Tips and Tricks for Netscape Communicator 4

The most likely reason you consult the History list is that you forgot to bookmark a Web site you liked. Of course, this means that you can easily add a page from the History list to your bookmark list. Press Ctrl-H to open the History list, then select the sites that you want to bookmark. Right-click to open the context menu, then select Add To Bookmarks. That's it--you've got a new bookmark.

If you want to get away from pointing and clicking with the mouse, use the keyboard to execute Communicator menu commands. To do this, press the Alt key, then the underlined letter of the menu command. For example, to access the File menu, press Alt-F.

Here's a way to move quickly through Web pages. Press End to move immediately to the end of a line of text. Press Ctrl-End to move to the end of the document.

To select the entire contents of a Web document quickly, press Ctrl-A. >From here, you can press Ctrl-C to copy the contents to the Clipboard. Keep in mind, however, that many Web pages contain a lot of text and graphics.

To open the message center without going to the menu, press Ctrl-Shift-1. To open the Address Book, press Ctrl-Shift-2.

Netscape Communicator's Messenger has a couple of options for getting your e-mail messages, depending on your mail server. If your incoming mail account is on a POP3 server, you can delete your messages from the server after you've retrieved them, or you can leave them indefinitely on the server. If you choose to leave them on the server, you can access them at a later date. This can be really helpful if you get your mail on two computers, such as work and home. To set this option, open the message center and choose Edit, Preferences, Mail & Groups-Mail Server. If you want to leave your messages on the server after you retrieve them, select the option Leave Messages On Server After Retrieval. If you want them deleted, leave this option deselected. Click OK to close the Preferences box and save your settings.

If you get your mail from an IMAP server, the messages are always kept on the server after you retrieve them. You re-access them every time you access the server. Your option here is to store copies of your messages on your own computer so that you can view them when you're not attached to the server. To do this, open the message center and choose Edit, Preferences, Mail & Groups-Mail Server; then select the option Keep Copies Of Messages Locally For Offline Reading. Click OK to close the Preferences box and save your settings.

If you run your computer on a network, you may access the Internet through a proxy. This is just a computer that acts as an intermediary between the Internet and the network, helping secure the network against Internet hanky-panky. If the network uses proxies to access the Web or FTP, you may need to use the proxy's URL in your Netscape preferences. To do this, select Edit, Preferences to open the Preferences dialog box, then choose Advanced-Proxies from the Category list. Check Automatic Proxy Configuration, then enter the URL. Click OK to close the Preferences box and save your settings.

Downloading files adds to your general disk clutter. If you need to clear some space on the old hard drive, check the TEMP directories. Chances are that you don't need these files anymore, so go ahead and trash them.

Every time you receive or create a message, it makes a folder bigger. Paradoxically, removing or deleting messages from folders doesn't give you more space. This is because the deleted message leaves space behind, and this space takes up hard drive space. To control this, compress your folders. To do this, select File, Compress Folders from the Messenger window. This rearranges the folders, removing empty space.

When you have a lot of names in your Messenger Address Book, you can organise them with lists. To create a mailing list, open the Address Book and choose File, New List from the Messenger menu, which opens the Mailing List dialog box. Enter a list name, a description, and a nick name if you want (the nickname is optional). Next, enter the names and addresses of the people you want to include in the list. The quickest way to do this is to type in the nickname--the rest files in automatically. Press Enter to add the name. When the list is set, click OK to close the Mailing List box. The list immediately appears in the Address Book.

Names and e-mail addresses are always subject to change, which means that you'll need to update your address book entries every so often. To change an address book entry, open Messenger and then open the Address Book. Select the entry that you want to change and right-click, then select Card Properties from the context menu. Make any changes that you want in the card, then click OK to close the Properties box.

If you've migrated to Communicator mail from another mail system, you can import the existing address book into Messenger. Open Messenger, then open the Address Book and choose File, Import. Find and select the other program's address book file, then click Open. The file's entries are added to your Address Book immediately.

Communicator asks for your e-mail password every time you get mail. If you get tired of this, particularly if you check frequently, you can have Communicator's Messenger remember your password. To do this, select Edit, Preferences, then open Mail Server from the Mail & Groups category. Click More Options, then check the Remember My Password option. Click OK to close the More Mail Server Preferences dialog box, then click OK again to close the Preferences dialog box. Communicator asks for your password the next time you ask for mail, but won't ask again after that. (It will ask every time you open Messenger, however).

Communicator includes a program called Netscape Mail Notification that allows you to monitor your e-mail without having to open Messenger. When you have this activated, it checks your mail in the background, and you can tell it to inform you when you have new messages. To set this program up, select Start from the Windows menu, then select Programs, Netscape Communicator, Utilities, and click Netscape Mail Notification. The Mail Notification icon appears in the Windows taskbar. This is a pretty cool feature, but it does tend to work best when you have a direct Internet connection rather than dial-up.

The Netscape Mail Notification program allows you to access Messenger directly from the Windows taskbar. Double-click it, and Communicator opens to the Messenger window immediately.

The History list is a file and therefore it takes up more space as it grows larger, which it will do if you set a fairly long expiration time. This means it makes sense to clear the list every now and again. To do this, open Communicator and select Edit, Preferences, then click Navigator in the Category list. Click Clear History in the History section, and you're all set. Before you do this, however, make sure that you make note of any sites that are important (like those you've forgotten to bookmark).

If you do a lot of Web surfing, you can quickly build a crowded History list. To help you manage things better, Communicator lets you arrange the list in various ways. Press Ctrl-H to open the History list. Now select View from the menu, then choose the criteria to sort the list items (By Title, By Location, and so on). You can also choose to sort the items in ascending or descending order.

If your search of the Communicator History list was unsuccessful, the page may have expired. Each Web site you visit is added to the History, but Communicator sets an expiration date. To see the expiration date, select Edit, Preferences, then click Navigator in the Category list. The History section has a setting named Pages In History Expire After: X Days. Enter a new number here if you want to change the expiration date. Click OK to close the box and save your settings.

Forget to bookmark that cool site and now you can't remember the URL? You can go back again. Open Communicator, then press Ctrl-H to open the History list. Now select Edit, Search History List, which opens the Search History List dialog box. Select the search criteria and enter the search terms (for example, "Title" "Contains" "tipworld"), then click Search. Communicator soon returns any sites that match the search criteria.

Because the idea of cookies makes some people nervous, Communicator has a few ways for you to handle them. To make your cookie settings, select Edit, Preferences, then click Advanced. In the Cookies section, you can choose to accept all cookies; accept only those that send their information to the originating server, not another URL; or disable (reject) any cookies. You can also choose to be warned before accepting any cookies. This last option seems to make sense if the idea of cookies makes you uneasy, but here's a word of warning about that warning: You'll end up clicking a lot of cookie-warning boxes.

The cookies that a Web site sets are stored in files on your computer's hard drive. This is a simple text file, commonly named Cookies.txt. Therefore, if you're interested in knowing which cookies you have stored and the Web sites that set them, just locate and open the Cookies.txt file on your system (the actual path varies).

Cookies are bits of information that a Web site stores on your computer's hard drive. In most cases, this data helps the site "remember" useful things about your computer from session to session, such as a particular color configuration. A cookie can send the Web site information, including the type of computer you have and the browser you use. It can also record the number of times that you visit the site and the amount of time you spend there. However, don't fret too much about security or loss of privacy. Cookies cannot tell the Web site your name or e-mail address unless you specifically register at the site.

If you've done a lot of Web surfing, you've probably run into "cookies." These are essentially bits of information that a Web site sends to and stores on your computer's hard drive. Although some people get a little nervous about cookies, they tend to be benign. To find out the technical lowdown on cookies, go to the Netscape cookie documentation page at

Communicator's spelling checker contains an extensive dictionary of terms. However, you probably use many words in your business and personal e-mail messages that won't be there--words such as personal names, company terms, acronyms, and so on. It's nice, then, that Communicator allows you to add your own words to the dictionary. Just click Edit Dictionary in the Check Spelling dialog box, enter the word in the New Word field (make sure you spell it the way you want), then click Add. The word immediately appears in the dictionary list.

Nothing is more embarrassing than sending an important e-mail message that contains a spelling error. Therefore, you should get in the habit of using Communicator's spelling checker before you send every message. Just click Spelling on the Message toolbar or select Tools, Check Spelling from the main Communicator menu. The Check Spelling dialog box opens and locates any suspect words. You can choose from a list of suggested correct words, enter your own version, or ignore the selection.

The previous tip showed you how to sort the History list from the History menu. You can also sort the list by moving the column headers. Press Ctrl-H to open the History list. Point your cursor to the column headers and select the column that you want to sort on. Then, hold the mouse button down and slide this column all the way over to the left. This becomes the sorted column.

Many Web sites have passwords that you must enter before you can access the site. If you're like most people, you have a heck of a time remembering all those passwords. One way to have the password at your fingertips is to attach a note to the bookmark (of course, you'll have bookmarked any site that you need a password for). To attach a note, select Bookmarks, Edit Bookmarks to open the bookmarks file, then select the bookmark that you want. Select Edit, Bookmark Properties to open the Bookmark Properties box for the bookmark. Enter the password (or anything else you want to add) in the Description box. Click OK to close the box.

Our previous tip explained how to open the bookmarks file to edit your bookmarks. You can press Ctrl-B from the Communicator browser for the quickest access to the bookmarks file.

For the quickest way to add a Web page to your bookmark file, press Ctrl-D when you're at the page. The bookmark is added before you even think about it.

Communicator makes it easy to save Web pages to a file in the HTML format. To do this, open Communicator and access the page you want to save. Select File, Save As, then choose the location to save the file to and enter a file name. Make sure you choose HTML Files as the file type. Click Save to save the file.