Netscape Handbook: Customizing your Navigator

Netscape Handbook: Customizing your Navigator
Handbook: Customizing your Navigator
Netscape Handbook: Contents
Communicating with Newsgroups
Frequently Asked Questions
Index

General Preferences|Appearance
General Preferences|Applications
General Preferences|Colors
General Preferences|Fonts
General Preferences|Helpers
General Preferences|Images
General Preferences|Language
Mail and News Preferences|Appearance
Mail and News Preferences|Composition
Mail and News Preferences|Servers
Mail and News Preferences|Identity
Mail and News Preferences|Organization
Network Preferences|Cache
Network Preferences|Connections
Network Preferences|Proxies
Security Preferences|General
Security Preferences|Site Certificates

General Preferences |Appearance
All the settings in this panel affect how Netscape will look when you first start it. You can return to this panel at any time to further personalize the Netscape application.
You can customize our toolbar look with the Toolbar radio buttons: Pictures, Text, or Pictures and Text. The default is Pictures.
The Startup area of this panel lets you decide which window is your launch window when running Netscape. Choose from Netscape Browser, Netscape Mail, or Netscape News. The default is Netscape Browser.
Blank Page and Home Page Location let you determine the first page to appear when starting Netscape. You can enter the location (URL) you want as your startup page in the text field for Home Page Location. By default, this field contains the URL of the Netscape application's home page. Choosing Blank Page will display a blank page when you launch Netscape.
Under Link Styles, the first setting, Underlined is checked by default. This ensures that text links in content areas are underlined. The Followed Links settings let you decide when a given "followed" link (a URL that you've gone to) expires. The color of a followed link will revert to the color of an unfollowed link based on your selection. Expire After 30 Days is set by default. Choosing Never Expire means your links will always stay as a followed one. The Expire After choice lets you determine how many days pass before followed links revert to unfollowed ones.

General Preferences |Applications
Use this panel setting to specify the folder to store applications that support Netscape. These applications provide Netscape with connection and page formatting utilities. Click on the field's adjacent Browse button (not on UNIX) to identify a new application location.

Telnet Application: Telnet provides the means to connect to and interact with another computer using standard Internet protocols. Use this field to specify the location of your Telnet application.
TN3270 Application: TN3270 is used for Telnet connections to IBM mainframes. Enter the location of your TN3270 application here.
Rlogin Application and Rlogin with User: (Unix only) Use these fields to specify locations for Rlogin functionality.
View Source: (Windows and Macintosh only) A viewer application displays a page's text embedded with the HTML formatting commands. Enter the location of the viewer application you use to view HTML source text. If no application is specified, your platform might use a default viewer.
Temporary Directory: Before a helper application executes, Netscape temporarily stores application files on disk. After the helper application is exited, Netscape deletes the files. Enter the location to store files that are used and automatically disposed of by Netscape .(On Macintosh and UNIX, click Browse to select a new default folder if, for example, your default disk is short on space and you want to store temporary files in another location.)

General Preferences |Colors
By default, all Custom boxes are unchecked and default colors are used. (This preference panel is on Windows and Macintosh only.) Check any of the Panels boxes to personalize your link, text, and background colors. The Choose Color buttons (Color box on the Macintosh) in the first four settings give you reign over your palette.

Links: Blue is the default color for links to unviewed pages.
Followed links: Purple is the default color of text links to pages you have already seen.
Text: Black is the default color to display ordinary text.
In the Background setting, you can specify how the background of a document should be presented on your screen. Choose Default to use the standard gray background. Choose Panels and then press Choose Color to select a background color of your choice. Choose Image File and press the Browse button to select an image file to serve as your document background.
If you want to use Always Use My Colors, Overriding Document, then check this box and your settings will always override another page's. By default, the box is unchecked, displaying the individual background and colors of any page you view.
On Macintosh, click in the Use utilities pattern box to use the Macintosh system utilities pattern as the background outside the content area (such as at the top of the Netscape window and in the status message area). You can set this pattern by choosing the Control Panels|Desktop Patterns desk accessory, scrolling to a pattern, holding down the Option key, and clicking on the Set Utilities Pattern button. The utilities pattern is displayed outside the content area once you restart the Netscape application.

General Preferences |Fonts
Netscape lets you choose a character set encoding's font display and specify a document's character set encoding. An encoding represents a mapping of glyphs (such as character symbols) to computer codes (such as hexadecimal digits).
Each character set encoding from the For the Encoding pull-down menu is associated with the display of a proportional and fixed font pair. You can view or modify the association for any encoding by choosing the encoding name from the menu, then choosing items from the proportional and fixed font pull-down menus. For example, the default encoding, Latin1, is associated with the proportional font Times 12 and the fixed font Courier 10.
Most pages display text in a proportional font. The Use the Proportional Font field specifies the font of the primary type of text in the content area. Click the Choose Font button (font and font size fields are pop-up menus on Macintosh) to select an alternative font or font size display. You can make a selection for each encoding.
Fixed font text is used in editable fields and certain paragraphs preformatted by the author of a page. The Use the Fixed Font field specifies the font of the secondary type of text in the content area. Click the Choose Font button (font and font size fields are pop-up menus on Macintosh) to select an alternative font or font size display.You can make a selection for each encoding.

General Preferences |Helpers
Choose the Help|Release Notes menu item for platform-specific details and to find sites for downloading helper application software.
The Netscape application brings files to your computer using various server protocols such as HTTP, NNTP, SMTP, and FTP. Each protocol can support different file formats. Netscape has the built-in capability to interpret and display on your computer several formats, including the HTML format used by HTTP servers. When the Netscape application retrieves a file with a format that Netscape itself cannot read, the application attempts to use an external helper application capable of reading the file.
The Helpers dialog box lets you examine and configure how a file's format maps to a helper application. The dialog box contains several fields and buttons to specify MIME file types (a method of differentiating file formats using a suffix appended to a file name), helper applications, and associated actions.
A scrolling text field lists the helper applications available to the Netscape application. Each line of the text field contains information about one helper application. By clicking on a line in the text field, you can see and modify preferences for the selected helper application in the area below the scrolling field.
Below the helper applications listing are text fields and buttons that allow you to configure new helper applications or reconfigure current ones. You can add or modify information such as file extensions or actions associated with a helper application, then click OK (or Apply) to update the contents of the scrolling field.

The File/MIME Type field specifies the file or MIME type of the selection.
The Subtype field further classifies the technical format of the selection.
The File Extensions (Extensions) on Macintosh) field specifies the available suffix or suffixes used by the file type of the selection. You can enter or modify file extensions in this field.
Click the Create New Type (New on Macintosh) button to produce the Configure New MIME Type dialog box with two text fields for you to enter a MIME type and MIME subtype. Clicking the OK button of the New Type dialog verifies the data and, if valid, adds the file information to the list.
(Macintosh only) The application associated with the current selection is listed. Click the Browse button to select an associated application. Choose the application's default file type from the File type pop-up menu.
Under the Action setting, you can select one of four radio buttons to designate the action performed by the helper application:

View in Browse (Use Netscape as Viewer on Macintosh and UNIX) opens the downloaded file in the content area if the file's format is supported.
Save to Disk (Save on Macintosh) produces a dialog box for saving a file to disk after the file is downloaded.
Unknown: Prompt User causes a notification to the user.
Launch Application opens the selected application using the downloaded file as its document. Click theBrowse button to select a launch application. The application pathname is listed.

General Preferences |Images
The Choosing Colors setting (not available on Macintosh) lets you specify how images are displayed. You can select from Automatic, Dither, or Substitute Colors. The default, Automatic, attempts to determine the most appropriate type of image display. Alternatively, you can select Dither or Substitute Colors to most closely match the computer's available colors. Dithered images may offer a closer match to an image's intended colors, but take longer to display.
Select While Loading or After Loading to display images incrementally while the image is transmitted, or all at once after the transmission. The While Loading option provides the benefit of feedback as the transmission progresses. On a fast network, the After Loading option might complete the load slightly faster. The default is While Loading.

General Preferences |Language
Netscape lets you inform servers of your language priorities. (This preference panel is on Windows and Macintosh only.) When you request a page, your language priorities are sent as part of the request (in the HTTP header). Servers that have the capability to send you a page in more than one language can interpret your language priorities and respond to your request accordingly.
A language request entry consists of language code and, sometimes, a region code. For example, the code en-US represents the English language in the United States region; the code fr-CA represents the French language in the Canada region. The built-in codes are standard ISO language tags.
Many language and region codes are built in and specified in the Request Language|Region field. You also have the opportunity to specify another language and region in the User define (Others) text entry field.
To build your language priority list, select from the Language/Region, then click on the arrow keys to insert the selection into the Accept List.

Click the Right arrow button to insert an item from the Language/Region field into the Accept List.
Click the Left arrow button to remove a selected item from the Accept List.
Click the Promote button (Macintosh only) to increase by one position the relative priority of a selected item in the priority list.
Click the Demote button (Macintosh only) to decrease by one position the relative priority of a selected item in the priority list.
Enter a Language/Region code in the User define (Others on Macintosh) text field and press Enter (Return) to insert your entry into the Accept List.

Mail and News Preferences |Appearance
The Appearance panel lets you customize font styles for display in Mail and News windows. Select Fixed Width Font or Variable Width Font to determine whether messages use a display font with fixed- or variable-width characters. A series of other radio buttons let you determine the text style, text size, and color of the quoted text. Quoted text (text preceded by the > symbol) marks information restated from a previous message. On Windows and Macintosh, the default text style is bold; on UNIX, the default is italic.
On Windows only, you can also specify Use Netscape Client for Mail and News or Use Exchange Client for Mail and News to perform mail and news functions. Netscape is the default.

Mail and News Preferences |Composition
In the section for composing mail and news messages, the Allow 8-bit radio button (the default) accommodates the widest range of email servers (U.S. and Europe). If you are using a MIME mail reader where non-ASCII characters are misinterpreted, use the MIME Compliant option to enable proper character display.
In the next section of this panel, enter an email address in either the Mail Messages or News Messages fields if you want to retain a copy of mail or news messages you send. In the next section, you can also automatically store a copy of your mail or news messages to a disk file. By default, the path for the copied mail file is the path to the Sent Mail file.
Finally, select the check box Automatically quote original message when replying to restate the original message (each line prefaced by the > symbol) in your replies. By default, this box is checked. If unchecked, none of the original message is restated. Note that when replying to a message, you should delete nonrelevant lines so that your messages are not unnecessarily long.

Mail and News Preferences |Servers
To send email, the Netscape application must make the appropriate connection to a SMTP (Simple Mail Transport Protocol) server. To receive email, Netscape makes a connection to a POP server. Usually, the names of these servers are the same.
In the Mail section of this panel, enter the server names in the Outgoing Mail (SMTP) Server and Incoming Mail (POP3) Server fields (ideally, local mail servers if available). If you do not know the name of your SMTP or POP server, ask your service provider or system administrator.

Text in the Outgoing Mail (SMTP) Server field designates the host name of your SMTP server.
Text in the Incoming Mail (POP3) Server field designates the host name of your POP server.
Text in the POP User Name field designates your user name (the part of your email address to the left of the @ symbol). Don't include the @ symbol or the server name to the right of the @ symbol as part of your email address.
Text in the Mail Directory field (Your POP ID on Macintosh) designates the pathname of the folder containing your email files.
To determine Maximum Message Size, select None or Size to specify the maximum amount of information a message can contain. Unsent message lines remain on the server. Selecting Size and providing a number of kilobytes in the adjacent field prevents you from receiving message transmissions longer than you wish. The default is None (no maximum).
Select Removed from the server or Left on the server to designate the storage status of messages after they are delivered from the server to your local hard disk. The default is Removed from the server.
You can decide how often to check mail with the options Every or Never. Selecting Every and providing a number of minutes in the adjacent field provides the interval between checks. The default is Every with 10 minutes specified.
On UNIX, you can specify either a POP3 or Movemail mail system. Choosing POP3 enables the POP field, allowing you to enter a server and user name. Choosing Movemail enables the Movemail items, allowing you to select a built-in or external application, and to use a Browse button to specify the location of the Movemail application.
In the News section of this panel, you must specify a news server to interact with Usenet newsgroups. If you don't know the name of your news server, contact the service or administrator providing you with your Internet connection. Text in the News (NNTP) Server field designates the host name for the default news server.
The News Directory text field details the location of newsgroup subscription and information files. A news file is maintained for each news server you connect to (not on Macintosh; news files are in the System Folder|Preferences|Netscape folder).
The last field on this panel, Get 100 Messages at a Time, can be replaced with a number (up to 3500) that limits how many news messages are initially transferred, in a single block, from the news server. The larger the number, the longer it takes to complete the transfer of each block of messages. Messages with more recent dates are transferred first. Messages with older dates can be transferred in blocks by clicking on links available at the start of a message listing.

Mail and News Preferences |Identity
In the Mail section of this panel, enter your name and email address in their respective fields so others can easily identify you and reply to your mail. On Windows, you can also specify a reply-to address to get email replies at an address other than where you send mail from. (For example, sk@netscape.com is your "sending" email address, but maybe sk@aol.com is your "receiving" email address.) This information accompanies each correspondence you send.

Text in the Your Name field provides your name to recipients of your email.
Text in the Your Email field provides your email address (full address including the @ symbol) to recipients of your email.
On Windows, text in the Reply-to Address fields gives you the option to provide an alternative email address for receiving replies to your email.
The Your Organization field shows the name of a file containing a signature you can append to your mailings and news postings. You can create a signature file in a text editor. Once you have such a file, click Browse to select it. On Windows, you can leave the field blank to indicate no signature file. On Macintosh, choose one of two radio buttons None or File to indicate your use of a signature file.

Mail and News Preferences |Organization
Mail and news messages can be organized by threading (list messages of the same topic together). If you choose to thread messages, replies to a particular message are listed following the original. By default, mail messages are not threaded and news messages are threaded. Without threading, replies are listed in the order received. You can also choose how you wish to sort mail and news.

Click in the Remember Mail Password check box to prevent Netscape from requesting your password each time you open the Mail window.
You can sort your mail and news by date, message number, subject, or sender. Both mail and news are sorted by date by default.

Network Preferences |Cache

The Memory Cache field (on Windows and UNIX) specifies the size in kilobytes of the memory cache. Press the Clear Memory Cache Now button to empty the cache immediately. The default is 600K on Windows, 3000K on UNIX. On Macintosh, specify memory in the application's Get Info box.
The Disk Cache field (Cache Size on Macintosh) specifies the size in kilobytes of the disk cache. On Windows and UNIX, the default is 5000K. On Macintosh, the default is 1M (1000K), the size of available disk space is displayed, and you can use buttons to adjust the cache size. Press the Clear Disk Cache Now button to empty the cache immediately.
The Disk Cache Directory field (Cache Directory on Macintosh) specifies the disk cache location. On Macintosh, click Browse to select a new location.
Select one of three radio buttons to specify how Netscape checks the network for document revisions (so that you're brought an updated page from a network server rather than a potentially stale page stored in the cache). The default choice, Once per Session, checks for page revisions only once during the time you start and quit the application. Choosing Every Time repeatedly checks for changes when you request a page, at the cost of slower performance. Choosing Never performs no verifications, thus a page available in cache is always brought from cache.

Netscape performs cache maintenance when you exit the applications. If you find that exiting takes longer than you wish, you might remedy the problem by reducing the size of the disk cache.
If you find that pages that should be in cache are taking longer to appear than they should, make sure the Verify Documents (Check Documents on Macintosh) button is not set to Every Time. The verification requires a network connection that takes time.
Note that you can always obtain document revisions by pressing the Reload button. Netscape checks the network server and, if the page is unchanged, a copy is retrieved from the cache. If the page has changed, a copy is transmitted from the network server. If you press the Reload button while holding down the Shift key (Option key on Macintosh), Netscape always retrieves a copy from the network server without regard to the cache.

Network Preferences |Connections
The text and each image on a page are distinct files. Netscape opens a connection to an Internet server to bring each of these files to your screen. Netscape can display a page's text and multiple image files simultaneously by opening more than one connection to a server. By specifying a larger number of connections, you are specifying more simultaneous connections, which can also slow down the speed of each individual connection.

The Number of Connections (Connections on Macintosh) field specifies the maximum number of network connections. The default is 4.

The network buffer size determines the amount of data that can be received in a network data transmission. Larger buffers mean more data, but can also saturate the computer.

The Network Buffer Size field specifies the number of kilobytes allotted in memory for network data transmissions. On Windows, the default is 32K. On Macintosh, the default is 8K.

Network Preferences |Proxies
Ordinarily, the Netscape application does not require proxies to interact with the network services of external sources. However, in some network configurations the connection between the Netscape application and a remote server is blocked by a firewall. Firewalls protect information in internal computer networks from external access. In doing so, firewalls might limit Netscape's ability to exchange information with external sources.
To overcome this limitation, Netscape can interact with proxy software. A proxy server sits atop a firewall and acts as a conduit, providing a specific connection for each network service protocol. If you are running Netscape on an internal network from behind a firewall, you'll need from your system administrator the names and associated port numbers for the server running proxy software for each network service. Proxy software retains the ability to communicate with external sources, yet is trusted to communicate with the internal network.
Select No Proxies, Manual Proxy Configuration, or Automatic Proxy Configuration to designate the conduit between your computer and the Internet. Users with a direct connection to the Internet should use the default, No Proxies. To customize a proxy configuration, choose the manual configuration and press the View button to display a dialog box. If you have a configuration file designed expressly for your proxy server, choose the automatic configuration and provide the file's URL in the adjacent text field.
A single computer can run multiple servers, each server connection identified with a port number. A proxy server, like an HTTP server or a FTP server, occupies a port. Typically, a connection uses standardized port numbers for each protocol (for example, HTTP = 80 and FTP = 21). However, unlike common server protocols, the proxy server has no default port. Netscape requires that for each proxy server you specify in a Proxy text field, you also specify its port number in the Port field.

Text in each Proxy field designates the host name of each protocol's proxy server. (Often, a single proxy server handles the three major protocols: HTTP, FTP, and Gopher.) This can also be a numeric IP address of the proxy server.
A number in each adjacent Port field identifies the port number used by the proxy server.
Text fields for proxies and ports are offered for FTP (File Transfer Protocol), Gopher, HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol), Security (Secure Sockets Layer protocol), WAIS (Wide Area Information System), and SOCKS (firewall bypass software).
The text field No Proxy for:, available when viewing the Manual Proxy Configuration dialog, lets you bypass the proxy server for one or more specified local domains. For example, if you specify
HTTP Proxy: aserver.netscape.com Port: 8080
No Proxy for: adomain,bdomain,netscape.com
then all HTTP requests for the adomain, bdomain, and netscape.com host servers go from Netscape directly to the host (not using any proxy). All HTTP requests for other servers go from Netscape through the proxy server aserver on port 8080, then to the host. A proxy that runs on a host server outside a firewall cannot connect to server inside the firewall. To bypass the firewall's restriction, you must set the No Proxy for field to include any internal server you're using. If you use local hostnames without the domain name, you should list them the same way. Multiple hostnames are delimited by commas and the wildcard character (*) cannot be used.

Security Preferences |General
At the top of this panel is a setting for Java users. You can check the Disable Java check box to disallow the automatic execution of Java applets.
The ensuing security check boxes in the Security Alerts section dictate whether you receive a notification dialog box (popup alert) when entering a secure document space, leaving a secure document space, viewing a document with a mixed security status, or submitting a form with an insecure submit process.
If a check box is checked, the notification dialog can be issued; otherwise, the dialog is bypassed.
Each time you view a notification dialog, you can uncheck the Show This Alert Next Time check box within the dialog. If you uncheck the dialog's check box, the corresponding check box in the Security|General panel is automatically unchecked. To have the notification dialog shown again, check the alert item in the panel.

Security Preferences |Site Certificates
Site certificates identify others on the Internet to you. For example, when you submit information in a form, your site certificate allows you to know the information that you send goes to the certificate owner and no one else.
You can obtain numerous site certificates. Each certificate represents a site or certificate authority. With the certificate, you can verify that the content of the certificate identifies the persons with whom you wish to communicate.
To view information about a particular site certificate or certificate authority, select the certificate in the list and press the Edit Certificate button. You'll find information describing the owner of the certificate, the issuer of the certificate, and certificate identification. In addition, you can specify whether to allow connections to sites certified by a particular certificate authority and whether to issue warning messages before sending information to such cites.
A certificate is stored with your Netscape Navigator preferences. If you connect to a site from another computer or another account (using another user's files), your certificates will not be available.
The site certificates you obtain are listed in the panel.

Choose from the Site Certificates pull-down menu to designate which types of certificates are listed in the field. The default is All Certificates.
Press the Edit Certificate button to change information about a selected certificate.
Press the Delete Certificate button to remove a certificate from the list.

Netscape Handbook: Contents
Communicating with Newsgroups
Frequently Asked Questions
Index

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