Use this program to effortlessly browse through a set of web pages that you define. You are looking at a locally stored web page pointed at by Stepping Stone as the first web page you want to see each session. The rest of the URLs are for major news sites on the web. The includsion of this pre-stocked .STD file should demonstrate the gist and value of Stepping Stone. If you want to change the contents of this default .STD file, click EDIT above.
Stepping Stone is straightforward to use. Just make sure your Internet connection is active and that you have Microsoft Internet Explorer installed on your computer. To begin browsing major news sites on the web, click the right of left buttons now.
Here's a brief description of what each icon does:
FILE Use this to load a new .STD file (or THEME file). A .STD file is just a text file that contains a list of URL addresses you want to use Stepping Stone to browse each day. DEFAULT.STD is the file that loads up automatically each time you start Stepping Stone. Stepping Stone is distributed with a default .STD file that includes a list of major news organizations on the web. You can use any text editor to create an .STD file (in addition to via the NEW icon on the Stepping Stone control panel). Just make sure that each URL has its own line and that you save the file with a '.STD' extension.
LEFT/RIGHT These buttons just navigate Stepping Stone through the list of web URLs stored in your .STD file. It is important to point out that Stepping Stone will attempt to load each next page ahead in your list in the background. This is so that while you browse one page, the next is being downloaded for maximum speed during load up. It really helps pokey dialup connections.
BATTLE - Back in the mid-90s not everyone had a good Internet connection. Sometimes you'd go to load a page and nothing would happen until you hit RELOAD on your browser a couple of times. The "C'mon" button was just a way to do so in case you ran into that kind of trouble with a Stepping Stone URL. How times have changed -- unless you're an AOL user. Anyway, I no longer felt this C'MON button was needed so I replaced its function with a call directly to BATTLE BLOG. Battle Blog is an online BBS that allows visitors to promote and demote the posts of others. I don't ask anything for anyone to use Stepping Stone, so I've literally made a plug for Battle Blog by building it in as this button. If you want a Stepping Stone version without this button, or perhaps with it programmed to go someplace else, please go to the support page and make me a donation. I'll recompile a version for you and send it along.
END This shuts Stepping Stone down and closes out Microsoft Internet Explorer.
GRAB When you find yourself at a website not already included in your .STD file, you can click GRAB and Stepping Stone will store the current URL for you automatically. It added to the end of your Stepping Stone URL list, so you may want to manually edit its placement using EDIT.
EDIT This allows you to manually edit the list of Stepping Stone URLs the way you would edit any text file. Stepping Stone browses in the order it finds the URLs, so you can control your browsing sequence by moving URLs around the way you want them. You can do this with a standard text editor, too, of course.
NEW This allows you to begin a new .STD or THEME file. Separate .STD files would be ideal to categorize certain kinds of browsing sessions, say between family members or interests.
SUPPORT Click this button to visit the Stepping Stone Support site.
That's it. In case you haven't guessed, this explanation file was compiled in a hurry. For an updated DEFAULT.STD visit the support site by clicking the SUPPORT icon or by directly visiting http://www.davidpinero.com/stepping.