You're going to bring pages of the Internet to your computer screen. The Internet is a collection of information stored in computers physically located throughout the world. Much of the information on the Internet is organized onto pages. You'll bring one page to your computer screen, discover its contents, and have the option of bringing more pages of information.
Some pages on the Internet are cool. I mean really cool. They can be richly formatted and colorfully illustrated, capable of bringing you sounds and movies and interactivity. Other pages can be as ugly and disagreeable as what you'd find under a rock. Your goal: to bring yourself gratifying pages of information, and no others.
Content is everything. But to get to the content you seek, you'll need connections to those pages. Well-crafted pages provide built-in connections to other pages. That is, clicking your mouse button on a highlighted word or picture brings another page of information--a linked page--to your screen. The entire network of pages can be potentially interlinked, one pointing to another. As a result, you can bring information in the meaningful context of "Here is some information on a page in front of me, and highlighted on this page is a connection to related information I might wish to explore next."
Netscape's popularity stems from the opulence of its pages and the ease of bringing them to your screen. Pages designed with expressive lettering, art, color, photos, sound, animation, forms, and interactivity can be linked to an untold number of similar pages distributed on networked computers worldwide. Netscape explores World Wide Web pages, a part of the Internet rich in multimedia features, as well as other parts of the Internet that are often text-based. The Internet's Usenet newsgroups, electronic mail, and alternative transport protocols offer impressive diversity of content and communicative prowess. To take advantage of this wealth, Netscape software contains features to explore the Internet in numerous domains.
Foremost, Netscape software presents pages of the Internet with elegance and efficiency. Netscape software is a browser--an interface--to pages throughout the world. Netscape software allows you to immerse yourself in content unencumbered by the complexity of distributed networks.
Now, you're probably comfortable with the idea that information on the Internet is presented on pages you see on the screen. Even the navigational concepts are pretty easy:
Plus, you can go directly to pages that interest you by choosing menu items:
Ideally, the act of finding pages becomes secondary to what you really care about: the page's content.
Like pages of a magazine, you'll want to flip from one screen page to another, sometimes to continue with the same article and other times to begin a new article. But you can't hold screen pages in your hands like you can a magazine. Screen pages are rarely uniform in length and, displayed one page at a time, don't provide intuitive feedback on where the information begins and ends.
So even though Internet pages bring information to you rather gloriously, there is something distinctly uncomfortable about content which may continue over numerous links to pages of varying lengths. Anyone who has witnessed a slide show of a neighbor's family vacation can identify with the queasy sensation of boundlessness.
Readers of electronic pages need tools to keep track of pages. The Netscape text fields, toolbar buttons, and menu items seek to provide you with the ability to manage pages of information that might otherwise leave you feeling overwhelmed and unfocused. Each time you open the Netscape window (you can have multiple Netscape windows open concurrently), you begin a new session of Internet interaction.
Some pages have the capability to automatically update themselves. Pages that have server-push and client-pull capabilities contain instructions that allow multiple interactions with the server computers. You can always terminate these automatic actions by going to another page or otherwise exiting the page.
To understand how a single page is kept distinct in a world of electronic pages, you should recognize its URL, short for Uniform Resource Locator. Every page has a unique URL just like every person has a unique palm print. (Arguments persist as to which is more cryptic.)
A URL is text used for identifying and addressing an item in a computer network. In short, a URL provides location information and Netscape displays a URL in the location field. Most often you don't need to know a page's URL because the location information is included as part of a highlighted link; Netscape already knows the URL when you click on highlighted text, press an arrow button, or select a menu item. But sometimes you won't have an automatic link and instead have only the text of the URL (perhaps from a friend or a newspaper article).
Netscape gives you the opportunity to type in a URL directly into the location text field (or the URL dialog box produced by the File/Open Location menu item. Using the URL, Netscape will bring you the specified page just as if you had clicked on an automatic link. Notice that the label on the location field says Netsite for pages from a Netscape server, Location for pages from a non-Netscape server, or Go to as soon as you edit the field.
Here are some sample URLs:
http://www.worldnet.att.net/
ftp://ftp.netscape.com/pub/
news:news.announce.newusers
On Windows, the location text field offers a pull-down menu to the right of the text. The menu contains up to 10 URLs of pages whose locations you've most recently typed into the field and brought to screen. Choosing a URL item from this menu brings the page to your screen again. The URLs are retained in the menu across your Netscape sessions.
Netscape uses the URL text to find a particular item, such as a page,
among all the computers connected to the Internet. Within the URL
text are components that specify the protocol, server, and pathname
of an item. Notice in http://www.worldnet.att.net/member/index.html that
the protocol is followed by a colon (http:), the server is
preceded by two slashes (
The first component, the protocol, identifies a manner for
interpreting computer information. Many Internet pages use HTTP
(short for HyperText Transfer Protocol). Other common protocols you
might come across include file (also known as ftp which
is short for File Transfer Protocol), news (the protocol used
by Usenet news groups), and gopher (an alternative transfer
protocol).
The second component, the server, identifies the computer system that
stores the information you seek (such as www.worldnet.att.net).
Each server on the Internet has a unique address name whose text
refers to the organization maintaining the server.
The last component, the pathname, identifies the location of an item
on the server. For example, a pathname might identify a page by
specifying the name of the file comprising the page (such as
/welcome.html) as well as the name of one or more directories
(folders) that store a file (/home).
A link is a connection from one page to another. You find a link by
looking for one or more words highlighted with color, underlining, or
both in the content area of a page. Images and icons with colored
borders also serve as links. When the mouse cursor points over a
link, the URL location of the link appears in the status field.
You can bring a linked page to your screen by clicking once on the
highlighted text, image, or icon. Clicking on a link transfers page
content from a server location to your location. After you click on a
link, the Netscape status indicator animates to show you that the
transfer of the page to your computer is in progress. You can stop a
transfer in progress by pressing the Stop button or choosing
the Go/Stop Loading menu item.
An unfollowed link is a connection to a page that you have not yet
viewed; a followed link is one you have. Unfollowed and followed
links are highlighted in different colors. If you have a black and
white monitor, unfollowed and followed links are highlighted only
with underlining and thus not differentiated. When your cursor points
over a link, the status message text field displays the URL of the
page that one click will bring to screen.
After you click on an unfollowed link, the link becomes a followed
link. If you go back to a page where you have clicked on a link,
you'll see that the link has changed from the unfollowed color to the
followed color. By default, unfollowed links are blue and followed
links are purple. (On Windows, you can change the
colors used to denote unfollowed and followed links from the
Options/Preferences/Colors menu item.)
You'll find the ability to stop a transfer in progress is useful if
the transfer is taking too long for your liking. This might happen if
the content of the page is large or if the server computer is
sluggish. Sometimes the page specified by a link just isn't
available. You'll usually get a message if a connection was not made
or a page not found. Examine the status field and progress bar to
receive feedback about the progress of a transfer.
When you bring a page to your screen, you'll see the whole page or, if
the content is extensive, only a portion. (Scroll bars let you see
the rest.) Often the portion you see is the beginning of the page,
but sometimes a link brings you content from the page's middle or
end. Nor does a link always bring a new page to screen; rather, a
link can bring a different portion of the same page (in effect,
automatically scrolling for you). For example, the beginning of a
page may include a table of contents that links each chapter title to
the chapter subheading deeper into the page.
Yet another kind of link doesn't bring a page at all. A mailto
link whose URL begins with mailto:, produces the Send
Mail/Post News dialog box for sending e-mail (with the
recipient's address automatically filled in).
In addition to links in the content area, you can also access links
using Netscape buttons and menu items. Many of the links controlled
by buttons and menu items bring pages you have viewed at least once
before. Button links are particularly useful for going back and forth
among recently viewed pages. Menu item links directly access a wide
range of pages such as a history list of pages you have viewed or a
bookmark list of pages you (or others) have personally selected as
noteworthy.
Once you have brought a page to screen, you can view (and store, if
you wish) its URL. Every page is distinguished by its URL. Linking
to a page via highlighted content, toolbar buttons, or menu items is
a shortcut that enables you to bring the page without having to
explicitly request the page's URL. When no built-in link is
available, you can bring a page by entering the URL in the location
field, then pressing the return key. (The label of the location field
changes to Go to when you edit the field.) Alternatively, you
can choose the File/Open Location menu item, enter the URL in
the dialog box, then press the Open button.
The toolbar offers the following button links:
Menu items offer each of the links available through toolbar buttons
plus many more. The Netscape application keeps track of pages you
have seen, lets you create easy-access lists of favorite pages, and
points you to pages with current information about AT&T WorldNet(SM) Services and the
Internet. Choosing a menu item that's the title of a page brings the
page to screen.
A pop-up menu offers utility features and a shortcut for certain
links. On Windows, you can click on the right mouse button
to produce the pop-up menu. When the mouse button is pressed over a link or image,
pop-up menu items let you go to pages, view individual images, save
files onto your disk, copy locations to the clipboard, and perform
other tasks. On the Windows 95 version, the pop-up menu item
Create Shortcut lets you create Internet shortcut icons that
you can place on the desktop or in any folder. Clicking on an Internet
shortcut icon automatically opens the Netscape application and loads
a particular page.
This section provides an overview of two features that simplify access
to pages. For more details on using history and bookmarks, such as
how to create hierarchical bookmark menus, refer to the handbook
index.
History items, automatically inserted in the Go menu, give you
access to pages you've recently viewed. Bookmark items, inserted in
the Bookmarks menu by selections you make, give you access to
any page at any time. When you pull down a menu that contains history
or bookmark items, you see a list of page titles. To bring a page to
your screen, choose the title of the page.
History items let you quickly retrieve pages that you've recently
viewed in your current session. Only a single lineage of history
items is displayed. For example, a series of pages containing maps
might show you increasing detail as you click on links. If you choose
consecutive links to bring pages whose titles are North America,
United States, Pennsylvania, and Philadelphia, you'll see all four
items appear in the history with Philadelphia topmost in the list.
However, if you back up to the United States page, then bring pages
whose titles are California and San Francisco, you'll see that
California and San Francisco have replaced Pennsylvania and
Philadelphia. Only the single most recent lineage from the home page
is maintained. Since Pennsylvania and Philadelphia were pages
extending from an earlier lineage, they have been automatically
removed from the history list.
Bookmarks items offer a more permanent means of page retrieval. Once
you add a bookmark to your list, the title stays until you remove it
or change lists. The permanence and accessibility of bookmarks make
them invaluable for personalizing your Internet access.
Because bookmarks play such an important role, the Netscape
application offers many options for creating bookmark lists. Basic
options let you add access to a page through a menu item. More
advanced options let you create hierarchical menus, partial menu
displays, multiple and shared bookmark files, list descriptions, and
list searches.
The Netscape Bookmarks window displayed by choosing the View
Bookmarks menu item gives you tools to manage bookmark lists.
These tools may differ depending on the platform you are using.
On Windows, you'll find bookmarks and folders (a folder represents a
hierarchical menu header) arranged like files and directories in the
File Manager. You can double-click on bookmarks to bring pages,
drag-and-drop icons to arrange your bookmarks, and use bookmark menu
items to create new bookmark items and manipulate bookmark lists. For
example, to create a hierarchical menu, choose Item/Insert
Header from the Netscape Bookmarks window, give the header
(folder) a name in the dialog box, close the dialog, then drag a
bookmark into the resulting folder.
Don't let the advanced features dissuade you from the basic
functionality of bookmarks. At its simplest, you can choose the
Bookmarks/Add Bookmarks menu item to add the current page to
your bookmark list, giving you direct access to your favorite pages.
. To read about the full set of options, see the reference section on
the View Bookmarks menu item.
You can tailor the look of the Netscape application by choosing to
show or hide certain graphical elements on the screen. You'll find
the basic alternatives listed as items in the Options menu.
The default settings show the toolbar, location field, and directory
buttons. These graphical elements provide you with simplified access
to links, commands, and page location information. By hiding any or
all of these graphical elements, you increase the amount of screen
real estate available for page content.
Other items in the Options menu, Show FTP File
Information and Auto Load Images do not display a standard
graphical element, nor increase the size of the content area. These
items properly align information received in FTP format and
automatically include inline graphics, respectively.
Choosing the Preferences item produces a dialog box containing
a submenu (also known as a pop-up menu or drop-down list). Each
submenu item produces a dialog box containing one or more of the
following panels: Window Styles, Link Styles,
Fonts, Colors, Mail, News, Cache,
Network, Applications, Directories,
Images, Security, Proxies, and Helper
Applications.
The panels contain settings that determine how the Netscape
application operates. Many settings affect the look of graphical
elements and content. After you are finished changing any values,
click the OK button to accept the new panel settings or click
the Cancel button to close the dialog box without accepting
changes.
To see options affecting styles, fonts, and colors, choose the
Options/Preferences menu item to produce the
Preferences dialog box. The dialog box contains a pull-down
menu whose items let you select which panel settings to view. Below
you'll find a sampling of style, font, and color settings.
In the Window Styles panel, a set of small, round radio buttons
lets you display the toolbar with Pictures, Text, or
Pictures and Text.
In the Link Styles panel, a check box lets you specify if
colored links should also be underlined. With a black and white
display, you must check this box to underline links in order for
links to be visible.
Another set of radio buttons in the Link Styles panel lets you
designate the number of days before the color of a followed link
reverts back to the color of a unfollowed link. For example, if you
specify 7 days, a link that you use to view a page is colored by the
followed link color for 7 days, then changes back to the unfollowed
color. That is, the color indicator for followed a link expires after
7 days. If you choose the Never radio button, followed links
do not revert to the unfollowed color regardless of time. Pressing
the Now button causes all followed links to revert to the
color of unfollowed links immediately. The default value specifies
that followed links expire after 30 days.
On Windows, a check box in the Colors panel lets
you select colors for unfollowed and followed links. Click on each of
the color selection buttons to
produce a color selector for choosing unfollowed and followed link
colors. If the check box is unchecked, the default color blue
represents unfollowed links and the color purple represents followed
links.
On Windows, the Images panel offers an option for
choosing how to display an image's colors to most closely match the
computer's available colors.
In the Fonts panel, a set of pull-down
menus lets you choose the font and font size for each of the two
types of fonts that pages use to display text: Proportional
and Fixed. A proportional font is used for most
text. A fixed font is used for text in editable fields and certain
paragraphs preformatted by the author of a page.
The display of a proportional and fixed font pair is associated with a
character set encoding from the For the Encoding pull-down
menu. (Netscape allows you to choose encodings in order to accommodate
the character symbols of numerous languages.) You can view or modify
the fonts associated with any encoding by choosing the encoding name
from the menu, then choosing items from the proportional and fixed
font pull-down menus. For example, for the default encoding, Latin1,
you can choose that all proportional font text be displayed in 12
point Times and all fixed font text be displayed in 10 point Courier.
You can designate your own home page (the page the Netscape
application first brings to the screen each time you open a new
window) by supplying a URL as a preferences panel item. The home page
designated initially with AT&T WorldNet Services software (the default) has the
URL: http://www.worldnet.att.net/
You can change your home page (and change back to the default, if you
wish) by choosing the Options/Preferences/Window Styles menu
item, clicking the radio button Home Page Location, then
typing in the URL of the page you wish to be your home page.
(Alternatively, you can check the radio button Blank Page if
you want the home page to be empty of content.)
Each time you ask the Netscape application to open a new window, the
designated home page is brought to screen. The URL can designate a
page from a remote computer or one on your hard disk.
To get the URL of a page on your hard disk, choose File/Open
File. Then select the page (file) on your hard disk (for example,
you can choose your bookmarks file). After the page opens, you'll see
its URL in the location field. You can select and copy the URL, then
paste it into the Home Page Location text field in your
preferences.
At first, you probably won't have any pages stored on your hard disk.
But later, you might want quick and sure access to certain pages such
as one with valuable links or one you've created for yourself.
Ideally, pages on the screen should present images (or other
multimedia effects) as simply and efficiently as text. However,
images (and sounds and movies) are relatively larger in byte size
than text and can take considerable time to transport from remote
computers (servers) to your computer. The length of time needed to
bring a page with images depends on several factors, most prominently
the speed of the modem or direct link connecting you with a remote
server. To compensate for the potential lethargy of transmitting
images, Netscape software offers features that let you manipulate how
images are handled.
The Netscape application loads images into pages automatically. If the
author of a page has designed the page with images among the text
(that is, inline), the images are displayed when you bring the page
to your screen. You have the option, however, of turning off the
automatic loading of images. You can do this by unchecking the
Options/Auto Load Images menu item. When this menu item is
unchecked, the images in pages do not automatically load. Instead,
small icons are placed in the position on the page where an image
would otherwise be. In addition, the small replacement icon is
sometimes accompanied by alternative text. Also called ALT text,
alternative text is shown only as a substitution when an image is not
loaded.
You can then decide to view these images at a later time. To manually
load all images that are represented by icons, you can press the
Images button in the toolbar or select the View/Load
Images menu item. To manually load an individual image, click on
the image's icon.
The advantage of unchecking Auto Load Images is that pages are
brought to screen faster. The disadvantage is that you can't view the
images until you specify that you want the images loaded.
The Auto Load Images item affects subsequent links and not the
current contents of a page. However, if you choose the
View/Reload menu item or press the Reload button on the
toolbar, you bring the current page back again, this time with the
Auto Load Image option active.
You also have the option of displaying an image incrementally as the
image is transmitted or in a single burst after the transmission.
Typically, the While Loading option provides more satisfying
feedback. However, on a fast network, the After Loading option
may complete the load slightly faster.
To set this option, choose the Options/Preferences/Images menu
item, then select one of the two radio buttons: While Loading
or After Loading.
Like highlighted text, an inline image may be linked to another page,
another position on the same page, or any type of external file such
as an external image. As with all links, pointing the mouse button
over a link puts in the URL location of the prospective link in the
status field.
External images (unlike inline images) are displayed in their own
windows. You can view an external image by clicking on a link to the
image. The Netscape application can open external images stored in
GIF (Graphics Interchange Format), JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts
Group), and XBM (X Bit Map) file formats. Other file formats require
that you have a suitable helper application available on your hard
disk (and referenced in the Preferences dialog box of the
Options menu).
Links to external images work like links to pages. An external image
file has a unique URL just like an ordinary page. External images are
not automatically loaded in their full representation even if the
Auto Load Images item is checked.
You can click on highlighted text, an image icon, or an inline image
to bring an external image into a separate window on the screen.
Netscape or the external application opens and presents the image in
a separate window. You must click back into the Netscape window to
continue working with the Netscape application.
Pages that wish to present large or detailed images often have inline
snapshot images (also called thumbnail images) inserted into pages
that serve as links to external images. Unlike the icon replacements,
these snapshots provide an approximate view of the actual image, yet
are still much smaller and faster to transport than the full image.
You can expand the snapshot into the full image by clicking once on
the snapshot.
You can do more than read Netscape pages; you can write on them. Pages
can contain forms for you to enter and send information. For example,
a page might have a form with fields for you to enter a name and
address next to a button that sends the information to the page's
author. Forms may offer editable fields with or without default text,
check boxes, radio buttons, pull-down menus, selection lists, and
buttons to send or clear the information you enter. The content you
enter into a form doesn't permanently alter the page (that is, you're
not modifying the source page at its location), yet the form gives
you the ability to conveniently transmit a response.
To send ordinary e-mail, you fill in fields to supply the content of
your message, the subject summary, and the e-mail address of the
intended recipient. Pages with forms let you reply to information you
read in the page. To send a form, you fill in one or more fields
embedded within a page, usually labeled with instructions and
configured with a button that sends the form's contents to the
recipient without requiring you to provide any e-mail address.
The author of a page determines the layout of a form. A page may
contain multiple forms, each form capable of sending fields
independently of another form on the page. Fields in a form may
restrict the kind or range of text you enter (such as numbers only)
to help you fill in the form as desired.
Typically, forms are used to give you a fast and easy way to make a
request or send back a response regarding the page you are reading.
Forms can supply an interface to databases with fields that let you
query for information and perform Internet searches. The Usenet news
pages, designed for people to communicate with each other on special
interests, contain forms for you to enter articles and subscribe to
newsgroups. The Netscape software has built-in links to pages with
forms for you to comment about the Netscape application, and request
product information.
Netscape software allows computers to transfer information in a secure
way that prevents the forms you send or the pages you receive from
being misappropriated. The graphical elements and dialog boxes that
reflect Netscape's security interface are described in the reference
section on graphical elements.
Security issues arise because information travelling on the Internet
usually take a circuitous route through several intermediary
computers to reach any destination computer. The actual route your
information takes to reach its destination is not under your control.
As your information travels on Internet computers, any intermediary
computer has the potential to eavesdrop and make copies. An
intermediary computer could even deceive you and exchange information
with you by misrepresenting itself as your intended destination.
These possibilities make the transfer of confidential information
such as passwords or credit card numbers susceptible to abuse.
The Netscape application and Netscape server use patented RSA public
key cryptographic technology and custom software to allow you to send
and receive information securely. (The security protocols are open
and are expected to be implemented by other client and server
vendors.) Only your computer and the server can encrypt and decrypt
your information. In transit, the information is an unreadable
jumble. An intermediary can continue to route the data, and even make
copies of it, but the information cannot be decrypted and remains
private and safely communicated.
As part of the cryptographic technology, the Netscape application and
Netscape server are able to authenticate Internet servers. This
prevents an intermediary computer from posing as your destination.
Not all exchanges of information are secure. Netscape uses graphical
elements and dialog boxes to inform you when you are interacting with
secure and insecure server sites.
The public key technology working within the Netscape application and
Netscape server is often described with unfamiliar security
terminology. You might find the explanation of how public keys works
an interesting supplement to your knowledge of Internet security.
Keys are files. You don't open a key (file) like you open a document
or a word processor application. Keys are more like magnetic badges
with powerful encryption and decryption capabilities.
There are two kinds of keys and you need both kinds. One is a private
key. It sits on your computer and you never give it out. The other is
a public key. You can make as many copies of it as you wish and give
it out to everybody.
You need both kinds of keys (private and public) because they are
fundamentally linked. (Like a pair of pants, you always buy both
legs.) You can pass your public key around to whomever you wish, but
in order for any key to perform its decryption duty, it must be
matched back to its linked key-file partner.
Both public and private keys have the ability encrypt and (as a set)
decrypt information. Keys work in two primary ways:
Do you know the name of your news server and e-mail server? If not,
you will have to find out from your service provider, systems
administrator, or resident know-it-all. By specifying the names of
these servers as preference items, Netscape software can provide you
with newsreader features and the ability to send e-mail.
World Wide Web pages provide one means of obtaining information on the
Internet. Two other popular Internet information services are Usenet
newsgroups and electronic mail (e-mail). The Netscape application
lets you fully interact with Usenet newsgroups. You can also send
e-mail with the text of a page included. Upcoming pages describe
these services in more detail.
Before you can access any newsgroup news or send any e-mail, you need
to tell the Netscape application how to make the appropriate
connection to the server computer handling each task. Whereas World
Wide Web pages are distributed by servers familiar with World Wide
Web protocols, Usenet newsgroups and e-mail use their own protocols.
Newsgroup news is distributed by a news server. To specify the name of
your news server, choose the Options/Preferences/News menu
item, then type in the name of the news server in the News (NNTP)
Server field. You should specify a local news server, if
available.
Similar to the way newsgroup news is distributed by a news server,
e-mail is distributed by a SMTP (Simple Mail Transport Protocol)
server. To specify the name of your SMTP server, choose the
Options/Preferences/Mail menu item, then type in the name of
the SMTP server in the Mail (SMTP) Server field. You should
specify a local mail server, if available.
Netscape software lets you receive and send newsgroup postings. A
posting is a article of writing (news, for short) made available for
others on the Internet to read. As you view a posting, Netscape
provides a row of buttons in the content area to allow you to track,
reply to, or initiate postings.
People post articles (send their news) to newsgroups. Newsgroups are
organized by subject; each newsgroup has a name intended to reflect
the topic of discussion for its postings. The Usenet is the
collection of all newsgroups; it is the Internet's multifaceted
bulletin board especially designed for people to communicate news
with one another on special interest topics.
You can access a Usenet newsgroup posting in much the same way as you
access an ordinary page. Clicking on a link to a Usenet newsgroup
brings you the newsgroup list, a directory that lists the titles of
postings. Postings are highlighted like other Netscape links.
Clicking on a link to an individual posting, either in a newsgroup
list page or an ordinary page, brings you the posting. Netscape also
gives you the opportunity to bring a newsgroup list and any of its
postings to your screen by choosing the File/Open Location
menu item and entering the URL of the newsgroup or newsgroup posting.
The locations of Usenet news are formatted similarly, but not
identically, to other pages. For example, the URL
news:alt.tv.northern-exp specifies the server protocol
news: and the newsgroup alt.tv.northern-exp. Unlike
other Internet connections, the URL does not specify a server name
and pathname with preceding slashes.
Each newsgroup has a unique name, described with words separated by
periods. Some words (like alt, short for alternative) specify
categories rather than a particular newsgroup. You can use the
asterisk character (*) as a wildcard to find out the names of
individual newsgroups among the many types of newsgroups. For
example, the URL news:alt.* brings you a list of all the
newsgroups in the category alt. The URL news:alt.tv*
brings you a narrower list of newsgroups in the category of
alt.tv. Other examples of URLs that list categories of
newsgroups include news:comp.* (computers), news:rec.*
(recreation), news:sci.* (science), and news:talk.*
(analysis). Note that not all news servers provide access to all
newsgroups. There are thousands of newsgroups.
Reading Usenet news can be as easy as reading any other Internet page:
Click on a link and bring a Usenet news article to your screen. But
newsgroup pages offer advantages (notably the ability to easily
publish your own writing to other newsgroup readers) and
disadvantages (no images, weak formatting, and limited links).
Newsgroup pages are presented with two rows of buttons (one row at
the top of each page and an identical set at the bottom of each page)
to give you access to the special features of newsgroups.
Each newsgroup presents its articles along threads. A thread bundles
an article with a response to the article. The grouping of a new
topic with one or more responses to the topic (taking the form of an
indented outline) gives the reader a context to share with the
articles' authors. A strictly chronological organization of every
newsgroup contribution would create a discombobulated trail of
articles less pleasant than reading Joyce in his later years.
The outline form of a newsgroup listing page shows how a new topic has
each response indented one level in from the original posting. A
response to a response is indented another level deep, and so on. The
row of buttons on each newsgroup page give you controls for reading
and writing along newsgroup threads. A button selection also allows
you to subscribe to and unsubscribe from newsgroup postings. When you
subscribe to a newsgroup, the name of the newsgroup is added to a
list (a News RC file) maintained by the Netscape software. Choosing
the Directory/Go To Newsgroups menu item or pressing the
Subscribed Newsgroups button from any newsgroup page displays
the current list of subscribed newsgroups as links on a page.
The buttons on a newsgroup page vary depending on whether you are
viewing a page of newsgroup listings or a newsgroup article.
The Netscape application lets you create and send outgoing e-mail.
(You may use the Eudora Light application to receive incoming e-mail.)
With the press of a button, you can insert the text of the current
page in the e-mail message you create. You can also send an
attachment (a file containing the text of a page, the HTML source
code of a page, or a separate file of your choosing).
To send e-mail, choose the File/Mail Document menu item. This
produces the Send Mail/Post News dialog box. You may discover
pages with a link or button that also produce the Send Mail/Post
News dialog box. Likewise, newsgroup pages with a button for
posting articles use this same facility.
The dialog box has several text fields:
You need to know the Internet mail address of where you want your
e-mail to go. Internet addresses typically contain a user name
followed by the @ symbol (pronounced "at"), followed by mail server
location name. For example, to send e-mail to a friend who uses AT&T WorldNet Services, enter:
friend's_e-mail_address@worldnet.att.net
Pressing the Quote Document button inserts the text of the
current page inside the message field. Each line of included text
appears in the message field preceded by the greater than symbol
(>). The Netscape application automatically inserts the
> symbol to differentiate the page's text from your
message.
Pressing the Attach button produces a dialog box that lets you send
e-mail with a file attachment. An attachment is a separate document
sent along with the e-mail message. The dialog box offers the choice
of Document Text, Document Source, or File radio
buttons (with a Browse button to select a file).
If you want to send the current page as an attachment (this may be
helpful if your recipient is going to reuse the document), choosing
the Document Text item sends the text of the message intact
(no > symbols are appended to each line) while choosing the
Document Source item sends the text of the message embedded
with all the HTML instructions that format Internet pages. The
File item lets you select a local file.
Pressing the Send button transmits the message and any
attachments to the recipient. If you've specified a text file
containing your signature in the Mail panel, your signature is
appended to the message field in all of your mailings.
Netscape software gives you the opportunity to save a page as a file
on your computer. You can do this after or instead of bringing the
page to your screen.
Some links, for example those that transport software, sound, or movie
files, don't bring pages. You can often identify these links by
noticing a URL that begins with ftp or ends with a file-type
suffix such as au or mpeg. Clicking on these links can
automatically download (save) a file to disk and launch helper
applications that support the file's format. Most links, however,
point to pages that you can bring to your screen and/or specifically
save on your disk.
The File/Save As menu item produces a dialog box that lets you
save the current page as a source (HTML) file or a text file on your
disk. A file saved
in HTML source format retains the formatting of the original page. A
file saved in text format is presented as plain text. You can save an
image file, but not a page's inline images.
By using a pop-up menu item, you can save a page as a disk file
instead of bringing the page to the screen. While pointing over a
link, click on the right mouse button to pop up the menu. The Save this Link as item
saves to disk (instead of bringing to screen) the page whose link you
are clicking on. The Save this Image as item saves to disk
(instead of bringing to screen) the image whose link you are clicking
on.
Saving to disk is particularly useful for retrieving a nonformatted
page (such as a data file) not intended for viewing. You can also
produce the dialog box for saving a page to disk by clicking on a
link with the shift key held down. Other
pop-up menu items let you copy page and image locations (URLs) to the
clipboard.
Saving to disk is also offered as a pop-up menu item. While pointing
over a link, click on the rightmost mouse button to pop up the menu. The Save this Link
as item saves to disk (instead of bringing to screen) the page
whose link you are clicking on. The Save this Image as item
saves to disk (instead of bringing to screen) the image whose link
you are clicking on. Other pop-up menu items let you copy page and
image locations (URLs) to the clipboard.
After a file is saved to disk, you can use the File/Open File
menu item to display the local file as a Netscape page. (A file on
your disk is a local file; a file out on the network is a remote
file.) For GIF, JPEG, or other nontext files to appear as available
files in the Open File dialog, make sure to select "All Files"
as the file type.
The View/Source menu item lets you view the current page in
HTML format. On Windows, the text is displayed in a dialog box.
The File/Mail Document menu item produces a dialog box that
lets you send the current page as an e-mail attachment. The
Bookmarks/View Bookmarks menu item produces a window or dialog
box that lets you save page links in a file.
Note: Netscape software works on several computer platforms and
reserves the use of a few special characters to help interpret URLs.
To avoid problems, you should not use the following characters as
part of a file name:
Many of the File and Edit menu items in the Netscape
application work as they do on other applications. You can copy from
and print the content area of pages, though you might need to adjust
the size of the Netscape window to have a page print in the way you
wish.
To open a new Netscape window, choose the File/New Window menu
item. The new window brings another copy of your home page to screen
in a fully functional and independent Netscape window. You can have
simultaneous network connections.
To print the contents of the current page, choose the
File/Print menu item or press the Print button in the
toolbar. A Print dialog box lets you select printing options
and begin printing. On Windows, you can choose File/Print
Preview to see a screen display of a printed page.
The Netscape application reformats a document to the printed paper
size when printing a page. The print command rearranges the content
area (text is word-wrapped and graphics are repositioned) in order to
accommodate paper size.
To set up the page for printing on Windows, choose the Print
Setup button from the Print dialog box. You
can use this command to choose landscape printing (across the long
side of paper) instead of the more common portrait orientation.
To cut, copy, and paste, choose the respective items from the
Edit menu. Note that Cut and Paste items are
only effective in certain editable fields. The content area is a
read-only field that only enables you to select and copy text for use
elsewhere.
To find a word or phrase within a page, choose the
To find the same word or phrase again, choose Edit/Find Again.
Netscape Handbook: Table of
Contents
Finding, starting and stopping
links
Linking via buttons and menu
items
Using history and bookmark
lists
Choosing the screen look
Changing styles, fonts, and colors
Selecting a home page
Viewing inline images
Viewing external images
Filling in forms
Identifying security
You can examine the security qualifications of a document in more
detail by choosing the File/Document Information menu item.
The resulting dialog box tells you about encryption grade and server
certification.
Understanding public key
technology
In summary, your public and private key (files) are linked by a
powerful cryptographic algorithm that would require major computer
resources to crack. No one else's keys can decipher messages to you
encrypted with your public key. And no one else's keys can be used to
pose as you by sending messages encrypted with your private key.
Accessing servers for news and
e-mail
Reading
Usenet news
Mastering
Usenet news
Sending e-mail
Saving pages
Printing and finding
info@netscape.com
Copyright © 1994, 1995 Netscape Communications Corporation.