A Quick Introduction to Netscape

Netscape is the browser used most often at Princeton for exploring the World Wide Web the WWW. Netscape runs on just about every kind of computer; including UNIX systems, PCs, and MACs. Microsoft's Internet Explorer is another popular browser, but it runs only on Windows 95. To run Netscape, type

netscape http://www.cs.princeton.edu/courses/cs126/ &

The argument http://www.cs.princeton.edu/courses/cs126/ is the Universal Resource Locator, the URL, that specifies the starting page in the WWW. If you omit this argument, you'll get the default home page for your client. Other good starting points are http://www/ and http://www.cs/.

Here's what a Netscape window looks like.

Netscape pages contain text and hyperlinks (which are also called anchors). A hyperlink is a highlighted word, phrase, or image that, when activated, takes you to a new page or resource somewhere on the Internet. Netscape highlights hyperlinks with color, underlining, or both.The new page can be a WWW document, a text file, an image, an audio clip, etc. You activate a hyperlink by clicking it once with the left mouse button.

A Netscape window includes buttons and pull-down menus. The words along the top list pull-down menu topics; to activate one, move the mouse over the word and click the left button. To select one of the actions that appears, move the mouse over the action desired and click the left button. For example, activating File, then moving down to Exit and clicking terminates Netscape. This sequence is often written as File | Exit. The buttons displayed in the row under the top row of words are shortcuts to navigation aids. To execute the button, just click on it with the left button. The most important buttons are listed below; you can also get to these aids from the pull-down menus.

Back	takes you back to the page you visited before the current one, so this button returns to a page after you've followed one of its hyperlinks, for example. A synonym for Go | Back.
Forward	takes you forward again after you've gone back to a previously visited page. A synonym for Go | Forward.
Home	jumps to your "home" page, which can be set by Options | General Preferences. A synonym for Go | Home.
Reload	causes Netscape to reread the current page from its source. Use this button if you think the page has been updated since you started running Netscape.
Open	prompts you to enter a URL and then goes to that page.

The Help pull-down menu offers extensive online help. You'll probably want to read about "window history." Netscape keeps track of the pages you've visited, and Go displays a list of the recent pages; selecting one jumps to that page. You can also keep Bookmarks to your favorite pages.