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intro browser
Netscape is the web browser currently installed in our labs. Internet Explorer is the other major browser used, though there are actually quite a few different browsers available.
Of course you can also click on a link on a web page and this will load the URL that the link is, but this is different to actually typing in a URL that you want to visit. If you get a fullstop in the wrong place, or spell something wrong, the URL will not work. The user (you, the reader) can choose to override any settings that the web writer might apply regarding font size and presentation. These options are able to be set under Options General, and allow you to set the default font, size, colour, etc. Most people, most of the time, leave these as they come, and let the web page author's decision about colour, size, etc control presentation. However, as hypertext, it is very important to recognise that the user is able to control this, just as the user can resize the browser window. This also means that you should not be too precious about layout when writing for the web. Many people choose not to view images when the use the web. This is done because it speeds up the display of pages (in the case of poorly designed sites it can make a considerable difference). This is also controlled by the reader, under Options General. If you turn images off you can view images on a page by either:
It is possible to visit more than one web page at a time. Simply use Command N or File New to open a second browser window. This is often a very productive way to work since many web sites are very slow due to congested bandwidth. Remember to move the windows around a bit so you can see what is going on. You can also use the Window menu to move between the windows. Of course you can also open a third or even fourth window, but you eventually reach a point where the browser will give up, or things just get too busy. Where you find a web page that you think you might want to return to then bookmark it. You do this using the Add Bookmark command under the Bookmark menu, or by pressing Command D. Of course in a lab you might be on a different machine next time, but you can save your bookmarks to a file and open them from within Netscape. In this way you can build a decent bookmark list for your work. Remember to save it to your account on the file server. To save (and open) a bookmark file select Bookmarks from under the Window menu, or type Command B. It is very easy to get content off a web page. If you want the text then simply select File Save As, give the page a name that makes sense, make sure it says text in the popup menu, and save it to your server account. This will be a text file, you can open it in any word processor, and you can copy and paste the content. It may have a hard return at the end of each line, so you might need to do some editing in a word processor. To get an image hold the mouse button down over the image in the browser window until a floating menu pops up, simply select the option you want ("save image as") and save it into your server account. The image can be viewed (and edited) in Photoshop. That's about it for a very basic introduction to using the browser, but these are handy to know to help you in writing web pages. using a browser understanding the parts bookmarks
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