Navigating the Web

Chapter 13

Navigating the Web

In Lesson 3, "Introduction to the World Wide Web," you learned a lot about how the Web works. As you read on, you put the Web on the back burner to become familiar with some of the great things the Internet has to offer. But now you're ready to meet the most interactive and dynamic part of the Net head on.

In this lesson, you find the answers to the following questions:

• How can I deal with so much information on the Web?
• How do I navigate around the Web?
• What are all those buttons for on my browser?
• Can I keep track of where I've been?
• How do I keep a permanent record of my favorite sites?

Whether you use Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer, most of the information in this lesson applies. I give examples for both browsers. For more detailed information on these two browsers, refer to Lesson 14, "Netscape Versus Internet Explorer: Finding the Right Browser."

Coping with Information Overload

Experienced Internet users are constantly inundated with complaints about how useless the Internet has become because too much information is available. When one Web site can index over 50 million Web pages, you obviously can find a lot of information.

But think about this fact for a moment. Is this really anything new? Have you ever been to a major city or university library? Could you handle all the information in all the guides in even one of these libraries? Probably not.

In a real sense, the Web is no different. A great deal of information is available, yes. But, like in many of the libraries you visit, tools are available to help you find what you need. Also, though it may not look like it at first, the Web does have an organization that enables you to span vast distances of resources in a short period of time.

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Time Saver: Don't panic. These words made famous by Douglas Adams in The Hitchhiker's Guide series are applicable here. Perhaps the biggest key to conquering the Internet and the Web is simply to remain calm. If you like, you can even take a towel!

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Before you learn about some of the actual tools you'll use to find your way around, think about how many people are able to go into a large library without getting overwhelmed; then apply those principles to the Web. By doing so, you can have a set of mental tools to keep in mind as you tackle the tangled Web.

• Familiarity breeds...well, familiarity. No one has ever gone into a library for the first time and been comfortable. You need to walk around some, find out where different types of guides are located--get to know the place. Apply this rule to the Web. Surf around some; just look around to get a feel for where things are located and get a feel for what it's like.
• The right tools are invaluable. Just as you'd never try to keep the locations of six different library guides in your head, don't try to do too much on the Web either. Use your browser's History and guidemark features (which I describe later in this lesson) to help you. The Web is a big place, so don't be afraid to write things down either.
• Go ahead and ask questions. Take advantage of what you've learned about newsgroups and e-mail to get information about the Web. Friends, professionals, and others who are accessible electronically make up a great team of Internet "reference librarians."
• A card catalog is the best tool to help you find information in the library. Internet search engines, covered in Lesson 16, "Searching the Web for Virtually Anything," are a must-have on the Internet. You will find yourself searching the Web a lot to locate only that information you're interested in.

Exploring Navigation Basics

You must be familiar with several basics to start exploring the Web. You must understand how individual pages on the Web can be viewed and explored, you need to know how hyperlinks work, and you need to be familiar with browser toolbar buttons. Once you're familiar with these important parts of the Web, you're well on your way to becoming an experienced Web user.

Navigating Web Pages

If navigating an individual Web page seems simple and obvious to you, you might want to skip to the next section. You might be surprised, however, at the number of beginners who fail to realize how to get around on a Web page.

The key is in realizing that any particular Web page can be as long or as short as the Webmaster programs it to be. Many people, when they get on the Web for the first time, think that what appears on their screen is all there is. The page in Figure 13.1, for example, contains a lot of text, links and "action," but you should notice one thing right away. Note that both the horizontal and vertical scroll bars are active, which tells you that this page is wider and longer than will fit in the screen.

Figure 13.1.

You can probably tell that there's more than meets the eye on this Web page.

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Time Saver: Maximizing your browser window to take up your entire monitor is always a good idea. This way, you can ensure that you view the most possible information. The only time this may not be true is if you have a large (17-inch or bigger) monitor, in which case adjusting your browser to take up a half screen should be fine.

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Unless the specific piece of information you want is at the very top of a page, you should make a habit of scrolling down a Web page when you first encounter it. By doing so, you know how much and what type of information is on the page you're looking at.

Following That Link

The simplest and most useful tool on the Web is the hyperlink. This underlined and colored word can take you to a page next door or halfway around the world. The hyperlink is the key to the nonlinear nature of the Web.

The hyperlink also is the reason that the Web is so easy to use. With a quick glance, you know immediately where you can go from any page. The page shown in Figure 13.2 (http://www.shareware.com), for example, has text links to New Arrivals, Search, Bag the beta, and more. Because these words look different from other words on the page, you know you can click them to go to another page.

Figure 13.2.

Text hyperlinks are easy to see and follow on the Web.

Not all hyperlinks are so obvious, however. Often, Webmasters create graphics that are themselves hyperlinks. Obvious graphical hyperlinks have colored borders around them so that you know they are hyperlinks.

Webmasters are more commonly putting graphical hyperlinks on their pages now to create a more realistic feel to them. If you look again at the page in Figure 13.2, you will see a chair in the bottom-right corner. Even though it doesn't have a border around it, the chair is a link, too.

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Time Saver: When you're trying to find links on a page with a lot of graphics, pay special attention to your cursor. Whenever it passes over a link on a page, it turns from a cursor into a hand. When your cursor becomes a hand, you know you're looking at a hyperlink.

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You also should know about one last type of graphical hyperlink: the image map. An image map is a special type of graphic that takes you to different pages depending on where on the graphic you click. If you see a graphic with a row of guides, for example, you might go to a different page depending on which guide your cursor is over when you click.

Using Toolbar Buttons

You need to do more than simply click links to go from one place to another. You need another set of tools to help you. Most major browsers offer a number of toolbar buttons to help you navigate the Web. The exact names and functions of these various buttons vary from browser to browser, but the most-used buttons are usually always the same. Table 13.1 gives you a breakdown of the most common buttons.

Table 13.1. Common toolbar buttons.

These buttons, along with hyperlinks, will allow you to do a large majority of your Web browsing. Both browsers, however, offer an additional set of buttons that let you accomplish even more. Table 13.2 displays a few of these buttons.

Table 13.2. Additional browser buttons.

Figure 13.3 shows the toolbars of both Netscape Navigator and Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Both browsers enable you to adjust which buttons you actually display on your screen. For more details on these two browsers, go to Lesson 14.

Figure 13.3.

Netscape Navigator and Microsoft's Internet Explorer offer a wide variety of options to help you navigate and explore the Web.

History Does Repeat Itself

If you were to walk around a large library without any clues as to where you were going, you would probably get lost before long. Fortunately, many libraries have those colored lines on the floor to tell you where you're going and where you've been.

This same type of tool comes in the form of the Go menu in both Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator. As you visit each page during a particular session on the Web, your browser makes a note of where you've been in what is sometimes called a history file.

You can access the history file through the Go menu to go back instantly to any of the pages you've visited. Figure 13.4 shows a sports addict's history file after a bit of cruising.

Figure 13.4.

The history file tells you everywhere you've been during a particular session on the Web.

You need to know one more thing about how your browser keeps track of where you've been. Obviously, the information about each page you've been to has to be stored somewhere on your computer. This storage area is called cache, which can be either a portion of your computer's RAM or hard drive where data is temporarily stored for fast retrieval. Obviously, the more room available for cache, the more links your browser can remember.

If you find that your history file never gets very long, you can try to improve your situation by doing the following:

• Close as many open applications (besides your browser) as you can. The memory that closing these applications frees up can often allow your browser to keep a longer history file.
• Turn off the helpers. If you don't find yourself using Java or some of the other built-in capabilities of your browser, disabling them may free up more memory when you start your browser.
• Adjust your computer's virtual memory. Increasing your virtual memory can improve performance for your browser.

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CAUTION: In the Windows 95 Virtual Memory control panel, you get this warning. These settings can adversely affect system performance and should be adjusted by advanced users and system administrators only. Be careful when adjusting these settings in Windows 95 or any other operating system, and make note of the original settings so that you can restore them in case something goes wrong.

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Making a Permanent Record of Your Travels

I can think of one serious downside to the history file. The second you quit your browser, your history is erased from the Go menu. As a result, you start with an empty Go menu every time you start your browser.

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Just A Minute: Internet Explorer does keep the history file active between Web sessions. To view your history from past sessions, however, you must choose Go|Open History Folder. Explorer also enables you to adjust how far back you keep your history. Choose View|Options|Navigation and then adjust the History setting to choose your taste.

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Even if you didn't have to start over each time, you would probably want a way to go instantly to an often-visited or favorite site without having to find it every time. Most major browsers have this "guidemarking" capability. Though different browsers call it by different names (as you'll learn in the next lesson), I refer to these markers by the generic term "guidemarks" for now.

Adding guidemarks

Adding a guidemark in either Netscape or Explorer is easy. Simply go to a site for which you want a permanent record and choose guidemarks|Add guidemarks in Netscape or choose Favorites|Add To Favorites in Internet Explorer. That's it.

From now on, by simply clicking the guidemarks or Favorites menu, you see all the sites you can access with a click. When you first start to surf the Internet with a browser, this process will be sufficient. As you become more experienced, however, and need to keep track of more sites, you'll need to be able to do a little more. Both browsers make modifying your guidemarks "drag-and-drop easy."

Editing guidemarks in Netscape

Soon you'll discover you've created a long list of guidemarks that are so disorganized that you almost wish you didn't have them at all. In Netscape, making your guidemarks more organized is easy.

After you make a few guidemarks yourself, choose guidemarks|Go to guidemarks. A window like the one shown in Figure 13.5 then appears. Changing the order of your guidemarks from this window is as simple as clicking a guidemark and dragging it up or down. When you release your mouse button, the guidemark appears in its new place.

Figure 13.5.

The guidemark editing window in Netscape is easy to use.

You may want to complete other tasks with your guidemarks, however, such as putting related guidemarks in the same folder or deleting guidemarks. The following is a rundown of the most commonly used guidemark editing options. (Figure 13.6 shows the guidemark editing window after some of these changes have been made).

• Choosing File|Import imports guidemarks from another browser for inclusion in your Netscape guidemark list.
• Choosing Item|Insert guidemark enables you to enter a guidemark manually by name and URL.
• Choosing Item|Insert Folder enables you to create a folder in your guidemark list. After you've created it, you can drag and drop related guidemarks into the folder for easy organization.
• Choosing Edit|Delete removes a guidemark from your list.

Figure 13.6.

All these guidemarks were edited within this window.

Editing Favorites in Explorer

Editing favorites (guidemarks) in Internet Explorer is also easy. Choosing Favorites|Organize Favorites takes you to a window that looks almost identical to any other Windows 95 window, as you can see in Figure 13.7.

Figure 13.7.

Organizing favorites is similar to organizing any other information in Windows 95.

Explorer is slightly more limited in how you can organize and edit guidemarks. You can't simply move their order, for example, by dragging and dropping. You can only move them from one folder to another. The basic functions are still available, however:

• Folder Button: Clicking the Folder button at the top of the window enables you to create a new folder into which you can move related guidemarks.
• Delete Button: This button removes a selected favorite from your list.
• Move Button: Clicking this button brings up a dialog box that enables you to move your guidemark to any location.

No matter what browser you use, creating and organizing guidemarks is simple with just a little practice. You will find that you can organize literally hundreds of guidemarks to be available at your fingertips.

Summary

This lesson explained how the Web is similar to any large library and how you need to apply some of the same rules when dealing with the amount of information that's available. You also learned about many of the tools available to help you organize the Internet.

You know that you can easily access toolbar buttons to help you navigate and get specialized information. You also learned that Web browsers keep an easily accessible history of where you've been. Finally, you learned how to keep and organize a guidemark list of your favorite places on the Internet.

Workshop

The following workshop helps solidify the skills that you learned in this lesson.

Q&A

Q I've seen the term "cookies" around and don't know how they work. What are they?

A A cookie is a file that a server puts on your machine when you access it. The next time you visit the server (or other cookie-capable servers), this file can be read and additional information can be deposited into it. Some people consider this use an invasion of privacy and don't accept cookies. To have control over whether you choose to accept cookies, choose View|Options|Advanced and then select the Warn Before Accepting "Cookies" option in Explorer, or choose Options|Network Preferences|Protocols and then select the Accepting a Cookie option.

Q I am color blind and have a very difficult time reading many of the Web pages that are out there. What can I do?

A Netscape Navigator gives you the option of always displaying every Web page only as you want to see it. In Navigator, choose Options|General Preferences|Colors. Choose a set of fonts and background colors that are easy for you to read and then select the Always Use My Colors, Overriding Document option.

Quiz

Take the following quiz to see how much you've learned.

Questions

Answers

Activity

Your biggest task, both now and in the future, will be to have a large and easily accessible list of guidemarks. Well, you might as well start now. Spend an hour or so cruising the Net, making at least 10 guidemarks as you go. After you're done, edit the guidemarks into at least two different categories. If you don't want to keep them all, feel free to delete some of them after you've organized them.