Managing Web Resources (Netscape Navigator)

The Netscape Bookmark window offers some powerful editing features which make that the editing process an easy matter. Give it a try…

1. Open Netscape.
2. Open the Bookmarks Window (Ctrl-B or Command-B).
3. Your bookmarks will appear in the window.
4. Click and hold the mouse button while you drag the bookmark to a new position in the list. You will notice a black line that indicates where the bookmark will be placed when you release the mouse button.
5. Practice moving your bookmarks.

Don’t worry about experimenting with editing your bookmarks. You can always go back into the bookmark window and use the edit features to rearrange the changes you have made.

In additon to rearranging the order of your bookmarks, you can add separators that will assist you in organizing your bookmarks. A bookmark separator is a horizontal line that can be used to separate the bookmark list into distinct sections. Try that editing feature now.

1. Open your Netscape bookmarks (Ctrl-B or Command-B)
2. Click once on any bookmark in the window.
3. Navigate to the Item menu and select Insert Separator.
4. You will notice that a series of hyphens has been inserted below the bookmark you originally selected.
5. You can change the location of the separator by selecting it and then dragging it to a new location while holding down the mouse button.
6. When you release the mouse button, the separator will remain in the new location.
7. You can remove a separator you have inserted by clicking once on the separator and then selecting Delete Bookmark from the Edit menu.
8. You can see what the separators look like in your bookmarks list by closing the bookmarks window and clicking on the Bookmarks menu.

Inserting folders and moving bookmarks into these folders is an another useful Netscape bookmark editing feature. Here’s how to do that.

9. Open your Netscape bookmarks (Ctrl-B or Command-B)
10. Click once on any bookmark in the window.
11. Navigate to the Item menu and select Insert Folder.
12. A dialog box will appear asking you to choose a name and description for your folder. Do that now and click on then click on OK.
13. You will notice that a folder has been inserted below the bookmark you originally selected.
14. You can change the location of the folder by selecting it and then dragging it to a new location while holding down the mouse button.
15. When you release the mouse button, the folder will remain in the new location.
16. You can now move bookmarks from the general bookmarks list into the folder you have created.
17. Click once on the bookmark you want to move.
18. Hold the mouse button down while you drag the bookmark to the folder.
19. When you release the mouse button, the bookmark will appear beneath the folder. The bookmark will be indented to indicate that it is in the folder.
20. Close the bookmark window and take a look at how the folder appears in the Bookmark Menu.

You will notice that the folder you added looks similar to your regular bookmarks with the exception of a little arrow that points out to the side. When you select the folder and hold down the mouse button, the bookmarks you placed in the folder will pop out to the side of the original bookmark list.

You have probably noticed that the names of the bookmarks in your list are often not very descriptive of the contents of the webpage they point to. You can edit the title of the bookmark using these steps.

21. Click once on any bookmark in the window.
22. Navigate to the Item menu and select Edit Bookmark.
23. A dialog box will appear on the screen with the current name assigned to the bookmark. Note: This name comes from the title given to the webpage by the webpage designer.
24. Drag across the current bookmark name while holding down the mouse button if the name isn’t already selected.
25. Type a new name for the bookmark. You can name it anything you want but it is probably best to keep the name rather short.
26. You can also add a short description of the bookmark or note the date on which you located the bookmark. This won’t appear on your bookmarks list but will be there if you select the bookmark and return to the Edit Bookmark dialog box.

There are some other useful features available in the Netscape Bookmark window which we won’t cover in this course. You can find more information by clicking on the Help menu of the Netscape Browser. This will take you to Netscape’s online tutorial which has more information about Bookmarks.

Transforming Netscape Bookmarks Into Webpages

With minimal effort, your Netscape Bookmarks list can be converted to a webpage which can be saved on your local hard disk, on a floppy disk or even uploaded to the World Wide Web. You can reconfigure the default homepage setting on Netscape to automatically open to the webpage you created from your bookmarks list. It’s easy! Just follow these steps:

1. Before you start the conversion process, double-check that you have created a "web" directory/folder on your floppy disk or hard drive
   
2. Open Netscape.
   
3. Open the bookmark window (Ctrl-B or Command-B).
   
4. Navigate to the File menu.
   
5. Select Save As. When the Save As dialog box appears, select the desktop, your hard drive or a floppy disk as the destination.
   
6. Now, change the default Bookmarks file name to name.htm (Note: you can use a different file name as long as it has all lowercase letters, is five letters or less and has the .htm suffix.)
   
7. Save the renamed bookmarks file.
   
8. Exit/Quit Netscape.
   
   Tech Talk: Netscape saves all its bookmarks as webpages deep within its directories. You have just taken this webpage, renamed it with an acceptable short webpage file name and added the .htm which will identify the file as a webpage when it is opened with a web browser.
   
   
9. Now, open Netscape Composer.
   
10. Navigate to the location where you saved the bookmarks and open the name.htm file. (Hint: You may need to select "All Files" from the "Files of Type" drop down menu if name.htm doesn’t appear automatically.)
    
11. Edit the webpage.. You may want to change the webpage title, the background colors, add some graphics or rename or remove some of the links.
    
12. Save the changes that you make.

Now it’s time to see what your bookmark webpage looks like. Follow these steps:

1. Click on the Preview button which will open Netscape Navigator with your new webpage automatically or
   
2. Open Netscape Navigator.
   
3. Navigate to the File menu and select Open Page.
   
4. Be sure that the Navigator radio button is selected in the Open File or Location in: section of the dialog box.
   
5. Click on Choose File. Navigate to the directory/folder where you saved the name.htm file.
   
6. Double-click on the name.htm file.
   
7. Finally, click on Open. Your new webpage will appear on the screen.
   
8. Test some of the links to make sure that they work.

You can add this webpage to your bookmarks list just like any other webpage you might find on the web. You can even make it your Netscape Homepage by following these steps.

1. With your webpage on the screen, carefully drag across the entire address found in the Location: bar while holding down the mouse button. The location address will be selected.
   
2. Select Copy from the Edit menu to copy the address to the clipboard.
   
3. Select Preferences from the Edit menu.
   
4. Look for Home Page section near the center of the dialog box.
   
5. Click on "Use Current Page"
   
6. The address leading to your name.htm file will appear in the box.
   
7. Click on OK and the box will close.
   
8. Click on the Home button and your webpage will reappear on the screen.
   
9. Follow several of the hypertext links that take you away from the homepage and then click on the Home button again. You should return to your new homepage.

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