Glenn Fincher, Joe Kraynak, et al
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Note
This book is based on a stable beta version of Internet Explorer 3.0 and Microsoft Visual Basic, Scripting Edition (also called VBScript). We've expended a lot of effort to ensure that it is as accurate as possible. However, if any discrepancies between the material covered here and the official product release of Internet Explorer 3.0 and VBScript come to light, they will be fully documented and available online. You can obtain the latest updates, if any, from Macmillan Publishing's Sams.net site at
The information contained in this book is subject to the following disclaimers:
Lead Authors
Glenn Fincher is a Senior Support Engineer for Intergraph Corporation. With some 14 years in the computer industry, he has continued to stay abreast of the latest advances in this quickly changing field. He served for two years as Webmaster for
Intergraph Software Solutions (http://www.intergraph.com/), and continues to be active in developing company standards for the adoption of Internet technology. His current job at Intergraph is Technical Liaison to
Microsoft, where he serves as Intergraph's primary development contact with Microsoft. Glenn has co-authored a number of works including Special Edition: Using Windows 95, Killer Windows 95, Netscape Unleashed, and Website
Administrator's Survival Guide. Glenn makes his home in historic Mooresvile, Alabama with his wife Jan who stays equally busy home-schooling their three children, Ashley, Will, and Aimee. Glenn can be reached by electronic mail at
gtfinche@ingr.com.
Joe Kraynak (kraynak@iquest.net) is a self-proclaimed hack with an affinity for computer documentation and training manuals. He has written several successful computer books, including The Complete
Idiot's Guide to PCs, Windows 95 Cheat Sheet, and The Complete Idiot's Guide to Netscape Navigator 3.0. When he's not trying to keep up on the latest computer technology, Joe can usually be found pounding nails in his garage.
Contributing Authors
Mark L. Chambers has been a PC software technical writer, bulletin board system operator, and game programmer for over 10 years. He is the author of Que Corporation's Running a Perfect BBS and has contributed chapters for Que's
Introduction to PC Communications and Using PC Tools 8. You can reach him on the Internet at
sysop@batboard.org
Rick Darnell (darnell@montana.com) is a midwest native currently living with his wife and two daughters in Missoula, Montana. He began his career in print at a small weekly newspaper after graduating from
Kansas State University with a degree in broadcasting. While spending time as a freelance journalist and writer, Rick has seen the full gamut of personal computers since starting out with a Radio Shack Model I in the late 1970s. When not in front of his
computer, he serves as a volunteer firefighter and member of a regional hazardous materials response team.
Noel Estabrook is currently a faculty member of the College of Education at Michigan State University after having obtained degrees in Psychology, Education, and Instructional Technology. He is heavily involved in delivering Internet training
and
technical support to educators, professionals, and laymen. He also runs his own training and web consulting business part-time in addition to writing. Most recently, he has been involved in authoring on the web and authored Que's 10 Minute Guide
to Netscape for the Mac. His e-mail address is
noele@pilot.msu.edu
Sanjaya Hettihewa is an accomplished Webmaster and a consultant specializing in integrating Windows NT-based information systems on the Internet. He has been living in the Washington, DC area for the last six years and is a Computer Science
major
attending the University of Maryland. For the last two years, Sanjaya has done extensive research in setting up Internet information systems with Windows NT as well as exploring various ways of utilizing Windows NT's unique features to publish information
on the Internet. Sanjaya is the author of Web Site Developer's Guide For Windows NT and a co-author of Windows NT Unleashed by SAMS publishing. Sanjaya can be reached at
http://www.NetInnovation.com/
or, if you prefer the old fashioned way
sanjaya@NetInnovation.com
Sein Leinen (sfleinen@ingr.com) is a Senior Systems Specialist with Intergraph Corporation, who specializes in Internet/intranet consulting. He is an established corporate network and operating systems
resource, with a focus in UNIX, DOS, 16-bit/32-bit Windows, and the Microsoft BackOffice environments. With five Microsoft product certifications and BackOffice MVP membership, Sean can be found freely sharing and helping on various Microsoft product
newsgroups. Sean has authored several "Tech Tips" articles in PC Magazine, as well as columns for popular trade newsletters. He professionally plays billiards in his spare time, and is an active jazz bass guitarist.
Dick Oliver has authored and co-authored several graphics programs, articles, and books, including Web Page Wizardry, Netscape Unleashed, Internet Graphics Gallery, and Tricks of the Graphics Gurus. Dick is president
of Cedar Software of Wolcott, Vermont, which specializes in new approaches to advanced graphics and 3D modeling. He also publishes the Nonlinear Nonsense netletter (http://netletter.com/), an online Web site and
paper newsletter covering creative computer graphics. You can contact him at
dicko@netletter.com
Michael O'Mara is a freelance author, technical writer, and consultant. Previously, he was a staff author with The Cobb Group where he wrote innumerable articles about leading computer software programs and served as Editor-in-Chief of several
monthly software journals. He has coauthored or contributed to other Macmillan books including Using DOS, Using Windows 3.11, Special Edition, Using CompuServe, Special Editon, Using Windows 95, Special Edition, Using
Windows
NT Workstation 3.51, 10 Minute Guide to Freelance Graphics 96 for Windows 95, and Using Your PC. He can be reached at
mikeo@dalcassian.ol.net
Keith Brophy and Timothy Koets wrote Appendix C, "VBScript Reference." Mr. Brophy is currently Software Release Coordinator for X-Rite, Incorporated, a leading worldwide provider of Color and Appearance quality control software
and instrumentation in Grandville, Michigan. Mr. Koets is a software engineer at X-Rite.
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By Glenn Fincher
As a child of ten I would sit by my father as he "talked" to people across great distances using a wonderful technology called Amateur Radio. As a "ham," he would regularly converse in Morse code with people across town, across the
country, or even across the globe! He translated the dots and dashes as they came across the wires and told me what the people were saying. He had postcards from many of the people he had contacted, and even regularly conducted "conversations"
with friends that he had made online. I still remember snippets of that language—dah-di-dah-dit dah-dah-di-dah di-di-dah di-di-dit di-dah or "CQUSA," a shorthand message for "calling anyone in the USA."
As my son "surfs" the Web beside me, we are experiencing the same kind of technological phenomenon. I show him how we can contact people all over the planet, and even some of the rudiments of how it's accomplished. He is admirably impressed
but because of the technological leaps since my experience 30 years ago, his experience is more immediately rewarding.
Like my son, you have probably been at least marginally introduced to the Internet and the World Wide Web. If you pick up a magazine, a newspaper, tune in the news on radio or television, you'll hear talk about these technologies. You might have heard
the Internet discussed at the last PTA meeting at your children's grade school. You might have seen a cryptic "address" like http://www.microsoft.com/ mentioned at the end of a flashy television or
magazine
advertisement. The Internet is the subject of big business news in the Wall Street Journal and legislation in Congress. Your local church or synagogue might even have a "home page" on the Web!
If you want to understand the source of all the excitement or just to better use the tools that you're already using, this book is for you. I think that you will find the answers to most of your questions about the Internet, the WWW, and of course,
Microsoft Internet Explorer.
Tip
If you're not familiar with some of the terms you find in this introduction; you'll find them explained in great detail later in the book.
Internet Explorer is the subject of this book. And "explore" might be the best way to approach this book. If you have just installed Windows 95 or Windows NT 4.0 and need to install and configure Internet Explorer for the first time, jump
right to those chapters and get a step-by-step guide to getting online. You might already be a seasoned user and want to learn how to get more out of the tools that comprise Internet Explorer. If it's web publishing you are interested in or one of the new
technologies like ActiveX or VBScript, you'll find the answer in these pages. And maybe, just maybe, your son or daughter will write about this thirty years from now.
In many ways, exploring the Internet can be an intimidating task. Getting to the wide range of information that you've heard is available on the Web is sometimes a hit-and-miss activity. You might start out looking for information on some subject like
raising Ratites and find that a "hyperlink" takes you to an entirely different subject and location than you first started.
Note
In case you're wondering, a Ratite is a family of birds that includes the Ostrich, Emu, and Rhea. One site that a web search engine might locate is "Emus Landing" at
http://www.emuslanding.com/
In this book, you learn how to access and use all the information available to you on the Internet and how to optimize, enhance, and unleash the Internet Explorer.
If you are interested in directly participating in the communication that is going on across the Internet, jump to Part VI, "Building a Web Site with MS FrontPage." You'll learn to use one of the best tools available for quickly getting your
information published on the Web. Or if you are already a webmaster and are looking for ways to enhance your web presence, you'll learn how to use the latest programming tools to really make your web site hot!
Because the most significant part of this new technology is that it enables anyone to join the revolution, you'll find lots of good, practical examples you can use right out of the book from the accompanying CD-ROM. Special care has been taken to make
all the example content easily reusable so that you can really unleash the power of Internet Explorer.
As a quick overview of Internet Explorer 3.0, let's look at some of the ways it can help you get to all the information that is on the Internet. Internet Explorer is first and foremost a World Wide Web browser. It "speaks" all the languages
of
the Internet such as HTTP, FTP, and Gopher and supports the latest multimedia content as well. It is a robust client that works as well on a dial-in connection to the Internet as it does on the fastest T3 line. Internet Explorer is closely integrated into
the operating systems on which it is available and takes full advantage of the unique characteristics of the Macintosh, Windows 95, or Windows NT environments. The following are some of the things that are new in 3.0:
User interface enhancements:
Support for new HTML extensions for content authors:
Technology enhancements:
The Internet is a worldwide network of networks. At it's inception in 1969 as ARPANET, it was entirely comprised of only four locations linked together for military and academic interests. When Tim Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web in 1990, he was
simply trying to make his job at CERN easier. As of May, 1996 there are now 57,418,090 people on the Internet and some 270,133 World Wide Web sites! You'll find more about the Internet and the WWW in Chapter 1, "Introduction to the Internet and the
WWW."
New Feature Summary for 1.x Users
Internet Explorer started life in the initial release of Windows 95 in August 1995. As an integral feature of that operating release it was tightly integrated with all the tools that comprised Windows 95. Microsoft wasted no time though in enhancing the Explorer, and soon released the first beta versions on the Internet Explorer home page on the Web. Among the features that soon made it into the release of 2.0 were new HTML tags like MARQUE and TABLE, which add more impact to web pages. Support of security standards like SSL enables version 2.0 to conduct secure transactions over the Internet. 2.0 is markedly faster and more robust than 1.0, and uses new HTTP protocols like "HTTP Keep Alive," a protocol enhancement that keeps HTTP connections open for improved performance.
The cache management functions are improved markedly to make browsing the Web as fast as possible. And for some of you, the additional platform availability makes it an important upgrade as well. Internet Explorer 2.0 is now available for Windows 3.1, Windows NT, and even the Macintosh!
Internet protocols require that you access specific information using a certain syntax. Access of a WWW site usually requires using a line like
http://www.microsoft.com/
Internet Explorer recognizes standard protocols like HTTP and FTP and automatically formats the address correctly for you, so you can simply enter addresses like www.someplace.com or ftp.someplace.com and Internet Explorer will add the appropriate
protocol. The Favorites folders help you to easily remember those sites you want to go back to frequently and easily manage these favorites as well. Internet Explorer keeps an accurate history of everywhere you've been so that you can easily return to a
site without adding it to the Favorites. If you need to search for a specific site or information and aren't sure where to start, you are just a button click away from the Internet's best search engines.
The Internet isn't only about the Web or FTP sites. Internet Explorer also enables you to have easy access to e-mail and USENET newsgroups. You can use Microsoft Mail or Exchange to send your e-mail with Internet Explorer or access your Internet
Service
Provider. And the integrated NNTP newsreader gives you easy access to any USENET group that your service provider offers.
With the new HTML extensions like BGSOUND or DYNSRC you can easily embed sounds or even multimedia animations to play in the background when someone accesses your page. And when Internet Explorer 3.0 is released, you'll be able to access ActiveX
applications and even drive Internet Explorer with Visual Basic Script or JavaScript.
In addition to the many ways to unleash Internet Explorer, this book also covers other tools from Microsoft to help you create web content or even set up your own Web site. With the Internet Assistants for Word for Windows, PowerPoint, and Excel, you
easily can turn your latest document, presentation, or spreadsheet into content for the Web; without needing to learn a single bit of the HTML language! With Microsoft FrontPage you can edit, publish, and manage an entire web site and even collaborate
with
other webmasters on extensive professional sites like www.microsoft.com. The Internet Information Server is Microsoft's new WWW, FTP, and Gopher server for Windows NT Server. It is a free, robust, and extensible Internet server that has literally taken
the
Web by storm. IIS as it's called is also the basis for the new Peer Web Services and the Personal server that is part of FrontPage. These services will help you unleash all your creative talents and craft the next Cool Site of the Day!
An exciting addition to this book is the included CD-ROM. You'll find all the late-breaking enhancements to Internet Explorer including the latest from Microsoft. Helper applications that are mentioned in the book, as well as many more that were too
new
to make it into the book, are included on the CD-ROM. We've included all the source files from the web created using FrontPage as well as sample code for HTML, CGI, VB Script, and JavaScript. All of this is in the form of reusable examples from the book
to
help you create your own exciting web sites or just to help you learn more about the latest technology of the Internet.
As you read through the book, you will see many examples of interesting applications and code samples that you might want to try yourself. You will find many of these on the CD that accompanies this book. The CD includes tools from Microsoft such as
the
Internet Explorer, Internet Assistants, and the Office viewers. In addition to the tools from Microsoft, you'll find other shareware and freeware applications from other vendors. You'll find HTML editors like Hot Dog and HoTMetaL, as well as current
versions of tools like WinZip. You'll also find working code samples from the book that you can use immediately to enhance your site as well as sample pages using the latest Internet Explorer enhancements. I'm sure you'll find the Internet Unleashed CD a
great addition to the book, and find many uses for the software and samples that it contains.
NOTE
For the full details of the contents of the Microsoft Internet Explorer 3 Unleashed CD, consult Appendix E, "About the CD-ROM," at the back of the book. Or, you can always just pop the CD in your drive and browse the contents from Internet Explorer!
The interface to the CD was developed using many of the tools discussed in this book. All the latest features supported by Internet Explorer are used to illustrate the correct usage as well as to make the contents of the CD easily accessible from
Internet Explorer. You will find that Internet Explorer helps you navigate the CD in an easy and intuitive fashion
You can access all the examples from the book easily by loading the default.htm file from the root directory of the CD. We've included an easy interface to all of the information, and Internet Explorer will let you load and run all of the examples or
use FrontPage or the Internet Assistants to incorporate the examples in your own web applications.
I'm sure that you'll find all the information you need to really unleash Microsoft Internet Explorer.
And just in case you are wondering about if HAM radio is still around...
I can't wait to show my Dad how his technology and mine have met on the Web!
