Netscape Communicator 4.0 Tips

Like other software companies, Netscape is constantly improving on their products. Communicator 4.0 is the latest release of the company's suite of Internet products. Here are some helpful tips, tricks, and techniques to help you use Communicator in your forays into the Internet.

Communicator is now FREE!

Netscape is now offering the latest version of Communicator as a free download. That's right. Free. To get your copy, go to the Netscape Home Page and follow the directions for downloading.

Speedy Address Fields

Navigator, the Web browser application in the Communicator suite, now supports and AutoFill feature. This means you don't have to bother typing the http://www or the .com parts of a Web address in the address field. Simply type the name, like webnovice for instance, and Navigator automatically fills in the rest of the address for you. (Note: This will only work with addresses ending in .com -- others, such as .net, .edu, .org, and.mil will have to be filled in by manually typing the address.)

Address Guess

Navigator will automatically try to complete an Internet address as you type it into the address filed. It does so by checking previously visited sites and matches up letters to what you are typing in the field. If a match is found it fills in the rest of the address for you.

In A Hurry? Turn Off Graphics

Sometimes the Web can be soooo sloooowww. You can speed it up dramatically by turning off graphics in Web pages. That way, only the text is shown and you save the download time getting all the pictures. While using Navigator select Edit, then Preferences. Click Advanced and uncheck the box next to Automatically Load Images.

Select Graphics

If you turned off graphics as in the tip above, you can still view a graphic or picture. Just click its icon and Navigator will fetch the image for you.

Organize Your Bookmarks

As you travel the Web and bookmark the cool places you find, pretty soon you're drowning in bookmarks. You can organize your bookmarks any way you want. For example, you might want to put all your business related sites in a business folder, and all your fun sites in another folder. To create new bookmark folders:

• Select Bookmarks then Go To Bookmarks
• Choose File from the menu, then New Folder
• Type the name for a new folder in the Name field of the Bookmark Properties dialog box.
• Click OK
• Now you can sort your bookmarks into the new folders. Click on the bookmark and hold the mouse button down while moving the pointer to the new folder. Now, release the button. The bookmark now drops into the new folder. (Note: This is known as Drag and Drop.)

Hide Those Toolbars

The default settings on Navigator makes it display the Navigation, Location, and Personal Toolbars. Recover valuable screen space by hiding those you don't want on the screen. Click on the little down arrow tab on the left edge of the Toolbar you want to hide to turn it off.

Go Directly Back

Clicking the down arrow on Navigator's Location field will display a list of the sites you have recently visited.  Scroll down the list and click on a site to get back to it quickly.

Start With Your Start Page

When Navigator starts it will always take you to the Netscape home page but you can change this to any page YOU want. To change the start page select Edit, then Preferences. Under Category click Navigator. Look for the Location field in the middle of the window. In this field type the URL (address) of the page you wish Navigator to start with every time you launch it.

Start Here

You can make the page you are currently viewing Navigator's start page by clicking Use Current Page in the tip above.

Use Bookmarks For Home

Instead of using someone else's home page as a starting point, why not use your own bookmarks? This way, whenever you start Navigator you can double-click on the page you want to go to right from the start. Here's how to set it up:

• Click Edit
• Select Preferences. Under Category click Navigator
• Check to see if the option Navigator Starts With: Home Page is checked. If not, click on the box to put a check in it.
• Replace the URL in field with this address: c:\Netscape\Defaults\Bookmark.htm (Make sure you use the backward slashes!)
• Click OK, exit Navigator and restart it.

Navigator now launches with your bookmarks as your new Start Page.

Track Web Sites

Navigator's History file comes in handy if you want to check up on who's been visiting where. (For example, you might want to see what your children have been up to.) To view the History file, click Go, then Window and select History. Right-click on any one and select Go To Page from the drop down menu.

Empty The Cache

Navigator places all the text, graphics, sound files, video files and anything else it finds on a Web page into a folder on your hard disk. This feature, called caching, speeds up the loading of sites when you visit them again. After surfing the Web for a while though, hundreds, or maybe even thousands, of files are deposited on your disk. The result is a heavy drain on your computer's resources and slows down your browser. Clean out the cache every now and then to keep Navigator running at top speed. Here's how:

• Click Edit, then Preferences
• In the Preferences window look under Category and click Advanced, then Cache
• Click on both the Clear Memory Cache Now and Clear Disk Cache Now buttons
• Click OK after the confirmation box appears

Personal Sites

The Personal Toolbar feature is a great addition to Navigator. It lets you add Web sites you like for quick, easy access. To add a Web site to your Personal toolbar, first go to the site you want to add. Move your mouse pointer over the area between the Bookmarks and the Location field. There will be a little page icon there and the mouse pointer will change to a hand. Click and hold the left mouse button and drag the icon to the Personal Toolbar and release. A button for the site now appears in the Personal Toolbar.

Change Font Size

If the default page font displayed on the screen is to small to read comfortably, you can increase the size. Select View on the menu bar and choose Increase Font.

Change The Font Type

Some fonts site designers choose for their pages are hard on the eyes. Or, perhaps you just prefer another type face to display your text with. To change the default fonts Navigator uses select Edit from the menu bar, then Preferences. Under Category click Fonts. For Windows 95 users, the default fonts will be Times New Roman and Courier New. Click the down arrow to bring up a list of fonts Navigator can use and scroll to find one you like. Click on a font to change the default and click OK. If you don't like the result just repeat the process until you find what looks best to you.

Search Search Results

You use search engines such as Yahoo!, Webcrawler, or Excite regularly to find documents on the Web. But, after you find the page you can quickly search that too for the word(s) you're looking for by having Navigator search the document. Click Edit in the Menu Bar and select Find In Page. A Find Window will open. Type in the word you're searching for in the filed and click the Find Next button. Navigator will highlight the word on the current page.