Toolbar

We've already launched Netscape, and now we're ready to "do" something. In this lesson we're going to explore the Netscape toolbar. We'll focus on "Home," "Forward," "Back," "Reload," and "Stop."

When Netscape is first launched, "Back" and "Forward" aren't active because we haven't "been" anywhere yet. (But I knew you wanted to see these buttons work, so I've already visited a few sites. Back and Forward will work for us.)

By clicking the "Back" button, we move to the web page that I just left. If we click it repeatedly, we get all the way back tho the page I started from. And now Back is inactive.

The "Forward" button works exactly the same way, only in the opposite direction (obviously).

The "Home" button takes us to the webpage that has been selected in our prefereces file. We'll get around to changing that in a later lesson.

"Reload" doesn't take us anywhere different. It simply loads the page again. This is helpful if you don't see all the information on a web page the first time (usually due to a bad connection) clicking the Reload button calls for a "do-over". Wouldn't it be nice if "real life worked like that; if you could click a Reload button when you're having a really rotten day?

Another thing that would be helpful if you were having a bad day is just freezing everything! Someone's about to break up with you or fire you or give you an "F"╖ Freeze!! Then you could do something about it. That's exactly what the "Stop" button on the Netscape toolbar is for. It won't solve all of your life's problems, but it will stop a page from loading if it's taking too long. Because╖ hey, you've got better things to do with your time, right?? This usually happens when a webpage contains a lot of graphics or if your Internet connection has slowed down. If you find yourself in this situation, click "Stop" and maybe "Reload" once. The page might load more quickly this time. If not, go on to another page. If you really have to visit the page (especially if your professor has required it), you can always get up and take a walk or go to something non-Internet related. (We don't want to develop a "computer gut" after all.)

We know what these buttons do, so now we're ready to go somewhere with our browser. But that's for next time!!