Netscape/WWW Introduction


Contents:

 

Defining Terms
HTTP
HyperText Transfer Protocol - a method for sending text and other documents, which icludes tags to tell the viewer (such as Netscape) how to display that text.
HTML
HyperText Markup Language - the language HTTP documents are written in. Similar to Microsoft Word's documents ending with "doc" and WordPerfect's documents ending with "wpd," all documents that are used by a web browser to view HyperText end with "html."
FTP
File Transfer Protocol - a way for transferring files over the internet. Because files are not always made of letters, FTP tells the browser to transfer the information differently, in order to preserve the integrity of the file.
URL
Universal Resource Locator - the location on the internet of the file you want.
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions - Basically, standard information about a certain topic, so that the people who are familiar with that topic don't get bombarded with questions every time a new person joins in whatever activity they are doing.
Hyperlink
text in HTML documents that, when clicked on, sends a request to get something else, usually another World Wide Web page.
Packets
each page of information is divided into many small packets, each of which finds its own way to the computer that requested it.
Server
a server sends the information. So when you click on a hyperlink, it sends a request to the server, which then relays the packets back to you.
Client
that's you, the computer receiving the requested information

Netscape ToolBar
picture description
Pressing the back button goes to the last site visited. If you are currently on the first site in this window, the back button will be greyed.
If the back button has already been pressed at least once, pressing the forward button will go forward one page. When you are at the end of the history, the forward button will be greyed.
Pressing the home button takes you to your home page. Note: It does not take you to wherever your home page was in the history (usually first), it creates a new entry in the history.
Pressing the reload button will reload the current page. It will not effect the current history, but is extremely useful for pages that are updated often, such as sports scores or breaking news.
Netscape has an option, mainly for users with slow connections, to turn off auto-loading images. This means that you will see a small icon where an image would normally be. Pressing this button (only active when images are turned off) automatically loads the images and redesplays the page with images.
When you want to open a new site, press the open button. A dialog window will pop up, and you can type in the address.
Pressing the print button will print whatever is on the page, exactly as it is shown. Keep in mind that printing can be problematic if you try to print a page with music, movies, or moving pictures active.
After pressing the find button, a dialogue box comes up to type in a word, and then it will proceed to attempt to find that word in the document.
Pressing stop while a page is still loading will make it stop loading instantly, even if that means not loading pictures or all of the text. When a page is done loading, the stop button goes inactive.

Netscape Location
The location bar tells you the address of the current page showing. Clicking on the address bar and typing a new location is another way to load a new page.

Netscape Directory Buttons
picture description
What's New is Netscape's way if presenting you with a new page every day.
What's Cool is Netscape's page of cool/interesting site on the web.
Destinations is a topical page provided by Netscape. So it has pre-searched sites under basic topics such as business, sports, and news.
Net Search connects you to Netscape's search page, with connections to Yahoo, Excite, Infoseek, and Lycos.
People connects you to a white pages, to help search for people on the web.
Software takes you to Netscape's page to get new plugins, and to get new versions of Netscape.

Most Common and important uses of Netscape's menus

Netscape Bookmarks

picture description
Click here to add the current page to the end of your bookmarks
Click here to load up the list of bookmarks, and to edit the bookmarks

Netscape Options

General Preferences
picture description
Open General Preferences
The "appearance" tab gives you the option to change your startup page, the look of the toolbar (pictures shown have "pictures and text"), and when links expire (you will notice that visited links change colors).
The "helpers" tab tells Netscape how to handle various files it comes across. It also gives you the option of changing that, so if you delete a program, you can tell Netscape to stop looking for it.
 
 
Network Preferences
pictures description
Open the Network Preferences
Netscape "caches," or saves, pages you've already been to, so that it is quicker to load them next time you go. The amount of Disk space alloted to cache determines how much you want to save on your computer after Netscape is not in use. The amount of Memory alloted determines how much of your RAM you want to set aside for the curren session. The "verify" section refers to how often Netscape checks to make sure that the page on your computer matches the page it would otherwise download from the internet. While "every time" essentially makes the cache meaningless because it always gets the new page, "never" is the other extreme, never reloading a page it already has (even if it has been changed since you last downloaded it).
The "languages" tab allows you to turn off java and JavaScript. If you are visiting a page and the Java takes a long time to load, or if the JavaScript is getting annoying, turning off the Java or JavaScript will make that part of the page to not be loaded
 
Security Preferences
pictures description
Open the Security Preferences
This is where you can toggle various alerts (such as security alerts or submitting forms). 

Miscellaneous
pictures description
If a picture is not where it belongs on the server, this is the image you will see
If your connection seems slow and you don't wait for all the pictures to download, you can click here and the images will not automatically downoad, giving you the option to load them all (see toolbar) later.
If you have auto-load images turned off, this is the icon that will appear in place of the image
If you press stop before a page is finished loading, the bottom of that page will look something like this
Clicking here will bring up a history with the name and address of every site you have visited in the history (every site you can still access using back and forward).
This is the Open Button's dialogue box, where you type in the site you want to go to.
This is the Find Button's dialogue box.

Common Netscape Errors
pictures description
This error means that the server part of the name does not exist on the internet. For instance, here I accidentally typed two "w's" instead of three.
This error means that you don't have access to see the file you are trying to view (in this case cds.html). Unfortunately, you can't do anything about it.
This error means that the server exists, but the file you are trying to access on that server does not. For instance, here I accidentally type one "n" instead of two.