Netscape was the first company to come out with a public browser. This was originally called Navigator and now Communicator. You can download a free version from netscape. Netscape Communicator is a web
browser. In other words it lets you connect from your computer to
other computers on web. In order to do that first you have to open
an account with an ISP (Internet Service Provider) like America
Online etc. Once you have an account you can surf the net.
Netscape Communicator has a lot of features that let the user customize his/her browser according to their needs. Lets look at some of these features now. Just so that we are on the same page, we will be looking at the following edition of communicator, Netscape® Communicator 4.5. Lets get started
Here is
what Netscape Communicator looks like if you visit Yahoo.
We are going to discuss the Toolbar menus in Netscape
briefly.
Navigation Toolbar
File Menu
Edit Menu
View Menu
Go Menu
Communicator
Help
The first thing I want to talk about is the Navigation toolbar. This is what you see below the menu. It has buttons like Back, Forward etc. This is the easiest way to get around the web. A lot of times you will use these buttons rather than the menu options above. Lets look at these one at a time
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Back:
This is used to go back to the previous page that you looked at
Forward:
This is used to go to the next page that you just browsed
Reload:
You can use this button so reload a page that did not load properly.
Home:
This is used to go directly to the home page you have chosen
Search:
This opens up a page where you can search for other topics. This is called a search engine and lets to look up information from a number of sources.
Netscape:
This is a customized page that Netscape lets you create for free. You can choose different features depending on your interest.
Print:
This one is self explanatory. It lets you print a document from the web
Security:
This button gives you information about the page you are looking at. For example if you are trading stocks in your account, the page is secure with encryption so others cannot view it
Stop:
This one lets you stop downloading the page if it is taking too long
The file menu is an alternative way to work in the web browser. Under the File Menu, you will find options like
File  New Navigator
This lets you open a new window where you can surf the web also in addition to the one you are already working in.
File Open Page
This lets you open a new web location or a file from your hard drive.
File Save as
lets you save a web page on your hard drive. This is useful if you have found some important information that you would like to save on your computer.
File Edit page
lets you look at the design of a web page in case you want to get some ideas on how to make a web page.
File Page setup
File Print preview
File Print
These options let you print a web document to your printer. You can select any number of pages to print and also change the settings of the document.
The options under Edit are just like the standard.
The Edit Cut combo lets you cut a section from the web page.
The Edit Copy lets you copy a section from the web page.
Finally the Edit Paste lets you paste the previous item from the clipboard.
The clipboard is where the computer stores temporary information for edit operations.
A few new items under the Edit Menu are the Find in page, Search internet and the Preferences options. The first lets you find a string which can be a character or a number of characters in the current page. Search internet is the same as the Search button for the navigation toolbar. It takes to a search engine for retrieving information on any topic. The preferences is a detailed section where you can change the settings of your browser. You can control how the text appears, your home page location, your e-mail settings and newsgroup settings. You can also change advance settings like cookies and security options.
View gives you control over what you want to see in the browser window. You can choose to see all the toolbars available to nothing but the web page. It also lets you increase or decrease the font size for better viewing.
Reload and Refresh let you load a page again if some of the content was not loaded properly before. The stop loading, stop animation help you control the download processes of your browser. Pictures and videos take longer to download and can slow your browser. You can choose not to upload images and hence save time.
This menu is a
short cut to the pages you already visited. Under this menu, you will see the
following options
Back
When you
select this option, it will take you to the last page you visited
Forward
This
does the opposite of Back. It takes you the previous page. Notice this
option stays disabled as you are opening new pages. It is however helpful if
you go back a number of pages and need to get back to the previous page
Home
This one
takes you to your home page which can be set under Edit Preferences option
After
the three menu options, you will see a list of pages that you have recently
visited. This is a dynamic list that updates as you go from one web page to
another.
This menu lets
you access other features like mail and newsgroups. We are going to discuss each
option under this menu briefly.
Navigator
This
option takes you back to the communicator window
Messenger
If you
have you email and newsgroups setup to work with Netscape, this is the
option that will take you there. Since a lot of people use Outlook with
Internet Explorer, this is hardly ever used but it is there incase you are a
big Netscape fan. When you click on this option, you will get a new window
that looks like this
Composer
This is
a stripped down HTML editor which lets you create new HTML documents. In
order to learn more about HTML, please view the Web Publishing section.
Bookmarks
Bookmarks
let you store popular pages that you visit frequently.
Newsgroups
This
option lets you subscribe to news groups of your interest. Lets say you like
classic cars and would be interested in reading articles. If you have access
to a newsgroup server, you can get articles of interest
Address
Book
This is
another add on from the mail services where you would keep information on
your contacts
The Help
Menu is a good area to find assistance on anything relating to Netscape
Communicator. I like to use the Index tab which lists all the available
topics. Lets say you wanted to find help on Bookmarks. Here is what you
would do
Help Help Contents
A new
dialog box will open. Go ahead and click on Index. In the space below Look
for type bookmarks. This is what you will see.
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