by Amy Helen Johnson, Senior Technology Editor, Windows Magazine
Unlike previous versions of Windows, Windows 98 has a browser embedded in the operating system. This browser is functionally the same as Internet Explorer 4, Microsoft's stand-alone browser that works with Windows 95. Internet Explorer 4 not only enables you to surf the Web, but it also changes the familiar Windows shell into a browser-based interface--that is, you use the same kinds of commands and mouse controls to view your files and folders as you do Web pages. This interface, dubbed Active Desktop, is covered separately, in Chapter 25, "Using the Active Desktop."
This chapter covers:
Internet Explorer installs automatically when you upgrade to Windows 98; if you buy a machine with the operating system loaded, then it should be pre-installed, too. If you're adding it on later, don't worry. Microsoft worked hard to make the Internet Explorer installation as easy as possible. Just follow the screens and make a selection when asked. The hard work comes later, when you tailor the program for your particular Internet access method, using the Internet Connection Wizard, and to your personal taste, by using the Internet Options feature of the browser.
If someone else--the company from which you bought your computer, or a network administrator--hasn't already configured IE4 for you, then when you first launch IE, you are asked for the information needed to set up an Internet connection, as well as your mail and news services. An Internet connection is a set of instructions that tells the computer to connect to the Internet in a certain manner, using certain parameters. You can create multiple connection instructions. For example, you might have a laptop with a docking station at your desk in the office, where you connect over a LAN; when you take that laptop on the road, you'll use a dial-up connection. To make another connection, run the Connection Wizard again. You'll find it on your Start menu, in the Internet Explorer group.
NOTE: The program behind that shortcut is LCWCONNL.EXE, which is in the Connection Wizard folder within your Internet Explorer folder.
Before you get to the Connection Wizard, however, Windows 98 asks you to select the country in which you're located and then asks you to enter the area code and any access numbers you need to make an outside call. For example, if you're using Windows 98 at work and need to dial 9 to reach someone outside your company, this information would be entered at this point. This latter question is a set-it-and-forget-it convenience. It tells IE to automatically add that code number to any phone numbers you provide for dial-up networking; you don't have to retype it every time you dial out. You have to answer this question only once; if you move your machine at a later date, you can use the location record to tell Windows 98 that you're in a different area code or a place with different access codes.
Now begin the Internet Connection Wizard, a step-by-step procedure that gets you on the Internet. It recognizes four situations, as shown in Figure 23.1.
FIGURE 23.1 Select the radio button that matches your situation; the second option covers two situations--when you already have Internet access established via an existing ISP account, or when you have Internet access over a LAN.
If this is your first dial-up Internet connection, the wizard will begin an automatic setup script. It first hunts for your modem. It'll use the Hardware Wizard, which looks for plug-and-play devices, and then moves on to other types of hardware peripherals. Another benefit of letting Windows 98 do the work for you is that it also configures the device and install drivers if they are available on the Windows 98 setup disk.
Windows 98 is able to detect and install drivers for products from the major modem vendors--Hayes, U.S. Robotics/3Com, Motorola, and so on. If you use an off-brand modem or an older model, you might need to install your drivers by hand. In this case, use the driver disks that came with your modem, or download drivers from the modem manufacturer's Internet site.
After Windows 98 is done with the hardware setup, it asks you for the prefix (first three digits) of your phone number, and then dials into a Microsoft server. Based on your prefix, it will suggest ISPs for you to use and then lead you through setting up an account.
If you use a LAN-based connection, via your office's network, for example, then you'll need to talk to your network administrator to find out if your company uses a proxy server. A proxy server is a security mechanism that filters transmissions between your network and the Internet. Instead of sending requests directly to the Internet, IE gives them to the proxy server to pass along. IE needs to know the address of this proxy server to work properly. Enter the appropriate address in the proxy to use field, as shown in Figure 23.2. Your network administrator can supply this address and determine whether this same proxy server will also handle Internet requests for data other than Web pages.
FIGURE 23.2 If your LAN places a proxy server between your machine and the Internet, you must enter the proxy server's address for IE4 to work properly.
You can also establish an account with an ISP over the phone, before you install Windows 98, or continue to use an existing account. If you're using an account you already own, then dig out the configuration instructions your ISP gave you. You'll need them to specify items such as domain name server addresses and mail server names.
The first information you need to input is the phone number for your nearest access point. This is known as your POP (point of presence). If you have a choice, pick the one that is physically closest to your location, so you don't run up long-distance charges when you're online. Next, enter your login name and password.
CAUTION: If you choose the option to let Windows 98 Dial-up Networking remember your password, then anyone who uses your machine can access the Internet using your account. If you're worried about security, skip the password at this point; Windows 98 will ask you to enter it each time you want to go online.
The next screen offers you a chance to fiddle with the connection's advanced settings. If you have the cheat sheet your ISP gave you, then respond with yes; you can just copy the information from the cheat sheet into the appropriate places in the configuration screens. If you respond with no, then you go straight to picking a name for this connection so you can remember it easily.
However, if you choose to configure the advanced settings yourself, then you must specify the type of connection you have. Most all ISPs use point-to-point protocol (PPP). The answer to the next question, about your logon procedures, is almost always that you don't need to type anything to log on. ISPs want to make the process as simple as possible and usually avoid having customers run scripts. But if yours is an exception, change the specifications here.
Next, specify an IP address. Most ISPs use dynamic addressing, which Windows 98 characterizes as "My Internet service provider automatically assigns me one." However, if you have a special account that gives you a fixed IP address, type it in the appropriate space. The next question refers to the IP address of the domain name service (DNS) server. Copy down the information your ISP gave you. Now you're ready to name the connection.
If you already have dial-up Internet access configured on your computer, Windows 98 will read that access information and use it if you so desire. Just tell the wizard that you already have a connection established and don't want to change it.
Unless you're keeping an existing Internet connection, you'll be asked to configure your mail account. Your ISP will usually give you a mail account (as well as the necessary information to configure it), or your network administrator will have the details. If you don't want to use Internet mail--if, for example, you have a corporate mail account that you prefer to use--then select no when you are given the option to configure an account, and you'll be done.
NOTE: You might be required to install Outlook Express, Windows 98's mail and news program, separately. If you don't see it within your default Windows 98 installation, use your Windows 98 CD to add it to your system.
After you're asked to confirm its settings, you are done. If you want to make a new mail account, then the Wizard will ask you for your name and an e-mail address. Your next task select the type of mail server you use--this is the type of protocol, such as IMAP or POP3--and the names, which allows Outlook Express to identify and communicate with the mail server. The next screen asks you for your logon name and password; again, you might choose to type it in every time. The last screen gives you the opportunity to give it a proper name so that you can identify it later.
FIGURE 23.3 You can associate an existing mail account with your Internet connection, or create a new one.
Your final setup chore is to configure your news server. Again, you can use an existing newsgroup configuration, or start from scratch. The steps are similar to those of configuring your mail server: name, e-mail address, and server name. (There's no need to provide a server type; Windows 98 knows you'll be using the NNTP protocol.) The check box at the bottom of the Internet News Server Name screen (see Figure 23.4) gives you the option to set up any login information. Many news servers don't ask you to log in; if you don't need to log in, then ignore it. Otherwise, mark the check box and provide login information on the following window. You end, as usual, by giving this news connection a name you'll remember.
FIGURE 23.4 All that's required to set up a news feed is the name of the NNTP server to which you'll be connecting.
To find Internet Options, choose View | Internet Options. It can also be accessed by opening the Start Menu, then selecting Settings | Control Panel | Internet. You can also right-click the Internet Explorer icon on your desktop, then select Properties from the context menu. Launch it, and you'll get a window with six tabs. They will be covered one at a time.
The general tab, shown in Figure 23.5, enables you to control your home page, cache, and surfing history. The home page you choose will be the site IE4 accesses when it is first launched. You can set it to the current URL shown in IE4, the default, which is the Microsoft site, or blank. Blank is best if you dial up to the Internet; IE4 won't assume you're already connected and try--unsuccessfully--to hit a site.
FIGURE 23.5 Use the options on the General tab to configure your home page and your cache, and manage your browsing history.
Temporary Internet files is a synonym for what is commonly called "cache." It's the place on your hard drive where copies of pages are stored. IE4 stores copies so that it can read them from your hard drive when you return to a page (like when you hit the Back button), which is faster than going out on the Internet, and enables you to see previously viewed content from the Internet even when you're not connected. Clicking the Settings button brings up the Settings dialog box, as shown in Figure 23.6.
The only one that makes a real difference to your browsing experience is your choice of when to check the freshness of the content in your cache. If you choose Every visit to the page, then you risk a drop in performance; IE4 will compare the page in cache with the Internet page every time. If you pick Never, then you risk seeing old content because IE4 will always serve you the cached page. The default choice, Every time you start Internet Explorer, results in IE4 checking the Internet once per session. This is a good compromise because pages usually don't change from minute to minute. However, if you keep your computer turned on all the time with IE4 constantly loaded, then you might have problems because IE4 won't have a chance to check. The solution is to use the Refresh button every so often to make sure that you get the newest pages, and to clear your cache--you do this by pressing the Delete Files button on the General tab--so that IE4 loads new copies when you request pages.
FIGURE 23.6 The most important cache option is the one that sets the frequency at which to compare pages in cache to those on the Internet.
The number of pages you can store in cache is related to the size of the cache. The slider enables you to set cache size; if you keep a lot of subscriptions or you have free disk space to burn, you can bump up the size. Otherwise, only devote a few percent of your disk to cache. It will be enough to hold several dozen pages--more if they're not loaded with large graphics.
You can change the default cache folder by clicking the Move Folder button. The View Files button opens an Explorer window that shows the cache folder. The View Objects button enables you to see what's stored in a folder called c:/Windows/Downloaded Program Files. It contains IE4 components--classes, script parsers, and so on. You can fiddle with them if you want, but there's little reason to do so.
The History folder is where IE4 stores a record of the URLs you've recently visited. You control the age of the list. You can empty the list by clicking on the Clear History button.
The buttons at the bottom of the page--Colors, Fonts, Language, and Accessibility--enable you to customize those features. The dialog boxes that appear are fairly self explanatory. For the vast majority of people, these options never need to be changed.
Microsoft added a new concept, security zones, to IE4 and Windows 98. Zones enable you to configure different rules for downloading content for each zone, enabling you to run the gamut from strict security measures to open-door policies, based on the type of site you're browsing. The theory is that some places--such as a company intranet--are inherently more secure than others, while some--such as the Internet--are inherently less secure.
You can set the security level for each zone--there are four, as shown in Figure 23.7--or use the default rules. All but the Internet zone allow you to place specific sites within their zone. Click on the Add Sites button to get a dialog box that lists the current members of the zone and enables you to type in a URL to add to the list.
FIGURE 23.7 You can set the security level for any zone, and place sites within a zone for all but the Internet zone.
Windows 98 gives you four choices for security levels: high (the default), medium, low, and a custom option that enables you to specify your preferences for each security item. Security is concerned with potentially damaging Web content, like ActiveX controls, Java applets, and downloaded files, as well as the usage of built-in security measures like passwords and encryption.
You can reset any zone to the default rules at any time by highlighting the appropriate zone and clicking the Reset button. The restrictions for each default setting are:
The Content tab, shown in Figure 23.8, is misnamed. It does help you deal with content, but it also lets you manage your security certificates, your profile, and your commerce mechanisms.
FIGURE 23.8 The Content tab helps you protect children from Internet smut and manage your digital IDs and shopping information.
The top section, the Content Advisor, is a built-in children's site blocker. If you click the Enable button and set up a password, you'll see a set of tabbed dialog boxes that enable you, through the use of simple sliders, to set the level of language, nudity, sex, and violence in permissible sites. Then, when you surf, only those sites that are rated as being within your acceptable range are viewable. The ratings are determined by the Recreational Software Advisory Council; if you want to use other rating services, go to the Content Advisor's Advanced tab and install them. The General tab enables you to set up a supervisory password so you're the only one who can enable, disable, or bypass the ratings scheme.
The Certificates section of this tab enables you to acquire and manage digital certificates. These are electronic IDs that give you the ability to prove your identity. They're useful when doing online transactions that involve money or secure logins; it tells the server that you are you, and prevents someone else from impersonating you and hijacking any accounts you might have set up.
Conversely, you also need to feel confident that the server you're dealing with is authentic. The Authorities button enables you to designate certain certificate authorities as trusted, and therefore designate anyone bearing an ID issued by that authority as trustworthy. The Publishers button deals specifically with software publishers. By designating trusted publishers, you give Windows 98 permission to download software--applications and controls--to your machine in the belief that the software is not malicious.
The Edit Profile button within the Personal Information section gives you a chance to fill out details about you--your name, address, e-mail account, favorite video conferencing directory, and digital IDs. Internet Explorer will share this information, with your permission, with Web sites that want contact information about you. You can rescind that permission with the touch of a button; just click on the Reset Sharing button.
Microsoft Wallet is a component of Internet Explorer that enables you set up secure payment methods to use when you shop over the Internet. In Wallet, you can securely store private information like credit card numbers and shipping addresses. Using the Wallet saves you the chore of typing everything repeatedly.
Connection
Setting up an Internet connection using the Connection Wizard was previously covered. On the Connection tab, shown in Figure 23.9, the Connect button launches that wizard. The Settings button gives you the opportunity to edit the settings of your connections. A list of options appears when you click the button.
FIGURE 23.9 This dialog enables you to configure an Internet connection, change your access options for any Internet connections you've previously established, and tell IE about any proxy servers it needs to go through to reach the Internet.
If you place a check mark in the Access the Internet using a proxy server check box, you must provide an IP address and port number so that Windows 98 knows which machine is serving as your proxy.
Check with your network administrator to see if you should mark the option to bypass the proxy server for intranet addresses. The proxy server often protects only the gateway between the LAN and the outside Internet. Performance problems might occur if IE4 is routing page requests through the proxy server when it's accessing an internal Web server.
The automatic configuration section is for those people within a corporate environment whose IT department is using the Internet Explorer Administration Kit. The kit enables an administrator to set up a default configuration for your browser at a central location, as well as set up everyone's machine so that IE4 uses that configuration. The kit is useful for organizations that have particular security needs, provide internal browsers channels, and so forth. As an end user, the automatic configuration button can return you to a known set of vetted options if you make inappropriate changes or find yourself having access or performance problems.
The Programs tab is where you select which companion applications you want to use with Internet Explorer 4. The standard installation assumes that you will be using the bundled Outlook Express program for mail and news, and the bundled Address Book to maintain your contact list. These are filled in by default, as shown in Figure 23.10.
FIGURE 23.10 You can customize the browser's companion applications for handling mail, news, conferencing, and an address book.
You can pick another option from the list, which means that the application you request--for example, by choosing File | New | Message from the IE4's menubar--is the program that you'll use. You can use Microsoft applications or a third-party program. For use with Internet Call, Microsoft gives away free an application called NetMeeting, downloadable from the Microsoft Web site. Schedule+ is Microsoft's long-time calendar program.
If you choose to set the option to ask IE to check whether it is the default browser, you're asking IE to check the registry each time it launches to make sure that it is still registered. Whether you want to take this option depends on whether you plan to install other browsers on your Windows 98 machine. If you don't plan on putting other Internet software on your computer, then it makes no difference whether or not you choose this option. But, if you install another browser, it might declare itself to be the default, which means that when you double-click on an HTML file, the other browser will launch to display the page. If you have this option checked, then the next time IE4 launches and finds itself displaced, it will ask whether you want to reregister it as the default. If you don't--if you're content to have another browser as the default--having this prompt pop up every time can be annoying, so erase the check mark. If you want an opportunity to reregister IE4, then check this option.
The Advanced tab gives you the opportunity to fully personalize your browser. In this tab is a big list of options that you can turn on or off, as shown in Figure 23.11.
FIGURE 23.11 To truly personalize Internet Explorer 4, go to the Advanced tab and choose the Internet options you want to use.
The options on the Advanced tab are grouped by category. The groups contain options that let you set your preferences for the following:
The most important of these options are the ones that affect performance and enable features. Although you can have a successful experience on the Internet by sticking with the defaults, you should be aware of and make a decision about your preference regarding these options in particular.
You're probably familiar with the layout of Internet Explorer 4. It has a menubar, three toolbars, a status line, and a large area where you view Web pages. When Internet Explorer 4 is first installed, the screen looks like Figure 23.12. However, you have a lot of control over how it looks. Here's how to customize the look of your screen.
FIGURE 23.12 This is what you see when you launch Internet Explorer for the first time; this interface is highly customizable.
Although Figure 23.12 shows the menubar and the three toolbars layered each below the others, you can collapse them onto one line. Just drag one over another and drop it; they'll end up sharing the same screen real estate, which gives you more area to view pages. When toolbars share the same area, one will scoot out of the way so that you can see the items on the other. To expand and collapse a toolbar, double-click on the far left side of the bar, where you see the 3D vertical line.
You can also reorder the toolbars when all are showing; again, drag one, but this time drop it beyond or between its companions.
In the View menu, you'll see an entry for Toolbars. This is where you choose which ones to view. You can turn any toolbar off and leave yourself with just the menubar. The Status Bar entry gives you the option of turning the status bar on and off, as well.
IE4 also has options for the appearance of the toolbars. You can use the buttons with both icons and text, or you can eliminate the text and surf with just small icons.
The other thing you can change, which will also give you a bigger viewing area, is going into full-screen mode. Again, the option is available under the View menu. Full screen uses only the bars you want. Right-click on the menu area at the top of the screen and choose which toolbars you want to use. The right-click menu also provides an option to Auto Hide. This means that the toolbars do not show up on screen unless your cursor is at the top of the screen. You can switch between full screen and regular screen by pressing F11 or clicking on the fullscreen icon on the button bar.
You can also customize the toolbars by putting your personal choices on the Links bar. The items on the Links bar are shortcuts stored in a specially named folder. You can edit them by going into the favorites area--select Favorites | Organize Favorites from the menubar--and opening the folder named Links. You can move, rename, or delete the existing shortcuts. To add new ones of your own, just drag a URL to the Links bar, or add it to your Favorites list as usual, except specify that it's to be stored in the Links folder.
FIGURE 23.13 The Explorer bars are an easy way to see lists of URLs, such as search results, history, channels, or favorites.
You can also use the Explorer Bars in full-screen mode. The major difference is that the left-hand pane slides out of the way until your mouse hovers over it. You can fix the pane in the open position by clicking on the push pin and tacking to the display area.
Favorites have already been touched upon, in terms of customizing the Links toolbar. Now we're going to go over them in detail. Favorites are the ultimate way to personalize IE4. They provide one-click access to the places you like to visit the most.
The easiest way to add a favorite Web site to your list is to hold the left mouse button on the IE page icon on the Address Bar and drag it over to the menubar, on top of the Favorites entry. You'll see a drop-down list appear and you can place it anywhere within your Favorites hierarchy.
The alternative is to go to a page that you want to mark as a Favorite and then select Favorites | Add to Favorites from the menubar. The advantage adding your favorites this way is that you get a dialog box that offers you the chance to change a Favorite--essentially just a list of URLs--into a subscription. Subscriptions enable you to set IE4 to download content on a schedule, without your intervention.
The three types of Favorites/Subscriptions are shown in Figure 23.14:
FIGURE 23.14 The Add Favorite dialog box enables you to create a regular bookmark as well as subscribe to a site.
Channels are a variation on subscriptions, except that the Webmaster at the site determines the content of the channel; with a subscription, you get to control the type and amount of information that you receive.
To receive a channel's information, you must subscribe to that channel. To help you find out which ones area available, Microsoft provided a Channel Guide. Figure 23.13 shows the initial contents of your Channels folder. The top entry, labeled Microsoft Channel Guide, takes you to a page on the Microsoft Web site that lists close to 1,000 channels.
The default IE4 installation also lists a subset of the channels available; as previously mentioned, you aren't subscribed to a channel until you specifically ask for it. So you can easily get rid of the entries shown in Figure 23.13. Just right-click an item and select Delete.
Subscribing to a channel is easy. If you find a channel you want within the Guide, then click on the Add Active Channel button. You might also find these subscription buttons at other people's Web sites, too. It launches a wizard that walks you through the process of subscribing. The biggest decision you have to make is the download schedule. The Webmaster will have suggested one, but you can change it to one that best suits you (see Figure 23.15). The things to remember when picking a schedule is that for a download to happen you need to have your machine powered on, and you shouldn't request a download during a peak work time when you want all your computer's power devoted to other tasks.
FIGURE 23.15 You can either take the Webmaster's suggested download schedule or pick another one. IE4 has some basic schedules--daily, weekly, and monthly--and also enables you to create custom schedules, like the one shown here.
To improve the performance of downloads, IE4 enables you to specify the maximum amount of data to download and which types of content to ignore. The former choice enables you to manage your cache; subscriptions are stored in cache and you don't want to overwhelm it, especially if you have several subscriptions. If the cache does get too full, IE4 will swap old content for new content, so the latest information will always be available.
A channel's properties offer you the chance to choose not to download multimedia content like images and sound, which can take up a lot of disk space. (Right-click its entry, choose Properties, open the Receiving tab, and then click on the Advanced button.) Eliminating multimedia components makes the subscription download faster and saves disk space. Be careful, however, to keep those elements that are important to the channel; images, especially, might be an important element.
If you've ever browsed the Web before, then you'll quickly grow accustomed to the IE4 interface. It consists of a menubar and three toolbars. Now that you know how to customize these bars, you should know the commands contained within each of them. Table 23.1 provides the commands and a description of the actions each command provides.
TABLE 23.1 Menubar Commands
| Menu Heading | Command | Description |
| File | New | Spawns a new browser window, or opens Outlook Express or the Address Book, depending on the sub-command you choose. |
| Open | Calls up a dialog box with a space for typing in a URL. | |
| Save | Saves the HTML page to your hard drive or the network. | |
| Save As | Saves the HTML page to your hard drive or the network, with a new name that you specify. | |
| Page Setup | Configures the printer. | |
| Makes a hard copy of the current Web page. | ||
| Send | Affects the current Web page; depending on the subcommand you choose, either sends someone the whole page or the URL over email, or places a shortcut to this URL on your desktop. | |
| Properties | Identifies properties of the current URL. | |
| Recent URLs | These words aren't on the file menu; rather, you see a set of page names, which are the most recent pages you've viewed. The one you're currently viewing has a check beside it. Click an entry to return to that page. | |
| Work Offline | When checked, assumes you're not connected to the Internet and searches for pages in your cache. | |
| Close | Exits Internet Explorer. | |
| Edit | Cut | Deletes the highlighted material. |
| Copy | Copies the highlighted material. | |
| Paste | Inserts material. | |
| Select All | Highlights all the material on a page. | |
| Page | Launches FrontPage Express, which enables you to modify the contents of current page. | |
| Find (on this page) | Searches the current Web page for the words or phrase you supply. | |
| View | Toolbars | Brings up a submenu listing the three toolbars and the text-labels item. A check next to an entry means it's in use. |
| Status Bar | Turns the status bar on and off. A check indicates it's in use. The status bar shows information like the URL, during a page load; a progress bar; and to which security zone the page belongs. | |
| Explorer Bar | Opens one of the four Explorer Bars. If none is marked, then the Explorer Bars aren't currently in use. | |
| Fonts | Enables you to easily change the size of the screen fonts or switch to another alphabet. | |
| Stop | Stops loading the current URL. | |
| Refresh | Goes out to the server and grabs a fresh copy of the current page. | |
| Source | Opens Notepad with the HTML code that creates the current page loaded into the editing area. | |
| Full Screen | Switches the interface to full-screen mode. | |
| Internet Options | Discussed earlier. These are the configuration options available to you; they control the appearance and behavior of IE4. | |
| Go | Back | Go back one page in your surfing history. |
| Forward | Go forward one page in your surfing history. | |
| Up One Level | Go to the next higher level within the file hierarchy. If you're viewing a Web page, you see a list of files on your hard disk. | |
| Home Page | Go to your designated home page. | |
| Channel Guide | Go online and find the Microsoft Channel Guide. | |
| Search the Web | Go online and find the Microsoft Search Page. | |
| Launch Outlook Express. | ||
| News | Launch Outlook Express. | |
| My Computer | Browse your hard disk. | |
| Address Book | Launch the Address Book. | |
| Favorites | Add to Favorites | Stores a shortcut to the current URL in your list of Favorites. A dialog box pops up enabling you to specify whether to download content, what title to give the Favorite, and where to store it within your Favorites hierarchy. |
| Organize Favorites | Calls a dialog box that enables you to rename, delete, and reorganize the shortcuts and folders that comprise your Favorites hierarchy. | |
| Manage Subscriptions | Opens a window that contains the contents of your Subscription folder. The window shows the status of the subscription, when it was last updated, the next scheduled update, and its associated URL. You also have commands available that enable you to immediately update any or all subscriptions. | |
| Update All Subscriptions | Connects to the Internet and downloads all subscriptions immediately, regardless of their update schedule. | |
| Favorites Hierarchy | You don't see these words. Instead, you see a list of Favorite shortcuts and any folders you've created to organize them. | |
| Help | Gives you access to various help resources, both local and online. You can check which version of IE4 you're running by choosing the About Internet Explorer item. |
The next toolbar, the Button Bar, is the one that is most different from the one in IE3. The workhorse navigation buttons--Back and Forward--are still there, and Microsoft added some new commands.
TABLE 23.2 Button Bar Commands
| Icon | Name | Command |
 |
Back | Takes you to the previous page. Hover over this button and you'll see a description of the page. Click on the arrow to the right to get a pick list of sites. |
 |
Forward | Takes you to the next page. Hover over it and you'll see a description of the page. Click on the arrow to the right to get a pick list of sites. |
 |
Stop | Stops loading the page. |
 |
Refresh | Goes out to the server and loads a fresh copy of the page. |
 |
Home | Goes directly to your home page. You can customize this button by selecting View | Internet Options and opening the General tab. |
 |
Search | Opens an Explorer Bar and takes you to a special Microsoft page that offers a selection of search engines. Search results show up in the left-hand pane. |
 |
Favorites | Opens an Explorer Bar containing a list of all sites you've marked as Favorites. |
 |
History | Opens an Explorer Bar that contains a list of sites you've recently visited. The view is organized by date. |
 |
Channels | Opens an Explorer Bar showing all the channels to which you've subscribed. If you click on one, you will see its content. |
 |
Fullscreen | Changes the IE4 interface to full-screen mode. Click on it again to return to the previous view. F11 also cycles you between these modes. |
 |
Provides a drops-down list of mail options, including reading messages, composing messages, reading newsgroups, and sending links and pages through email. | |
 |
Prints the current Web page. | |
 |
Edit | Opens FrontPage Express. Loads the current page into the application so that you can modify it locally. |
The third bar, the Address Bar, is fairly simple to use. Its components are described from left to right. You can follow along on Figure 23.16.
FIGURE 23.16 The Address Bar lets you type in a URL and go directly to that Web page.
On the far left side of the Address Bar is the vertical line that expands and contracts the bar. Click and drag it to the position you want, or double-click to snap the address bar to its minimum and maximum width.
Within the Address field, the Web page icon represents the current URL. Click and drag it to create a shortcut to that page. You can drag it to the Links Bar or hover it over the Favorites menu item and place the shortcut wherever you want within your Favorites hierarchy.
If you click the down arrow at the right of the Address field, you'll see a drop-down list of recently visited URLs. Select one to go to that page. If you're looking at a page from your hard disk, the drop-down list contains your file hierarchy.
On the far right, the "Flying Windows" icon--the Internet Explorer logo--is a shortcut to the Microsoft Web site.
The Links Bar is pretty straightforward. It contains a set of shortcuts. To personalize this bar, go through the Organize Favorites dialog box. Right-click on one of these links; you should see a list of actions. The interesting actions are:
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