Glossary of Terms, Toolbar Buttons, Directory Buttons, and Other Thingumajigs (for Netscape v3 and v4)

Terms

Bookmarks
A pointer to some site you have visited and wish to visit again, without having to write out the URL address each time. For more info on bookmarks...

Cursor
The I-beam that flashes in your active application. You place your cursor by moving your mouse, and then clicking once. The cursor is the place where any type you input will go.

Download
To transfer electronic files from a server to your computer. Transfer time depends on the size of the files and of your modem. (cf Upload)

E-mail A way to communicate using the internet. You need the appropriate software; we recommend Eudora Lite, which is a shareware program that you can download from a site on the web. Commercial programs are also available, and Netscape itself can be used in a pinch to send and receive email. (cf Email Netiquette)

Icon
In reference to the web and computers, an icon is any, usually small, representative image that you can click on e.g., that mailbox from that other page you passed way back when.

Internet
Simply put, the Internet, aka the net, is a lot of computers that are linked together. When you go online, you are linking, via phone lines, to a computer. The Internet includes, among other services, the World Wide Web (where we are now), email, and newsgroups.

Linked Text
Linked text is the basic magic of the web. Text that's underlined, and usually of a different color, is text that is linked to another page or site on the web. Links that you have followed turn color again (on this site they will become the same color as the ordinary text) but they remain underlined. You'll also notice that your cursor turns into a little hand whenever you're on top of a link. Look to the bottom of your screen, and you'll see a new URL. This tells you where you will go if you follow that link.

Modem
Modulator/Demodulator. There, now you know. A modem (emphasis on the first syllable; "mowed'em") is the piece of equipment that allows your computer to connect to phone lines, in order to send and receive faxes or go online. Common home modem speeds (in kbit/s) slowest 14.4, 28.8, 36.6, 56.6 (Flex or X2), 125 (ISDN) 500 (Cable), 1,000 (ADSL) faster, commercial lines including fibre optic, T3 and T1 are much, much faster.

News Group
A gathering place for topical discussions on virtually any topic, each newsgroup is topic specific, e.g., alt.primary.education - which would contain topical threads, e.g., one for math anxiety and another on phonics, each thread is composed of email messages available for anyone to read or comment on.

Online
You are online when your computer is linked, via a modem and phone lines, to a server.

Server
A server is a computer that's got the right software to process your requests for files or web pages. If getting a file or web page takes a long time, it could be due to a busy server, especially if you're on a popular site.

Site
The name for a group of web pages that are related. A site is to a web page as a neighborhood is to a house.

Surfing
A productive activity or a big waste of time, depending on what sites you're visiting. Surfing is the slang for browsing the Internet. (ie what you're doing now)

Upload
To transfer electronic files from your computer to a server. Transfer time depends on the size of the files and of your modem. (cf Download)

World Wide Web
Usually called "the web". The World Wide Web, aka the web, www, or w³, is made up of web sites. Sites consist of web pages, which are in turn made up of text, images,video, sound, animation; in short, nearly any form of communication. Web pages are just ordinary computer files with a few tags added to tell the computer details about display and links.

Toolbar Buttons

Displays the previous page in the history list. A history list references a hierarchy of pages you have already viewed.


Displays the next page in the history list. When you use Back or a history menu item to retrieve a page, using Forward gets the proceeding page. Forward is only available after you use Back or a history item.


Redisplays the current Netscape page, reflecting any changes made prior to the original loading. Netscape checks the network server to see if any change to the page has occurred. If there's no change, the original page is retrieved from the cache. If there's a change, the updated page is retrieved from the network server.


Displays the home page designated in the General Preferences|Appearance panel. The default for our school system computers is...


Links to Netscapes Search Resource page.


Editable guide to interesting places on the Internet.


Loads images into pages. This is useful when the Options|Auto Load Images menu item is unchecked and icons have been substituted for images. By loading images, you replace the icons with the intended images.


Prints the content area of the current Netscape page, based on your Page Setup settings. Go to File, then Page Setup to access features to print or not print a page's background, to print a black page with white text as white page with black text, to stamp a page with its URL and more.


Information about the pages security level. A secure page, one used for Internet banking or commerce, should show a closed lock in the bottom left corner of the screen, and stationary (i.e., it is not part of the page, but a part of the border around the page) solid blue line just below the toolbars.


Halts any ongoing transfer of page information.

Directory Buttons (from v3)
Netscape's Directory buttons connect you to pages that are designed to help beginners take a tour of the Web. There are 2 Directory buttons in Netscape that you will use most frequently:



The Handbook button takes you to a full on-line handbook for Netscape. It contains all of the items that this tutorial covers plus many extra items that we don't cover here.



The Net Search button is a directory of Internet search engines that you can use to find specific information or a particular page, either by searching page titles, subject fields, document content, or other indexes and directories. Due to the fact that every search engine works differently, this tutorial will not attempt to go into depth on searching. For more information look for on-line help within each search engine.

Key Menus

Edit
Preferences
Gives you access to a plethora of special functions, such as which HTML code editor you would like to use when using Netcomposer...

Thingumajigs

Dock Component Bar
A free floating window box that allows you to access Netscape's browser (Navigator), e-mail (mailbox), newsgroups (Discussions), and HTML editing software (NetComposer). When the dock isn't floating it can be found at the bottom of browser window.

Progress bar
The progress bar (bottom, right hand, next to the small envelope ) animates to show the progress of the current operation. The bar shows the percentage done of document layout as a page loads and the percentage of kilobytes loaded as an external image loads.


Window title bar
An author of a page specifies the title as part of the page's HTML source text.

URL
In a world of electronic pages, the URL, short for Uniform Resource Locator (also called a Universal Resource Locator), acts as a unique address, much like everyone has their own unique fingerprint. A URL is made up of three main components.

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 (which loads a file from your local hard drive), 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 home.netscape.com). Each server on the Internet has a unique address name whose text refers to the organization maintaining the server. The last item listed in the server ID usually lets you know what type of organization or what country the server is part of.

The last component, the pathname, identifies the location of an item on the server. For example, a pathname usually specifies the name of the file comprising the page (such as /welcome.html), possibly preceded by one or more directory names (folder names) that contain the file (such as /home/welcome.html).

Some pathnames use special characters. If you are typing a URL into the location field, you'll need to enter the characters that exactly match the URL. For example, some pathnames contain the tilde character (~) which designates a particular home directory on a server.

You usually do not need to know a page's URL because that information is always included as part of a highlited link. But when you are in a situation where you have the URL address but no link to click on, Netscape gives you the opportunity to type in a URL directly into the location text field. Using the URL, Netscape will bring you the specified page just as if you had clicked on an automatic link.

Bookmarks

Add Bookmark
Adds the title of the current Netscape page to the list of pages in the bookmark file. The Bookmarks menu grows as you add bookmarks. Initially, the menu contains two items: one that adds a bookmark item and another to view the Bookmarks window. Bookmarks are stored as a list and represented by a bookmark file on your hard disk. The bookmarks list can be viewed in the Bookmarks window.

Bookmark items
The Bookmarks menu appends an item with the title of each page you add as a bookmark. Choose the menu item to display the page. Choose Window then Bookmarks to view and edit the bookmark list.