Chapter 24: Browsing the World Wide Web with Internet Explorer

Getting Started with Internet Explorer

Internet Explorer is installed automatically when you install Windows XP. Its icon (a blue letter e) is not hard to find; look at or near the top of the Start menu, on the Quick Launch toolbar, or on the desktop. To run Internet Explorer click one of these icons or choose Start | All Programs | Internet Explorer.

Under the default settings, one of the following three things happens when you start Internet Explorer:

• Internet Explorer opens displaying its start page, which Microsoft has initially set as the MSN home page http://www.msn.com.
• If you are not online and your start page is only available over the Internet, Internet Explorer tries to connect to the Internet. Depending on how your account is set up, this may happen automatically or you may have to enter a password into the Connect dialog box or some other connection software. If Internet Explorer succeeds in establishing an Internet connection, the start page appears. Otherwise it asks if you want to continue working offline. If you agree, it displays a blank start page.
• If you either do not have an Internet account, or have not told Windows about the one you have, the New Connection Wizard starts.

Elements of the Internet Explorer Window

When all of the major components of the Internet Explorer window are made visible, it looks like Figure 24-2. These components are identical to those of Windows Explorer, and can be hidden or reconfigured in the same ways.

Figure 24-2: The Internet Explorer window

From top to bottom, it contains the following:

• Menu bar Visible at all times, not configurable. You can move it to a different location in the window by clicking and dragging the handle (ridge) at its left end.
• Standard buttons toolbar This is the same toolbar you see in Explorer windows, and you can customize its appearance for Internet Explorer in exactly the same way. This is the toolbar we are referring to if we don't specify which toolbar we mean. It can be hidden or displayed with or without text labels. You can also choose what buttons to display. To hide this toolbar, uncheck View | Toolbars | Standard Buttons. To change the toolbar's appearance, select View | Toolbars | Customize and work with the Customize Toolbar dialog box. Drag it to another location by the handle at its left end.
• Address Bar Displays the URL of the currently displayed Web page or the Windows address of the currently displayed local file. Hide the Address Bar by unchecking View | Toolbars | Address Bar. Expand or shrink the Address Bar by dragging the right boundary. Drag it to another location by the handle at its left end.
• Links toolbar A row of icons that you can link to files on your computer or to Web pages. Hide Links by unchecking View | Toolbars | Links. Expand or shrink this toolbar by dragging the left boundary. (You might need to unlock the toolbars first by choosing View | Toolbars | Lock The Toolbars.)
• Explorer bar Displays Search, Favorites, Media, History, or Folders in a pane at the left side of the Internet Explorer window. Choose which of these to display from the View | Explorer Bar menu or by clicking a toolbar button. Hide these by selecting View | Explorer Bar and choosing the option that has a check mark to its left or by clicking the X in the upper-right corner of the Explorer bar. You can drag the border between the Explorer bar and the viewing window.
• Viewing window Displays Web pages. It can't be hidden, since otherwise there would be no point in running a browser. Maximize the viewing window by selecting View | Fullscreen or pressing F11. Return to the previous (unmaximized) state by selecting View | Fullscreen or pressing F11 again.
• Status bar Displays a variety of useful information. When the cursor passes over a link in the viewing window, the URL of the link is displayed in the status bar. When Internet Explorer is looking for or downloading a Web page, the status bar keeps you apprised of its progress. Hide the status bar by unchecking View | Status Bar.

Using the Standard Buttons Toolbars

The Standard Buttons toolbar has a few different buttons for Internet Explorer than it does for Windows Explorer, but several are the same and in general you use the toolbar in the same way. You can display the toolbar in several ways, and you can customize it by choosing which buttons to display and what order to put them in.

The following buttons are new to Internet Explorer, in the sense that they are not part of the default toolbar for Windows Explorer.

• Stop (denoted by an X) Active only when the browser is in the process of downloading a page from the Web; clicking it stops this process. The menu equivalent is View | Stop, and the keyboard equivalent is the ESCAPE key.
• Refresh (denoted by a document with two arrows) Asks the server to send the most recent version of the page currently being viewed. When a Web page is updated on the server, the new version is not automatically sent out to anyone who might be viewing an older version. Clicking Refresh makes sure that the scoreboard you are viewing has the latest scores, or the portfolio shows the most recent stock prices. The menu equivalent is View | Refresh, and the keyboard equivalent is the F5 key.
• Home (denoted by a house icon) Linked to the home or start page. The menu equivalent is View | Go To | Home Page, and the keyboard equivalent is the HOME key.
• Media Displays material from the WindowsMedia.com Web site in the Explorer bar, with information about audio and video downloads.
• Mail Opens your designated e-mail program. By default, this is Outlook Express, but if you have named another client such as Eudora on the Programs tab of the Internet Options dialog box, that program opens instead.
• Print Opens the Print dialog box, which is the first step in sending the current page to the printer. It is equivalent to File | Print on the menu or CTRL-P on the keyboard.
• Edit Opens the default HTML editing program so that you can alter a local copy of the current Web page. It's equivalent to File | Edit on the menu.
• Messenger Opens a Windows Messenger window for sending and receiving instant messages over the Internet. It is equivalent to Tools | Windows Messenger Service on the menu.

The following buttons are not part of the default configuration, but you might find them useful:

• Related Produces a Related Links Explorer bar, which gives a list of Web pages that might be related to the current page. The menu equivalent is Tools | Show Related Links.
• Full Screen Maximizes the viewing area by stretching the Internet Explorer window to the full size of your monitor while shrinking all the other features of the Internet Explorer window. Click it again to return to the previous configuration. It is equivalent to View | Full Screen on the menu or F11 on the keyboard.
• Print Preview Shows a page-by-page view of what you would get if you printed out the current Web page. The menu equivalent is File | Print Preview.
• Disconnect Breaks your Internet connection.

What Are Smart Tags? Internet Explorer 6 was originally to have included a new feature called smart tags. MSN maintains a list of company names, product names, and other identifiers that IE can look for when it displayed Web pages. If smart tags are installed in IE, these terms appear with a dotted purple underline. If you move your mouse pointer to the term, a small i icon appears just above it--click it to see a floating window with a menu of links about that term. Clicking a Smart Tag link displays a Web page about that company or product displayed in another IE window. It is usually a page from a Microsoft-owned site, like search.msn.com or moneycentral.msn.com. Other companies object to the smart tags feature because it directs people from other Web sites to the site defined by the Smart Tag. Microsoft removed smart tags from Windows XP and IE 6, but they are available as an add-in to Internet Explorer by choosing Start | All Programs | Windows Update or from http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com.