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Netscape: The Browser Startup Page
The browser default home page, or startup page, is the first page that appears when the Netscape browser is launched. It is very easy to return to at any time during the session by pressing the HOME button on the Toolbar or selecting Go, Home from the me nu.
When Netscape is first installed, the default is the Netscape home page (http://home.netscape.com). It is very easy to access Netscape’s home page. Simply click on the Status Indicator, the Netscape logo in the upper right corner of the browser that anticipates when a transfer is in progress.
To change the default startup page, click on Options, select General Preferences, and click on the Appearances tab. The middle section, Startup, is used to select what is displayed on startup. The choices are Netscape Browser, Netscape Mail, or Netscape News. You may choose one, two or all three to be loaded when you launch Netscape. When you select more than one you will be able to switch between them just as you would any other applications in Windows.
When Netscape Browser is selected, you have a choice of starting with a blank page, a home page location, or a file or graphic from your hard drive or network. Go to the “Browser Starts With:” area of the Startup section. To specify a blank page, simply click on the Blank Page radio button. To specify a default home page, click the Home Page Location radio button and type the URL (Universal Resource Locator, the web page address) in the box just below. To specify a file or graphic, simply enter the full path and filename instead of a URL. Unfortunately, there is no “Browse” feature, so you will have to manually type information into the box.
Many users like to use their Bookmark file as the default startup page. This produces a startup page with all bookmark locations displayed as active links. To do this, simply place the path to the bookmark file instead of the URL address. If Netscape was installed using the default settings, the location would be: c:\netscape\bookmark.htm. You could also use your e-mail address book, which should also be in the Netscape subdirectory: c:\netscape\address.htm. You may also view the contents of your bookma rk and e-mail address files from Netscape by clicking on File, Open File or by using an HTML or text editor.
If you know how to write simple HTML documents, you could create a file containing your favorite links, e-mail addresses and even graphics to be displayed on startup and each time you press the HOME button on the Toolbar.
Netscape: Saving Pages And Images To Disk Files
Saving a web page to a disk file is a good way to save information to use later offline. There are several ways to write a web page to a disk file.
To save a web page to a disk file without opening the page and waiting for it to load, position the mouse cursor on the link and click the right mouse button to access the popup menu. Choose “Save This Link As...” and the “Save As...” dialog box will ope n. Even faster, skip the popup menu. Position the mouse cursor on the link, hold down the SHIFT key and click the left mouse button to go directly to the “Save As...” dialog box.
The “Save As...” diaglog box allows switching to another subdirectory or drive and changing the filename. It allows you to save the file as an HTML document (the default) or as an ASCII text file. You may want to save the page as a text file, which strip s most of the HTML formatting commands, for use in a word processor or text editor.
To save an HTML document as a text file, click on the down arrow beside the File Type and select Text Files (*.txt). You will probably want to change the filename to give it a TXT extension. Finally, click OK to write the page to disk.
To save the current (opened) web page or frame, click on File, Save As. This brings up the “Save As...” dialog box. The keyboard shortcut for this is Ctrl+S.
The right mouse button activates the pop-up menu. The options presented depend on what the mouse cursor is placed on, such as a graphic image or an active link.
If brought up over a graphic image, options include saving the graphic as Windows wallpaper, saving the graphic to a disk file or copying the graphic location (URL) to the clipboard. If brought up over a link, options include saving contents of the link to a disk file (discussed above), opening the link, opening the link in a new browser window, and copying the link location (URL) to the clipboard.
The popup menu also provides quick access to moving forward and backward and adding the page to your bookmarks.
Use the Netscape browser to view pages or images written to disk. This can be done while offline. Click on File, Open File (keyboard shortcut: Ctrl+O). The default is *.HTM (HTML files). Select “All Files” to have GIF, JPG or any non-text files to show u p in the Open File dialog box for selection.
Some Speed Tips
To load pages faster, turn off the loading of graphics and animation. Go to Options and uncheck Auto Load Images. When you are ready to view the graphics on a page, either click the IMAGES button (the only time the IMAGES button is not grayed out is when Auto Load is unchecked) or go to Options and check Auto Load Images, then click on the Reload button. To load only one graphic on a page, click on it or use the right mouse button (the popup menu) and select Load image.
Also, if the accuracy of colors is not as important as speed, load the graphics faster by clicking on Options, General Preferences, Images, and select Substitute Colors. Be warned: you may get some odd color combinations, but the graphics will load faster.
Printing A Page Or Frame
To print the current page or frame, select File, Print (keyboard shortcut: Ctrl+P).
Prior to printing, use File, Page Setup to change margins, resolution, etc. Changes made to Page Setup apply to the printed output only and do not affect the Netscape display of the page. Use File, Print Preview to see how the printed page will appear.
More next time. Enjoy!
M. L. Giggleman is a HAL-PC member who works contract as a PC Systems Specialist/Network Administrator.
E-mail me at webmaster@hal-pc.org with any comments you have and tell me what you want to see here.
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Last modified: 1997:09:30