt you with a dialog box. -
- TOOLBAR: Stop
Use this to stop a slow page from loading or to abort opening a page for
whatever reason. If it is colored in, then a page is being loaded; usually, if it's
"grayed out," then the page is already loaded. You can double-check to
see if a page is loading by also looking at the second sunken box on the status bar, which
resides at the bottom of the application window. If a page is loading, it will note
its progress. If it is loaded, it will read "Document: Done".
- TOOLBAR:
This icon sits on the far right of the Toolbar. Press it and go directly to Netscape
Netcenter. Woo hoo!
The Address Bar
The Address Bar is one of the most useful features of Navigator. It contains a
usefull applet, called Bookmarks, allows you to drag pages to your desktop (or to an open
Composer window, about which more in moment), and it provides a command line for entering
URLs, which range from web page addresses to JavaScript commands.
- Address Bar: Bookmarks
If you find a page that you like, select ADDRESS BAR:
Bookmarks --> Add Bookmark. The title of the page will be added
to you bookmarks list, which can be viewed with ADDRESS BAR: Bookmarks.
Once you have selected a bunch of bookmarks, you will want to
organize them. Select ADDRESS BAR: Bookmarks --> Edit
Bookmarks.... This will bring up the Bookmarks window, a handy tool
that allows you to organize your bookmarks into folders (and subfolders), and change their
order. But what's really cool is that you can use Bookmarks: File
--> Save as... to save a list of bookmarks to a file and then use
Bookmarks: File --> Import to open it up again
in another browser. Since you can save as many bookmark files as you like, you
create a library of them for special purposes (like giving them to the students of a
particular class). And since bookmark lists are just html files, you can open edit
them using any text or html editor and make changes. This is a quick way to create
pages of links for your web site. -
- Address Bar:
This little icon can be used to drag the URL of the file you are looking at to your
desktop or to an open editor, such as Composer. If you drag it to your desktop, it
creates an icon that points to the URL when opened. If you drag it into an html
editor like Composer or FrontPage, it creates an HREF element, with the title of the page
showing as the link. If you drag it into a plain text editor, it dumps the page's
URL. If you drag it into Word nothing happens at all. Oh well. It's still pretty
useful, though.-
- Address Bar: Location
This space shows you the URL of the current page. But you can also use
it to enter URLs and jump directly to them. Press the downward pointing arrow-head
on the right to view a list of all the URLs that have been hand-entered into this space.
To clear this list, try MENU: Edit --> Preferences -->
Navigator --> Location Bar History --> Clear Location Bar --> OK.
Remember that you can use the address bar to enter any URL, and that there are a
variety of admissible URL prefixes, or protocols. For example, try entering the
following:
 | ADDRESS BAR: Location: = "?<anything>" |
| ADDRESS BAR: Location: = "file://C:"
(if you are using a PC; use the name of a local or mounted disk in place of
"C:" if using a Mac) |
| ADDRESS BAR: Location: = "about:cache" |
| ADDRESS BAR: Location: = "about:mozilla" |
| ADDRESS BAR: Location: = "about"
(note the absence of a Java logo; it's not "100% Pure" either) |
| ADDRESS BAR: Location: = "ftp://ftp.princeton.edu" |
| ADDRESS BAR: Location: = "telnet://arizona.princeton.edu" |
| ADDRESS BAR: Location: = "javascript:alert("Hello!")" |
| ADDRESS BAR: Location: = "javascript:" |
| ADDRESS BAR: Location: = "mailbox:" |
As you can see, the Address Bar is a command-line of sorts. You can use it to
open pages on the web or look at your local file system, and you can use it to start up
programs.
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