Using Firefox. Student Guide

Transcription

1 Student Guide Document reference:

2

3

4

5 Contents... 1 Getting started with Firefox... 3 On a Windows PC... 3 On a Macintosh... 3 The browser window... 4 Using links... 5 Navigation buttons... 6 The web outside Edinburgh... 9 Error messages... 9 Cancelling a page access request Using World Wide Web addresses Bookmarks Adding a Bookmark Viewing your Bookmark List Deleting and Managing Bookmarks Navigate using bookmarks Archiving and restoring your bookmarks Searching the web Keyword search Category search Appendix Some URLs you might like to try... 16

6

7 1 The World Wide Web - or simply 'the Web' - consists of a large number of document pages on computers all over the world, linked by the global Internet. The pages are written using a standard language (HTML) which allows any computer connected to the Internet to access pages which have been made available on any other computer which is also linked to the Internet. Pages are stored on a Web Server machine, which can be identified to the outside world by a specific address. The address is called a URL or Uniform Resource Locator (in other words, a system by which resources can be found - in this case, Web Pages). A URL will usually be arranged something like this: It is these standard addresses which make links possible. A link can look like regular text, although it will often be underlined, or of a different colour. A link can also be a picture. When you click on a link, you can be taken to another page, usually one related to the first page in some way that is made obvious by the content of the link itself. A link about Edinburgh University Library, for example, might take you to the Edinburgh University Library Web Site. Behind the scenes a link contains a URL, which is what gives it the power to move you between one Web Site and another. On the Web, you can find literally any internet Web Server in the world, so long as an address can be supplied. The link automatically supplies that address, because the URL is that address. In this way pages stored on geographically separate computers can be connected in such a way that a simple click on a keyword will allow access to the linked information. A page on a Web Server computer in New York City can be easily viewed by clicking on a linked keyword from a page on a Web Server in London, and this page on the London Web Server can be accessed by a person using the internet from a computer in Sydney. Universities, companies, and individuals have made available information on everything from aquaria to Zen, from cricket scores to renaissance art, from pictures sent by Mars probes to experimental music. All of these can be obtained from any Internet connected computer in a university lab, business office or home. The vast majority of information is free because people and institutions want to advertise their interests and services. This document shows you how to access the World Wide Web, how to locate particular pages of information, and how to search for pages containing information on a specific subject. These are the basic navigation tools for travelling on the World Wide Web. To read web pages you need a browser. A browser is a program that interprets HTML and displays the information on your screen including text, pictures and media files. At Edinburgh University you are offered either Firefox or Internet Explorer to browse the Internet.

8 2 In the Learning Resource Centre there are also Internet browsers for people with special needs which, for example, allow pages to be read aloud. For more information please visit the LRC or the Disability Office. For more detailed information about the Internet, HTML standards and historical information about the Web you can visit which is the international consortium in charge of providing the protocols to use the full potential of this technology.

9 3 Getting started with Firefox On a Windows PC Double-click on the Firefox icon the desktop. If the Firefox icon is not displayed on the desktop: Click the Start button in the bottom left corner of the screen. Move the mouse pointer to All Programs and click again. Move the mouse pointer to WWW, and select Mozilla Firefox from the third menu by clicking on it. On a Macintosh Click once on the Firefox icon in the Dock If the Firefox icon is not in the Dock: Double click the HD icon. Double click the Applications folder. Double click the Firefox icon. You will see the Edinburgh University Home Page appear.

10 4 The Edinburgh University Home Page is your starting point for navigating around the World Wide Web. From this page you can access information about various aspects of the University, of the city of Edinburgh, and information sources from around the world. There may be slight variations in the content of the University Home Page at different times so the screen you see may not be exactly like the one above. The browser window If the window is not already maximised, you may wish to adjust the window size to suit. Inside the Browser window you can identify various toolbars. At the top of the window you can find: The Menu bar: lets you choose options from menus. The Navigation toolbar: has quickly identifiable items. The Address bar: lets you type in the URL addresses. The Bookmarks toolbar: gives you quick access to personal bookmarks and links. At the bottom of the window PC users can find the Status Bar which contains useful indicators telling you what the browser is doing. In particular the Message Bar and Progress Bar provide you with information on the current connection, the status of transfer of documents to your machine and how long is left before the transfer is complete. On Windows PC the security button at the right-hand corner of the Status Bar tells you the security settings of the website you are accessing. The toolbars in Firefox can be customized to your preferences. You can create new toolbars or add and remove buttons from existing toolbars. You can simply activate them from the View menu. On the View menu, click Toolbars, and then click Customize...

11 5 The Customize Toolbar window will open, and now simply drag any button you want to the Navigation Bar. Click Done on the Customize Toolbar window when you finish adding all the items you need. Now you will see the new buttons that you wanted appear on the Navigation Bar. You can also re-order the positions of your toolbar buttons to suit your preferences. Using links Look over the Edinburgh University Home Page. Move the mouse pointer over some of the text. Observe that the cursor changes from an arrow to a hand with one finger pointing. This indicates that a link is available from this page to another page on the World Wide Web. Move the pointer over the line Present Students.

12 6 The pointer should change to the pointing hand. Click once with the left mouse button. This is how a link is activated. Firefox will identify the place on the Web where the linked page is stored and contact the computer there, requesting that the page is sent, or 'downloaded', to your screen. The time taken will depend on where the other page is stored and how busy the communications lines to that place are. Look at this page by scrolling up and down it. Locate the Quick Links box at the top of this page. Click on it to activate a drop-down menu. From this menu, choose Students' Assoc, then click on the Go button. Click on the link to Your Societies on the left-hand bar A pop-up menu will appear. Click on the link Societies A-Z for an Alphabetical list of Societies This is a list of various University Societies. Navigation buttons Going Back The browser keeps a list of the last few sites recently visited (from the time you started the program), and a history of the sites visited (usually 9 days). In order to move around the World Wide Web, it is useful to be able to go from the page you most recently accessed to the previous page. You can do this by clicking on the Back button near the top of the Firefox window: You can use the Back and Forward buttons repeatedly to navigate around the various pages and links, and on Windows PCs go directly to the desired page on the list of recently viewed pages by clicking the small black arrow beside the green arrows.

13 7 History Function The Browser keeps track of the sites you have visited. Whenever you access a page, data such as images and styles are copied into temporary internet files (stored in the cache space) on your computer. The Browser stores a list of the sites visited for a certain period of time (the default option is 9 days). You can access the list of websites stored in your history by clicking the pointing arrow or down-arrow to the right of the Address Bar. This will expand the menu and you can select any of the addresses on the list. Whenever you start typing a URL the browser will check in the history if there is one with the same initial letters. If it finds a match it will give you the option to select directly from the history instead of typing the entire URL. Now move around the Edinburgh University information, navigating through links and experimenting with the Back and Forward features. Going Home Click on the Home button in the Navigation toolbar: Wherever you are on the World Wide Web, this button will return you to the University of Edinburgh Main Page which is set as the default Home Page. Click on the text link The City of Edinburgh. From here you will be able to access a new set of pages concerning points of interest in the city itself. Click on the Home button to return to the University home page. From the University Home page you can then explore different links. Your College and School should have information under Academic Units.

14 8 Click on the Academic Units link and click on the name of a College to view the Schools in that College. Alternatively use the alphabetical index at the foot of the page to access a particular School. You may be interested to see what information there is about your course on the University of Edinburgh website. Visit MyEd linked to the Present Students section. This enables you to access your personal details and library account.

15 9 The web outside Edinburgh Just as Edinburgh University has created information pages on the World Wide Web, many other universities, companies, and even individuals across the world have done so. On the Edinburgh University Home Page, click on the Search button. Scroll down to the bottom and click on the link to the Online Reference Library. Choose a category that interests you, and look around some of the linked web pages. Click on the Home button when you have finished. Error messages The Web pages outside Edinburgh are stored on computers elsewhere on the Internet. Sometimes those computers are off-line because of problems either with the computers themselves or with communications lines between them. When this happens Firefox will usually try to make a connection for a minute or so and then print a message that there was a problem retrieving the requested Web page similar to the one below: There are reasons why you may not be able to find a page: You typed the wrong URL (make sure that the address is correct, as sometimes these are case sensitive) The page is no longer available on the Web (as the Web is continuously changing and growing, sometimes pages change and links are no longer available) Pages are temporarily not available (e.g. too many users trying to access them)

16 10 The best thing to do in these circumstances is to try again later. For the purposes of this exercise, if you find such a problem then simply try a different link - it's unlikely that everything will be unavailable. In any of these instances, you can check if the browser is trying to establish the connection: On both Windows PCs and Macs at the bottom of the window a progress bar indicates the amount of information to be downloaded and the current status. In addition, the logo in the upper left corner of the web browser is animated whenever the browser is connecting to or downloading information from a web page. When accessing Web pages stored outside of the UK, you can generally expect the pages to take longer to arrive, or download. For example, it can be faster to access US information outside US business hours. Cancelling a page access request If you get bored waiting for a page then you can cancel the request by clicking on the Stop button: This button activates each time you click on a link to a page and will remain available until the page has been successfully downloaded. Using World Wide Web addresses Most of the time, instead of going through the University website you may want to simply use a URL. These addresses can be used directly to find and access information published on the World Wide Web. Click in the white box at the top of your Firefox window (outlined below): Delete the current contents of the box and type This is the Web address of The Natural History Museum's WWW server. Press [Return] when you are finished typing and you will be taken directly to the page. When you have the URL address for a Web page, you can use this feature to access the published information. The appendix of this document lists the URLs of WWW sites which you may find interesting. These addresses were correct and available at the time of writing.

17 11 Bookmarks Pages can be added to your personal Bookmark list of useful Web pages. All the commands to use bookmarks can be accessed from the Bookmarks menu in the menu bar. Adding a Bookmark Return to a Web page which you have found interesting. Click on Bookmarks in the menu bar. Select Bookmark this page (both PC and Mac). In the little window that pops up, click the OK button (or the Add button on a Mac). This will add a bookmark for the current Web page to your personal list. Viewing your Bookmark List Clicking on Bookmarks in the Menu Bar lists your current bookmarks. This will expand the menu and let you access the saved bookmarks. Notice that you are allocated a default list of bookmarks and any new entries are added to these. You can also remove entries in order to customise your personal list. You can see that the other bookmarks are already organised into folders. Deleting and Managing Bookmarks Click on Bookmarks in the Menu Bar. Select Organise Bookmarks... from the menu. This will open a new window which allows you to organise your bookmarks. Click on any of the bookmark entries which you no longer want to keep. Click the Delete button. The Bookmark will be removed.

18 12 Creating folders and moving bookmarks into the folder is very similar to handling files in Windows. First create a new folder by selecting New : Folder from the File menu or clicking the New Folder icon. Then move the bookmark: Click the left mouse button on the bookmark you wish to move and drag it over the newly created destination folder. This will move the bookmark into the new location. Navigate using bookmarks Click on the Home button to return to the University Home Page. Select Bookmarks from the Menu Bar. Select a bookmark from the menu or one of the folders in the menu. Click on the entry for the bookmark. Firefox will return you to the page specified in your list. Archiving and restoring your bookmarks Archiving Bookmarks Although your bookmarks are stored in your user profile, you may want to occasionally make a copy for backup purposes: you can store your personal list on a floppy disk: Insert a formatted floppy disk into the floppy drive. Select Organise Bookmarks from the Bookmarks menu.

19 13 Select Export... from the File menu (at the top of the Bookmarks Manager window in PC, at the top of the screen in Mac): You will see a new dialogue box allowing you to specify where your personal list should be saved. Click on the down arrow where the destination drive is shown, then select Floppy Disk A: to access your floppy disk, then click on the Save button. Your personal list will be saved to your floppy disk. Restoring your Bookmarks When you next use Firefox you may want to import the personal list that you saved. Insert your floppy disk. Select Bookmarks from the Firefox menu bar and then choose Organise Bookmarks... Click on Import... from the File menu. Choose From File. Scroll to and select the Floppy Drive to access your floppy disk. The saved file bookmarks should appear in the menu. Click on the icon for your bookmarks file. Click on the Open button. The previously stored Bookmarks file will now be loaded into Firefox, and your bookmarks will be available from the Bookmarks menu. Note that if you named the bookmark file bookmarks any existing bookmark file in Firefox will be replaced by the bookmark file from the floppy disk.

20 14 Searching the web The best way to search the World Wide Web is to use a search engine. A search engine is a Web-based service which indexes a huge number of pages, stores the entries in a database and presents a page that lets you enter a keyword or two to describe what you are looking for. A keyword is simply a word or phrase which will help narrow down the search. It is important to choose the keyword carefully. Different search engines use different strategies to index pages, but mostly they use the content of the documents or descriptors in very much the same way as Yellow Pages. Keyword search We will use a search engine called Google (its URL is This can be accessed directly from the link marked Search on the Edinburgh University Home Page. From the University Home Page, click on the link Search. Click in the long white box under Search Using Google. Make sure the Search WWW option is selected by clicking the little button to the left of it. Say we want to find some information on the first book of the Bible. Type the word: Genesis Press [Return] and you will be taken to the Google results page for your search for 'Genesis'. After a short time Google will begin to present you with links to the best Web pages matching your search. Google will list sites with relevant content, with 10 links on a page, and if there are more than 10 relevant links, you can click on the word Next (at the foot of the page) to see some more. Look at some of the pages offered by clicking on the links and using the Back button to return to the list of pages found by Google. The problem is that a search on the keyword Genesis turns up more pages concerned with the rock band, the international corporation, and the software projects, than references to the Bible. In deciding upon keywords to use in a search it is important to consider ambiguity. Return to the Google search page using the Back button. In the white box at the top of the screen, type in the following two keywords separated by a space: Bible Genesis Click on the Google Search button. This time Google will search for documents containing both words. It can save search time to consider carefully which keywords would be most appropriate for any given search.

21 15 We strongly recommend that you read the search guidelines or tips published on the search engine's website. Category search Sometimes it is very difficult to locate information using only keywords. Using Google's many categories, we can list Web pages all related to one specific topic. For example: Return to the Google search page. Click on the Google logo at the top of the screen to go to the Google home page. Click on the more >> link under the Google logo. Click on the link to Directory. Click on the link to Arts, then Music. Scroll down and click on Bands and Artists. Here you can choose between looking for a band or artist by name, or using the By Style link to look for the type of music you like. Using the categories rather than a keyword search has given us a more accurate list of relevant sites. However, you need to know exactly what you are looking for in order for them to be of use. Use Google to find some pages related to one of your own hobbies, interests, or subjects of study. To repeat an identical search it is important to remember which Search Engine you used, and to use the same combination of words. Note that the Web changes so quickly that after a couple of months even the same Search Engine and the same words may not find the same result. Tip: To get to this search engine in future, it may be quicker to open the location Alternatively, you could bookmark this page. There are quite a number of other search engines available. There's a good list on the Edinburgh University Library Online web site. Go to the Edinburgh University home page by clicking on Home, then click on The Library. Now click first on Search this Site and Beyond on the top right-hand side of the library homepage. Then click on Other searches, information, and resources, and then click on the Search engines, Directories & Research Tools. This provides a list of links to search engines.

22 16 Appendix Some URLs you might like to try The Scotsman MTV British Army BBC Channel The Fortean Times Journal of Strange Phenomena NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory Wired Magazine On-Line Yahoo UK; an index of Internet sites 10 Downing Street European Football Association Project Gutenberg E-Text library A Guide To Arts in Scotland Tornado and Storm Research Organisation European Space Agency The Tate Gallery The Edinburgh Fringe If you require this document in an alternative format, please contact: Viki Galt, Disability Information Officer, Information Services 5 Buccleuch Place University of Edinburgh EH8 9LJ viki.galt@ed.ac.uk