Multiple Windows

In this lesson, we'll see how to find out if we have more than one browser window open and what to do about it.

Here we are again at the UCF website. Everything looks perfectly normal. It doesn't appear that I've "been" anywhere else. "Back" and "Forward" are "greyed out." They aren't active.

But let's check out one of our pull-down menus. On this browser it's labeled "Windows" on other versions it's labeled "Communicator" on the Macintosh it's labeled with the Netscape icon.

What we see at the bottom of this menu is a list of several open browser windows. Netscape can have multiple windows open at the same time. Some people like to move back and forth between pages or have both pages side by side while they work. Possibly to chat with a classmate while reading an article for class.

We can launch a new browser window by going to the File menu, choosing New, and then sliding over to Navigator Window. A new window will appear and will load the page you've set as your "Home" page.

Having more than one browser window isn't always a good idea, though, because the more windows you have open, the more computer memory Netscape uses, the more likely you are to have Internet connection problems, the slower your pages will load. We can close all but one of these windows and Netscape will still be up and running. We do this by going to the File menu and choosing Close. We saw that there were three windows open, so we will close twice.

(Hint: Watch out for websites that launch a new window "for you". This is a gimmick used by some web developers so that you "remain" at their site when you click a link to someplace else. If you watch carefully, you'll see the window launch and you can decide if you want it or not.)

That wraps things up for this lesson, and (if you started at the beginning) that concludes the Browser Basics tutorial. Have fun in the other sections. Be seeing you!!