CCNC/CCNC Module 7/The Internet/First Steps

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Outcomes

In this tutorial we will: get familiarized with the Mozilla Firefox version 2.0 browser

Open (and close) a Web browsing application

• Click the Applications->Internet->Firefox Web Browser icon.

Close the Application

• File ->Quit
• or you can choose to click the in the upper right corner

Setting up a Home Page or Start page

The Home Page is the web site that is located and displayed by Firefox when it is loaded by the user. This is set in the Firefox Preferences as follows.

1. Edit->Preferences.
2. Under the MAIN category, there is a section titled "Startup". Here you will see a drop-down menu with three options: Show my home page, Show a blank page, or Show my windows and tabs from last time.

• If you choose "Show my home page" as your option you will need to type in that location. Your Home Page may be any page you select, a personal site, an educational site, or perhaps a commercial site. In this example, the Home Page is set to go to Penn State University at http://www.psu.edu.

• If you choose "Show a blank page" Firefox will not automatically load any page upon opening.
• If you choose "Show my windows and tabs from last time," Firefox will remember any windows and tabs open from the last instance and display them.

Display a Web Page in a new window

To display a web page you need to know its URL (web address). The following example illustrates how to access the Yahoo web site. Its URL is www.yahoo.com

Type www.yahoo.com into the Location bar as shown on the next screen and press Enter. NOTE: Screen Shot needed

Guessing URLs Firefox can often guess the URL you require. For example, if you wanted to view the web site of CNN but were unsure of the URL, you could type in CNN on its own. Firefox would attempt to find the site for you and would try various possibilities starting with www.cnn.com.

Opening A New Window

Suppose you have the following situation. You have the web page of Google.com displayed and you wish to display the web page of Yahoo.com without actually closing Google. This is a similar situation to having more than one document open in a word processor. Firefox gives you two ways to go about this, either by opening a new window or by opening a new tab (explained below).

The procedure is quite straight forward:

1. File->New Window
2. Type the URL, in this case www.yahoo.com, into the Location window.
3. Press Enter.

A new window will open with www.yahoo.com displayed.

1. Click on the appropriate icon at the bottom of the screen to switch between the web sites.

Tabbed Browsing

Tabbed browsing lets you open multiple tabs, each displaying a web page, within a single Firefox window. You don't have to use tabbed browsing, but if you do you might find it a more enjoyable experience. It diminishes the screen clutter of having many windows open. (: reword that last sentence, sounds clunky)

Tip: You can open links in new tabs, where they will load while you read the current page.

Stop a web page from downloading

Web sites often take a while to download, especially if they contain a lot of graphics or if the Internet is very busy at the time you are using it.

• Click the Stop button next to the Location bar

Refresh a Web Page

In order to speed up with with web sites, Mozilla stores copies of pages in a cache or temporary memory area so that they can be recalled more quickly than if they had to be reloaded across the Internet. You can get the most up-to-date version of the page by using the refresh function.

• Click the Reload button next to the Location bar or press Ctrl+R.

Use available Help functions

Figure:Help Topics

Mozilla comes with an extensive help system. Learning to use the help system can help you become familiar with the full range of the application's functionality. To access Help:

1. Click and hold the mouse over the Help menu and choose Help Contents.

Suppose you wish to find out how to copy a web page.

• Expand Using Mozilla Firefox by clicking the + symbol.
• Expand Copying, Saving and Printing.
• Double click on Copying Part of a Page.

Activity

At this point you should familiarise yourself with the Contents of the Help system. Do this simply by clicking on topics and reading them.

Use Search The Help Contents are useful if you know exactly what heading you are looking for. It may happen that you are looking for all entries containing a particular key word. The following example illustrates how to find all entries that contain the word cache.

1. Click Help->Help Contents.
2. Click the Maximise icon.
3. Click on Search.
4. Enter the word cache into the Search window and click the Search button.
5. Click on the entry you wish to view.

Screenshot

Use the Glossary

The glossary is a dictionary of meanings of terms associated with Mozilla. These are listed in alphabetical order.

1. Click on Glossary and then click the term whose meaning you wish to know.

Screenshot