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Notice: This material is excerpted from Special Edition Using HTML, 2nd Edition, ISBN: 0-7897-0758-6. This material has not yet been through the final proof reading stage that it will pass through before being published in printed form. Some errors may exist here that will be corrected before the book is published. This material is provided "as is" without any warranty of any kind.
Most people surfing the Web typically do so with Netscape
Navigator. The people who make this program, Netscape Communications, have
created a souped-up version of their browser. That program, known as Netscape
Navigator Gold 2.0, is significantly different from the regular browser
in that it includes an HTML editor. This program, like the new e-mail and
Usenet news programs, makes Netscape the front-runner among Web programs.
No other company offers a more complete package to accessing the Web, and
various Internet resources, than Netscape. Instead of needing an e-mail
program, a newsreader, a Web browser, and an HTML editor, Netscape Gold
has it all.
In this chapter, you learn:
Because Netscape Gold is a different program from the regular browser, you're going to have to decide if it's worth it. For general Web browsing, there's really no reason to get Netscape Gold. Netscape Navigator does a magnificent job. However, for people who want to create their own Web pages, Netscape Gold is well worth investigating.
The most obvious difference in using Netscape
Gold is its built-in HTML
editor. It's a stand-alone WYSIWYG (What You See Is
What You Get) editor, and unlike others of
its kind, it's fast. Netscape
Editor currently provides support for HTML
1.0 tags and some HTML
2.0 tags. No doubtNetscape plans to add more features within the near future
to this powerful HTML editor.
Netscape Gold currently doesn't allow you create forms. However, if you load an existing Web page with a form, it'll work fine.
Netscape Gold is currently in wide release, and anybody can get a copy of it. Simply FTP to any Netscape computer, go to the /2.0gold directory, and download the file g32e20.exe. This is a self-extracting archive that's about 3.4 megabytes in size. Once it's on your system, use Windows 95 to find the file you just received. Double click the icon, and you'll be asked if you want to install Netscape Gold. Click OK, and you'll be prompted for the directory where you want it installed. After it's done copying all the files, you can go ahead and use Netscape Gold.
When you first start up Netscape Gold, you'll notice that the Netscape
logo is now in gold. This is in indication of the things that are different
with Netscape Gold. It's basically the same Web browser you know and love,
but it has been improved. It's still fully integrated with the other Netscape
programs, such as Netscape Mail and Netscape News. The most notable change
to the Web browser that you'll see is the addition of a new button on the
toolbar (see fig. 27.1). The Edit button
will invoke a new session of Netscape Editor. You can also start the editor
by selecting File, Edit Document.
Netscape Navigator Gold 2.0 enables you to edit HTML
documents by clicking the Edit button.
Netscape
Editor looks a lot like the Netscape
browser except that it's really an HTML editor (see
fig. 27.2). It sports three new toolbars
that contain the most commonly accessed HTML
tags. Also, because it's WYSIWYG, HTML authoring will be more approachable
for those new to the language. Netscape
Editor will give the author a good idea of what the Web page will look
like. You won't have to know the different HTML tags; you can see how the
different tags behave.
Netscape Editor is like other Netscape applications, except you can modify HTML documents.
Because it's WYSIWYG, the HTML
portion of Netscape Gold makes maneuvering through an HTML
document easy. Anybody who's ever used a text editor or word
processor will find Netscape
Editor very easy to work with. The arrow keys move the cursor in the corresponding
directions. You can also go to the next or previous screen of your Web
page with the Page Up and Page Down keys, respectively.
The Home key takes you to the beginning of the line, while the End key takes you to the end. Holding down Control while pressing the Home key will take you to the very top of the document. If you hold down Control and press the End key, you'll be taken to the very bottom of the document. You can also use the mouse to move the cursor to a certain point in your Web page.
You can only start up Netscape Editor through Netscape Navigator. It is currently not possible to edit an HTML document from either the e-mail or Usenet reading programs of Netscape. No doubt this is just a slight oversight on Netscape's part that will be corrected soon.
If you've already started the HTML editor, you can jump into it from
any other Netscape program. To accomplish this, simply click Window,
and you'll be presented with a list of Netscape windows (see
fig. 27.3). Find the entry that has the title of your HTML document
and click it. You'll find yourself in Netscape Editor with the appropriate
HTML document. If the Web page you're working on doesn't have a title,
you'll see Untitled in the list.
You can easily switch to Netscape Editor by choosing it in the Window
menu.
Because Web
pages are made up of many elements-text, images, and lists-Netscape Gold
must provide for all of these. Fortunately, the basic HTML
tags are admirably supported by Netscape
Editor. Currently, the most commonly used HTML
tags are easily accessible through the three toolbars.
The less common elements can be found under the menu headings of the editor.
Currently, there is no way of putting in advanced HTML elements such
as forms, tables, and frames. No doubt that Netscape has plans on incorporating
these elements into future releases of Netscape
Gold.
Be careful when you click the Open File to Edit button in Netscape Editor. After you've specified the Web page to load, a new Netscape Editor session will be started.
You can test any Web page you have by first loading it into Netscape Editor. Next, just click the Open Browser button.
Probably the most common element you'll find in Web pages is descriptive
text. Whether it's text that describes what's on the Web
site or text that describes a link, a Web page is mostly text. You can
easily add text to any HTML document you're working on by simply typing.
The characters you type will appear right where your cursor is located.
You can easily specify the style of element type that you want the text
to have by selecting the Paragraph Style drop-down list. This box brings
down a list of available tags that you can use. The different headings
are intended for the Web
author's use as, well, headings. The smaller the heading number, the larger
the heading will appear. If you've selected a block of text when you select
the drop-down list, the highlighted text will be changed. If, however,
no text has been highlighted, the new paragraph style will take affect
when you start typing.
A feature you'll see in some of the more advanced Web pages is the use
of different font sizes. This is also easily accomplished by using the
Font Size drop-down list. This controls how much larger or smaller the
current font
will be in relation to its default size. By selecting some text and changing
the font size, you'll make the text that much bigger or smaller. Netscape
Editor allows for seven different font
sizes, -2, -1, 0 (the default size), and +1 through +4. You can step through
this list of font
sizes with the Increase
Font Size and Decrease
Font Size buttons.
A new feature of HTML, introduced by Netscape, is the capability to
specify font colors. Not surprisingly, the HTML
editor built into Netscape
Gold also provides support for this. You can change the color of the text
you're typing by choosing Properties, Font
Color. You'll be presented with the dialog box shown in figure
27.4, where you simply pick the color you want for the text. After
you've picked the font color, any text that you type will appear in the
selected color. If you've highlighted some text when you chose the font
color option, the selected text will change. The Color
dialog box is also accessible by clicking the Font
Color button.
Pick the color you want to use, or define your own.
Another popular element you'll find in many Web pages is some sort of
image. Typically, the graphic is a picture of the Web author, a product
being advertised, or a company logo. Suppose you wanted to add an image
to your Web page, all you have to do is position your cursor where you
want the graphic to appear at (see fig. 27.5).
You can easily insert a graphic into your Web page with Netscape Editor
by clicking the Insert Image button. You'll be presented with a dialog
box with a lot of parameters that enable you to control the image (see
fig. 27.6). Type the full path of the image you want to use in the
Image File Name field. If you're not sure where the graphic is located,
simply click the Browse button. You can also access the
Insert Image dialog box by selecting Insert, Image.
Fig. 27.5
Let's spice up this Web page with a picture.
Putting a picture into your Web
page is a simple matter of typing its file name.
Once you've specified the graphic you want to use, be sure to type some descriptive text in the Text field (see fig. 27.7). This text is what will be seen by people visiting your Web page with a non-graphical browser. Some people with graphical browsers also turn off the capability to see images because they have a slow connection to the Net. Because there's a lot of people who fall into both of those categories, you really should type something into the Text field.
Fig. 27.7
Whenever possible, try and describe the picture you're using.
When you insert a graphic, you can also determine how text will behave around it. By default, the text's baseline is aligned with the bottom of the image. You can change this behavior by selecting any of the options in the Alignment section. As you click an option, you'll see how the text will wrap in relation to the image in the Preview area.
The underlying component of the World Wide Web is the hyperlink. This enables you to take people who are visiting your site to other places of interest. To make some existing text into a hypertext link, simply highlight the text and click the Make Link button. In the dialog box that appears, simply type the URL you want the link to jump to in the Link to field (see fig. 27.8). If you click the Make Link button without highlighting any text, you can enter your desired text in the Type text to display for new link field (see fig. 27.9).
Fig. 27.8
When you make existing text into a hypertext link, the highlighted text will be filled in for you.
Simply type the URL, or the path to a local file, that you want to link to.
Creating a hyperlink for an image is similar to putting in a hyperlink for text. Simply click anywhere in the image and then click the Make Link button. As with creating a hypertext link, just type the URL for the document you want that image to go to. You'll notice that the Anchor Object field tells you the path of the graphic you've selected.
You can also create a combined graphical and textual hyperlink very
easily with Netscape Editor. To do this, highlight the text and the image
you want to go to the same URL. Next, click the Make Link button to bring
up the Make Link dialog box. Simply type the URL for the HTML document
you want the graphic and text to jump to in the Link to field. Even though
the Anchor
Object doesn't show the image's file name, it'll still get the link.
There will be times as you're creating your Web page when you'll need
to make a list: either a list of instructions or a list for showing a large
number of items in an orderly fashion. Whatever the case may be, you'll
need to use the HTML list element. The two most common list types are the
bulleted list and the numbered list. You can access more list types by
clicking Properties Paragraph and Lists
(see fig. 27.10).
Fig. 27.10
You can create something other than numbered and bulleted lists with this dialog box.
You can create a list by clicking either the Bulleted List button or the Numbered List button and then typing in the elements. When you press one of the list buttons, you will be in "list mode" (see fig. 27.11); that is, whatever you type in will be part of the list. A list prefix will appear and you can just enter one element. When you're done with that list entry, press return, and a list prefix will appear on the next line (see fig. 27.12). If you're creating a bulleted list, a bullet will appear. If you're creating a numbered list, the next number in the sequence will appear. Keep doing this until you've typed all the elements for your list.After you've typed in the last element in your list, press Enter one last time. Now click on the list button that you used to start this list, this will take you out of "list mode" (see fig. 27.13). If you're creating a bulleted list, click the Bulleted List button again. If you've created a numbered list, just click the Numbered List button.
Fig. 27.11
When you press one of the list buttons, you'll go into list mode.
Fig. 27.12
Netscape
Gold will take care of where the list prefix goes.
Fig. 27.13
We're now out of list mode.
When you're trying to convert a bulleted list to a numbered list, or vice versa, be careful. When you highlight the existing list and click the other list button. This will convert the list, but it will also indent it another level. To get the list back to the proper indentation level, simply click the
If you have already typed in a list without the list element, don't worry. Converting an existing list into an HTML list is also easily accomplished. Highlight the text in your Web page that you want to make into a list, and click the appropriate list button. Netscape will automatically enter list mode, update the elements to the proper list type, and then exit list mode.
You can also easily create a horizontal rule, or a horizontal line,
in your Web page. Position your cursor where you want the line to appear.
Next, click the Insert Horiz. Line and a line will be created where your
cursor is. If the cursor is on a line with some text, it'll put the horizontal
rule on the next line. The line created will have a height of 2 pixels
and have a 3-D appearance. If you want to change this, simply select the
horizontal rule, and click the Object Properties button. This will bring
up a dialog box that lets you modify the horizontal line's attributes (see
fig. 27.14). You can also access this dialog box by selecting the menu
heading Properties, followed by the menu item Horizontal
Line.
Fig. 27.14
You can't create a horizontal rule with certain specifications; You have to create a generic one first, then modify it with this dialog box.
The dialog box allows you to create horizontal rules with different
effects. You can specify the horizontal rule's alignment with the three
radio buttons. The height of the line is configured with the value in the
Height
field. The width of the horizontal line is specified by the value in the
Width
field. You can specify the measurement to be used for the horizontal line
by clicking on the drop-down list. You can have the width value be either
a percentage of the browser's window, or exactly how many pixels wide.
The way the horizontal line will look can be specified with the 3-D
Shading checkbox. If you disable the 3-D effect, the horizontal
rule will be one solid line.
What most WYSIWYG
HTML editors do in the case of many elements is to treat the elements as
objects. That is, certain HTML
elements are treated as separate entities. You can't affect part of the
element, you have to make changes to the whole thing. Netscape Gold's built-in
HTML editor is different from similar editors in that it doesn't do this.
Netscape Gold allows you to easily affect both the element itself, as well
as its attributes. You don't need to fumble around with one function that
allows you to modify all aspects of the element. You can simply modify
whichever aspect you want, independently of all other aspects.
Because Netscape Editor lets you change the attributes of HTML elements, without looking at the whole thing, you can easily change hypertext links. Other WYSIWYG editors require you to select the link and use buttons to modify a link. Netscape Gold doesn't need that: simply modify the visible text of the hypertext link. That is, put your cursor somewhere in the middle of the hypertext link, and add or remove text as you see fit. As long as there's some text from the original hypertext link, you don't need to worry about losing the destination URL.
You can also modify the destination URL for a particular link without
needing to highlight the entire link. For images that have an associated
link, click somewhere in the image and then click the Make
Link button. Simply modify the destination URL listed under the Link To
field in the dialog box that appears. Modifying hypertext links are even
easier: just put the cursor somewhere in the middle of the visible text
(see fig. 27.15), and click the Make Link button. Even though you won't
see the visible text for the link, you'll be able to change the destination
URL for the entire link (see fig. 27.16).
Fig. 27.15
With Netscape Editor, we put our cursor anywhere in the hyperlink itself.
Fig. 27.16
Clicking the Make Link button will let us change the destination URL without affecting the visible text.
So Netscape
Editor has built-in cut, copy, and paste facility? So what? This is an
impressive feature with Netscape because it treats text as more than just
text. This makes the cut, copy, and paste features much more powerful than
with other HTML editors. In other editors, whenever you cut, copy, or paste
text, just the visible text is carried over, so that if you cut out a hypertext
link, the visible text is what you'll paste. If you copy some colored text,
the pasted text won't be colored.
With Netscape Gold, the text that you've cut or copied into the Clipboard maintains its attributes. What this means is that any text you place into the clipboard will be pasted with the same features. If you've copied some visible text from a hypertext link, the link is maintained when you paste it to a new location. Similarly, if you've colored some text, copying and pasting it will keep the color. Suppose we're working on a fairly generic HTML document (see fig. 27.17). While you can't see the color of the text, the word "green" is in green. We simply highlight the "ello" portion of the colored text (see fig. 27.18). Now we move our cursor down a bit, and paste somewhere (see fig. 27.19). You'll notice that the pasted text is still in green.
Fig. 27.17
A fairly generic Web page that we're updating and we want to keep part of the green text.
Fig. 27.18
Just select the portion of the text that you want to use.
Fig. 27.19
The pasted text not only keeps its contents, but its colored attribute as well.
This smarter cut, copy, and paste facility of Netscape Gold is great for software companies' Web pages. This makes it easier for you to repeat certain links, such as to your FTP site. Also, when color is used to highlight some text, you can take advantage of this new capability. Simply copy the text that you want to use the color for and paste it in a new area; then, replace the old text with whatever new text you want in that part of the Web page.
A very nice capability of all Netscape
applications is their level of configurability.
That is, you can change the behavior of the various Netscape programs.
All the things that you can change in the different applications make Netscape
a better program. Instead of being forced to view Web pages in a particular
font or background color, you can change it. Fortunately, this tradition
continues with Netscape Gold's HTML editor.
Probably the first thing you'll want to do when creating your Web page
is give it a title. You can easily accomplish this by selecting Properties,
Document. This will bring up a dialog box that enables
you to specify various pieces of information about your HTML document.
In the Document Information tab (see fig. 27.20),
you can indicate the title of the document by typing it in the Title field.
You can also put your name in the Author field.
Currently, the Netscape System Variables are not accessible. In the
future this region will allow for the creation and editing of special Netscape
extensions. The User
Variables field is used for people who want to specify META elements. To
create a META element, click an existing variable, and click the New
button. To edit an existing variable, just highlight the META variable,
and the variable name and value will appear at the bottom. Change the value
to whatever you want, and click the Set button. To delete
a META variable, select it, and click the Delete button.
See Chapter 5 for information on what META elements are and how they're used.
You can specify different attributes for the current HTML document you're editing.
The Colors/Background tab enables you to define the general look and
feel of your Web page (see fig. 27.21).
By default the current HTML
document will use the browser's colors. You can, of course, define your
own color scheme by clicking Use Custom Colors. This will enable you to
change the different colors that appear on your HTML
document. You can modify the colors for Normal Text, Link
Text, Active Link Text, and Followed
Link Text. Simply click the appropriate button, and you'll be presented
with a color palette. Select the new color you want to use, and click OK.
You'll see an example of what the color will look like next to the button.
The Background section enables you to define a background color or image.
Click
Choose Color to pick the color you want as the background.
An image tiled in the background is also possible by typing the full path
to the image in the Image
File field. If you're not sure where the graphic is located, click the
Browse button to help you find it. When you're satisfied
with your configuration, click the Apply button, followed
by the Close
button.
Use this dialog box to change the general appearance of the current HTML document.
If you're in charge of an entire Web site, you'll want to have a consistent
look and feel to each of your pages. You can easily accomplish most of
this by specifying the default attributes for your HTML document. Simply
select Options, Editor Preferences. This
will bring up the dialog box shown in figure
27.22, which is similar to the one that enables you to define document-specific
attributes.
You can make all the HTML documents you create have a standard look and feel.
The Default Colors/Background tab enables you to control the colors and images for all your pages. This is done by using the same dialog box you used to control the look of the current document (see fig. 27.8). The only difference is that this time you'll be modifying all future HTML documents. In the current version of Netscape Gold, the General tab is very limited. You can type your name in the Author field and decide how links and images are to be stored in the HTML document.
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