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[During installation, AT&T WorldNet Service configures your Internet client software with a set of pre-set preferences that help ensure proper connectivity and make your software easy to use. For these reasons, be aware that you may not be able to change some of the preferences described in this chapter. Also, note that you are not required to change any of the preference settings to connect with or access the full capabilities of the service.]
All the settings in this panel affect how Netscape will look when you first start it. You can return to this panel at any time to further personalize the Netscape application.
You can customize our toolbar look with the Toolbar radio buttons: Pictures, Text, or Pictures and Text. The default is Pictures.
The Startup area of this panel lets you decide which window is your launch window when running Netscape. Choose from Netscape Browser, AT&T WorldNet Mail, or AT&T WorldNet News. The default is AT&T WorldNet Browser.
Blank Page and Home Page Location let you determine the first page to appear when starting Netscape. You can enter the location (URL) you want as your startup page in the text field for Home Page Location. By default, this field contains the URL of the Netscape application's home page. Choosing Blank Page will display a blank page when you launch Netscape.
Under Link Styles, the first setting, Underlined is checked by default. This ensures that text links in content areas are underlined. The Followed Links settings let you decide when a given followed link (a URL that you've gone to) expires. The color of a followed link will revert to the color of an unfollowed link based on your selection. Expire After 30 Days is set by default. Choosing Never Expire means your links will always stay as a followed one. The Expire After choice lets you determine how many days pass before followed links revert to unfollowed ones.
Use this panel setting to specify the folder to store applications that support Netscape. These applications provide Netscape with connection and page formatting utilities. Click on the field's adjacent Browse button to identify a new application location.
By default, all Custom boxes are unchecked and default colors are used. Check any of the Custom boxes to personalize your link, text, and background colors. The Choose Color buttons in the first four settings give you reign over your palette.
If you want to use Always Use My Colors, Overriding Document, then check this box and your settings will always override another page's. By default, the box is unchecked, displaying the individual background and colors of any page you view.
Netscape lets you choose a character set encoding's font display and specify a document's character set encoding. An encoding represents a mapping of glyphs (such as character symbols) to computer codes (such as hexadecimal digits).
Each character set encoding from the For the Encoding pull-down menu is associated with the display of a proportional and fixed font pair. You can view or modify the association for any encoding by choosing the encoding name from the menu, then choosing items from the proportional and fixed font pull-down menus. For example, the default encoding, Latin1, is associated with the proportional font Arial 12 and the fixed font Courier 10.
Most pages display text in a proportional font. The Use the Proportional Font field specifies the font of the primary type of text in the content area. Click the Choose Font button to select an alternative font or font size display. You can make a selection for each encoding.
Fixed font text is used in editable fields and certain paragraphs preformatted by the author of a page. The Use the Fixed Font field specifies the font of the secondary type of text in the content area. Click the Choose Font button to select an alternative font or font size display.You can make a selection for each encoding.
The Netscape application brings files to your computer using various server protocols such as HTTP, NNTP, SMTP, and FTP. Each protocol can support different file formats. Netscape has the built-in capability to interpret and display on your computer several formats, including the HTML format used by HTTP servers. When the Netscape application retrieves a file with a format that Netscape itself cannot read, the application attempts to use an external helper application capable of reading the file.
The Helpers dialog box lets you examine and configure how a file's format maps to a helper application. The dialog box contains several fields and buttons to specify MIME file types (a method of differentiating file formats using a suffix appended to a file name), helper applications, and associated actions.
A scrolling text field lists the helper applications available to the Netscape application. Each line of the text field contains information about one helper application. By clicking on a line in the text field, you can see and modify preferences for the selected helper application in the area below the scrolling field.
Below the helper applications listing are text fields and buttons that allow you to configure new helper applications or reconfigure current ones. You can add or modify information such as file extensions or actions associated with a helper application, then click OK (or Apply) to update the contents of the scrolling field.
The Choosing Colors setting lets you specify how images are displayed. You can select from Automatic, Dither, or Substitute Colors. The default, Automatic, attempts to determine the most appropriate type of image display. Alternatively, you can select Dither or Substitute Colors to most closely match the computer's available colors. Dithered images may offer a closer match to an image's intended colors, but take longer to display.
Select While Loading or After Loading to display images incrementally while the image is transmitted, or all at once after the transmission. The While Loading option provides the benefit of feedback as the transmission progresses. On a fast network, the After Loading option might complete the load slightly faster. The default is While Loading.
Netscape lets you inform servers of your language priorities. When you request a page, your language priorities are sent as part of the request (in the HTTP header). Servers that have the capability to send you a page in more than one language can interpret your language priorities and respond to your request accordingly.
A language request entry consists of language code and, sometimes, a region code. For example, the code en-US represents the English language in the United States region; the code fr-CA represents the French language in the Canada region. The built-in codes are standard ISO language tags.
Many language and region codes are built in and specified in the Request Language|Region field. You also have the opportunity to specify another language and region in the User define (Other) text entry field.
To build your language priority list, select from the Language/Region, then click on the arrow keys to insert the selection into the Accept List.
The Appearance panel lets you customize font styles for display in Mail and News windows. Select Fixed Width Font or Variable Width Font to determine whether messages use a display font with fixed- or variable-width characters. A series of other radio buttons let you determine the text style, text size, and color of the quoted text. Quoted text (text preceded by the > symbol) marks information restated from a previous message. The default text style is bold.
You can also specify Use Netscape Client for Mail and News or Use Exchange Client for Mail and News to perform mail and news functions. Netscape is the default.
In the section for composing mail and news messages, the Allow 8-bit radio button (the default) accommodates the widest range of email servers (U.S. and Europe). If you are using a MIME mail reader where non-ASCII characters are misinterpreted, use the MIME Compliant option to enable proper character display.
In the next section of this panel, enter an email address in either the Mail Messages or News Messages fields if you want to retain a copy of mail or news messages you send. In the next section, you can also automatically store a copy of your mail or news messages to a disk file. By default, the path for the copied mail file is the path to the Sent Mail file.
Finally, select the check box Automatically quote original message when replying to restate the original message (each line prefaced by the > symbol) in your replies. By default, this box is checked. If unchecked, none of the original message is restated. Note that when replying to a message, you should delete nonrelevant lines so that your messages are not unnecessarily long.
To send email, the Netscape application must make the appropriate connection to a SMTP (Simple Mail Transport Protocol) server. To receive email, Netscape makes a connection to a POP server. Usually, the names of these servers are the same.
In the Mail section of this panel, enter the server names in the Outgoing Mail (SMTP) Server and Incoming Mail (POP3) Server fields (ideally, local mail servers if available). If you do not know the name of your SMTP or POP server, ask your service provider or system administrator.
The News Directory text field details the location of newsgroup subscription and information files. A news file is maintained for each news server you connect to.
The last field on this panel, Get 100 Messages at a Time, can be replaced with a number (up to 3500) that limits how many news messages are initially transferred, in a single block, from the news server. The larger the number, the longer it takes to complete the transfer of each block of messages. Messages with more recent dates are transferred first. Messages with older dates can be transferred in blocks by clicking on links available at the start of a message listing.
In the Mail section of this panel, enter your name and email address in their respective fields so others can easily identify you and reply to your mail. You can also specify a reply-to address to get email replies at an address other than where you send mail from. (For example, sk@worldnet.att.net is your sending email address, but maybe sk@aol.com is your receiving email address.) This information accompanies each correspondence you send.
Mail and news messages can be organized by threading (list messages of the same topic together). If you choose to thread messages, replies to a particular message are listed following the original. By default, mail messages are not threaded and news messages are threaded. Without threading, replies are listed in the order received. You can also choose how you wish to sort mail and news.
Netscape performs cache maintenance when you exit the applications. If you find that exiting takes longer than you wish, you might remedy the problem by reducing the size of the disk cache.
If you find that pages that should be in cache are taking longer to appear than they should, make sure the Verify Documents button is not set to Every Time. The verification requires a network connection that takes time.
Note that you can always obtain document revisions by pressing the Reload button. Netscape checks the network server and, if the page is unchanged, a copy is retrieved from the cache. If the page has changed, a copy is transmitted from the network server. If you press the Reload button while holding down the Shift key, Netscape always retrieves a copy from the network server without regard to the cache.
The text and each image on a page are distinct files. Netscape opens a connection to an Internet server to bring each of these files to your screen. Netscape can display a page's text and multiple image files simultaneously by opening more than one connection to a server. By specifying a larger number of connections, you are specifying more simultaneous connections, which can also slow down the speed of each individual connection.
The network buffer size determines the amount of data that can be received in a network data transmission. Larger buffers mean more data, but can also saturate the computer.
Ordinarily, the Netscape application does not require proxies to interact with the network services of external sources. However, in some network configurations the connection between the Netscape application and a remote server is blocked by a firewall. Firewalls protect information in internal computer networks from external access. In doing so, firewalls might limit Netscape's ability to exchange information with external sources.
To overcome this limitation, Netscape can interact with proxy software. A proxy server sits atop a firewall and acts as a conduit, providing a specific connection for each network service protocol. If you are running Netscape on an internal network from behind a firewall, you'll need from your system administrator the names and associated port numbers for the server running proxy software for each network service. Proxy software retains the ability to communicate with external sources, yet is trusted to communicate with the internal network.
Select No Proxies, Manual Proxy Configuration, or Automatic Proxy Configuration to designate the conduit between your computer and the Internet. Users with a direct connection to the Internet should use the default, No Proxies. To customize a proxy configuration, choose the manual configuration and press the View button to display a dialog box. If you have a configuration file designed expressly for your proxy server, choose the automatic configuration and provide the file's URL in the adjacent text field.
A single computer can run multiple servers, each server connection identified with a port number. A proxy server, like an HTTP server or a FTP server, occupies a port. Typically, a connection uses standardized port numbers for each protocol (for example, HTTP = 80 and FTP = 21). However, unlike common server protocols, the proxy server has no default port. Netscape requires that for each proxy server you specify in a Proxy text field, you also specify its port number in the Port field.
The text field No Proxy for:, available when viewing the Manual Proxy Configuration dialog, lets you bypass the proxy server for one or more specified local domains. For example, if you specify
At the top of this panel is a setting for Java users. You can check the Disable Java check box to disallow the automatic execution of Java applets.
The ensuing security check boxes in the Security Alerts section dictate whether you receive a notification dialog box (popup alert) when entering a secure document space, leaving a secure document space, viewing a document with a mixed security status, or submitting a form with an insecure submit process.
If a check box is checked, the notification dialog can be issued; otherwise, the dialog is bypassed.
Each time you view a notification dialog, you can uncheck the Show This Alert Next Time check box within the dialog. If you uncheck the dialog's check box, the corresponding check box in the Security|General panel is automatically unchecked. To have the notification dialog shown again, check the alert item in the panel.
Site certificates identify others on the Internet to you. For example, when you submit information in a form, your site certificate allows you to know the information that you send goes to the certificate owner and no one else.
You can obtain numerous site certificates. Each certificate represents a site or certificate authority. With the certificate, you can verify that the content of the certificate identifies the persons with whom you wish to communicate.
To view information about a particular site certificate or certificate authority, select the certificate in the list and press the Edit Certificate button. You'll find information describing the owner of the certificate, the issuer of the certificate, and certificate identification. In addition, you can specify whether to allow connections to sites certified by a particular certificate authority and whether to issue warning messages before sending information to such cites.
A certificate is stored with your Netscape Navigator preferences. If you connect to a site from another computer or another account (using another user's files), your certificates will not be available.
The site certificates you obtain are listed in the panel.
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