Chapter 24: Browsing the World Wide Web with Internet Explorer
Viewing Web Pages The main purpose of a Web browser is to display Web pages. Those pages may actually be on the Web, or they may be on your own computer.
Browsing the Web As soon as you open your first Web page, like the MSN start page in Figure 24-2, you can begin browsing--moving from one Web page to another, depending on what you find interesting.
On a standard Web page, text phrases that are links to other Web pages are displayed in underlined blue type. If you have recently displayed the Web page to which the text is linked, the text is displayed in maroon. When you are exploring a Web site, this feature lets you know where you've been and keeps you from going in circles. In Internet Explorer you can also define the color a link turns when the cursor is above it (the default is red). You can change these colors.
When you pass the mouse pointer over a linked object (including a linked text phrase), the pointer changes from an arrow to a hand, and the URL of the Web page that the object is linked to is displayed in the status bar of the browser window (if you have the status bar enabled). Not all links on a page are obvious; a small picture, for example, might just be an illustration, or it might be linked to a larger version of the same picture. Passing the mouse pointer over an object is the easiest way to tell whether it is linked.
While files are being downloaded to your Web browser, the mouse pointer changes to an hourglass. However, it is still functional--you can push buttons or scroll the window with an hourglass pointer. Most important, you can use it to click the Stop button if a link is taking longer to download than you're willing to wait.
Try right-clicking items on Web pages--Internet Explorer provides shortcut menus of useful commands. Shortcut menus are available for links, images, backgrounds, and other parts of Web pages.
Opening Files on Your System You can use Internet Explorer to view HTML files that are stored on your hard drive or elsewhere on your system. You can also view images stored in several different image formats, such as JPEG or GIF:
- Select File | Open or press CTRL-O in Internet Explorer and click the Browse button in the dialog box that appears. You see an Open dialog box almost identical to the Open dialog box of Windows Explorer.
- Make sure that the Files Of Type line of the Open window contains the type of file you want to open. Web pages are of type HTML, and pictures, depending on picture format, are of type JPG, GIF, or other graphics formats. If the Files Of Type line doesn't contain the file type you want to open, choose another type from the drop-down menu. If you can't find the right type, choose All Files.
- Browse until you find the file you want to open.
- Select the file by clicking its name. Its name then appears in the File Name line.
- Click Open. You are returned to the Open dialog box, with the address of the file entered. Click OK.
Getting Around on the Web You can open a Web page in Internet Explorer by using any of the following methods:
- Entering its URL into the Address box The most direct way is to type the URL; but if you have the URL in a file or a mail message, you can cut it and paste it. The Paste command on the Edit menu might not work when the cursor is in the Address window, but you can always paste by pressing CTRL-V. Internet Explorer has an auto-complete feature which tries to guess what URL you are typing and finishes it for you, based on similar URLs that you've visited before. A list of its guesses appears under the Address box as you type. If one is correct, click it and press ENTER.
- Typing its Internet keyword into the Address box Many Web pages have been assigned Internet keywords that you can substitute for their URLs. So, for example, you can arrive at the home page of the University of California at Los Angeles by typing UCLA into the Address box.
- Selecting it from the list that drops down from the Address box The Address box remembers the last 25 URLs or keywords that you have typed into it.
- Linking to it from another Web page The reason it's called a "web" is that pages are linked to each other in a tangled, unpredictable way. Click a link (usually underlined, blue text or icons) to see the Web page it refers to.
- Linking to it from a mail message or newsgroup article Many mail and messaging programs, including Outlook Express and MSN Messenger, automatically link the URLs in a message to the corresponding Web pages. Clicking the URL opens the default Web browser, which displays the Web page. If the browser can't find the page, try copying and pasting the URL into its Address box and making sure it looks right (remove spaces and line breaks from the URL, for example).
- Selecting it from History Internet Explorer maintains records of the Web pages you have viewed in the past twenty days (or as many days as you select). You can display these records and return to any of the Web pages with a click.
- Selecting it from the Favorites menu Accessing a Favorite from the Internet Explorer Favorites menu opens it in Internet Explorer, no matter what the default browser is.
- Opening an Internet shortcut Opening an Internet shortcut from Windows Explorer starts the default browser (even if another browser is already running), connects to the Internet, and displays the Web page to which the shortcut points.
Getting Help Access Internet Explorer Help by choosing Help | Contents And Index. You can find what you want by looking through the table of contents on the Contents tab, seeing the topics listed alphabetically on the Index tab, or searching for particular terms on the Search tab. Clicking the Web Help button and clicking the Support Online link opens a browser window displaying the Microsoft Support Web page at http://support.microsoft.com/directory.
