Netscape Communicator v4.5x is made-up of the following applications:

1. Netscape Navigator: a World-wide-web browser
2. Netscape Messenger: an email and Usenet news reader
3. Netscape Composer: an HTML Editor
4. User Profile Manager+: user setup utility
5. Netscape Address Book#
6. Netscape Smart Update#
7. Netscape Calendar*#
8. Netscape Quality Feedback Agent+#
9. Netscape Mail Notification+#
10. Palm Pilot Sync+#
11. AOL Instant Messenger 2.x#
12. WinAmp Media Player#

* = Included with Enterprise Calendar Edition only
+ = Application is located in a sub-folder entitled 'Utilities'
# = Information on this application is not included in this write-up

For more information on using Netscape Communicator than is provided here, start up Netscape Navigator and select Help >> Help Contents. This is a very thorough tutorial on using and configuring Netscape.

User Profile Manager

As frequently happens, more than one person might be an active user of Netscape Communicator and might prefer or require a look-and-feel that is different from other users of the application. Or a single user, for many reasons, might themselves need more than a single look-and-feel set. For this reason, Netscape has introduced the idea of user profiles in the 4.5x version.

A profile is a grouping of settings, preferences, bookmarks and mailbox. When a user starts Netscape, they will select a profile to use for that session of browsing.

Profiles are managed by the 'User Profile Manager'. When Navigator is started, you will be asked to select a profile to use for this session. If no profiles have been created, the User Profile Manager will be invoked automatically and you will be asked to create a new profile (this is the same as if you had pressed the 'New' button in the 'User Profile Manager' application directly). To run Navigator, at least one profile must exist.

The User Profile Manager has three buttons: Manage Profiles, Start Navigator, and Exit. Manage Profiles opens a new window where you can add, edit and remove profiles; Start Navigator invokes Netscape Navigator once a profile has been selected; Exit quits the User Profile Manager.

Creating a new profile is done through a series of six windows. The first window is very descriptive; read it and hit Next.

1. In the second window, enter:
     Full name: <your name>
     Email address: <your login>@greenapple.com
   Hit Next.;
2. Enter:
     Profile name: <your login>
     Storage directory: [use the suggested directory]
   Hit Next.
3. Enter:
     Outgoing mail (SMTP) server: mail.greenapple.com
   Hit Next.
4. Enter:
     Mail server user name: <your login>
     Incoming Mail Server: mail.greenapple.com
     Mail Server type:
       [x] POP3
       [  ] IMAP
   Hit Next.
5. Enter:
     News (NNTP) server: news.greenapple.com
     Port: [119]
       [  ] Secure
6. Hit Finish.

Configuring Communicator for Mail and News

Netscape Communicator uses the information provided under a profile for use in its mail and news settings. To modify these settings or to configure them if they were not completely supplied when the profile was created, do the following:

1. Start Netscape Navigator
2. Select Edit >> Preferences >> Mail & Newsgroups
3. Click Identity. Enter
     Your name: <your name>
     Email address: <your login>@greenapple.com
     Reply-to address: <your login>@greenapple.com
     Organization: <organization, if applicable>
     Signature File: [leave blank]
4. Click Mail Server.
     Outgoing Mail [SMTP]: mail.greenapple.com
     Outgoing Mail server username: <leave blank>
     Click on Add to add a mail server, Edit to edit an existing one or delete to remove.
     Mail Server Properties Menu
      Server Name: mail.greenapple.com
      Server Type: POP3 Server
      User Name: <your login>
      [x] Save Password
      [  ] Check for mail every [ ] minutes (optional)
   Hit "OK"
5. Click Newsgroups Server. Click on Add to add a mail server; Edit, to edit; Delete, to remove.
     Newsgroup Server Properties
      Server: news.greenapple.com
      Port: [119]
      [  ] Secure
      [  ] Always use name and password
   Hit "OK"
   Newsgroup Directory: [use the default directory]
     [x] Ask me before downloading more than [500] messages
6. Hit "OK" button

Using Netscape Navigator 4.5x

The Navigator display is divided into six regions. From top to bottom they are: a row of pull-down menus, the Navigation Toolbar, the Location line, a Personal Toolbar, the HTML viewer and the status bar. Separately from the Navigator window, another window may be opened called the Component Bar which is used as easy access for starting any of the Communicators applications.

The pull-down menus are located at the top of the Navigator window and start with 'File' on the left and end with 'Help' on the right. A full description of the pull-down menus may be found in the section following this one.

The Navigation Toolbar is the strip of buttons starting on left with the 'Back' arrow and ending on right with the 'Stop' button. These are click-able buttons to help you quickly with tasks you'll most commonly carry out. All the buttons on the toolbar have an equivalent found in a pull-down menu. To hide/show the Navigation Toolbar, select View >> Hide/Show Navigation Toolbar.

To go to a known site, enter the web address on the Location line. A web address is more commonly called a URL, a Universal Resource Locator. Typically a URL will begin with the prefix 'http://' (e.g., http://www.greenapple.com); this may be omitted, however, when specified on the location line (e.g., www.greenapple.com). Moreover, this version of Netscape will attempt to match a URL as it is being typed with URLs that exist in its history folder. To hide/show the Location line, select View >> Hide/Show Location Toolbar from the pull-down menus at top.

To the left of the URL entry line is an icon for your Bookmarks. Bookmarks are used to keep, on a permanent basis, a list of URLs that are frequently visited. The Bookmarks icon displays a pop-up menu with links and menu commands to add/edit your bookmarks (on Mac OS, this bookmarks are only available through the menu select Window >> Bookmarks). Bookmarks are a convenient means of page retrieval which can help you personalize your Internet access.

To the right of the URL entry line is an icon for the "What's Related" button. When you are viewing a web page, if you click this button, a listing of sites determined by Netscape's search engine to be a close match in subject matter will be displayed. This button does not always return what you are looking for, but is a good way to start when you want to find more about what you are searching for.

Besides directly entering a URL on the Location line, most pictures and underlined text will be links to other web pages. These are called hyperlinks. To move through a hyperlink, click on the image or underlined text.

The Personal Toolbar (not available on Mac OS) is located below the Location line. Here you can create buttons to link to your favorite websites and discussion groups. The default set of buttons link to pages on Netscape's website. Those buttons are an Internet Guide, Lookup (people and yellow pages) and What's New&Cool.

The HTML viewer takes up most of the Navigator frame and is the region in which homepages are displayed.

When Navigator is downloading (i.e. retrieving a homepage or a file), comets will fly past the 'N' located in the upper right corner. Also on the status bar at bottom, Navigator will give a percentage of download completion at left and indicates this percentage visually by a bar at the bottom left.

The Component Bar is a moveable window having five icons: Navigator, Inbox, Read Newsgroups, Address Book, and Composer. This bar is usually 'docked' in the lower right hand corner of the Navigator window on the status bar. It may also appear outside Navigator as a separate window. To dock the Component Bar, select View >> Show >> Floating Component Bar or hit the small x on the top right hand part of the window. To view the component bar as a separate window, select View >> Show >> Floating Component Bar. Each of the icons in the component bar start up a different Communicator application.

Pull-down Menu Items

Across the top of Netscape Navigator are a row of pull-down menus, starting with 'File' on the left and ending with 'Help' on the right. Below are descriptions of those menu items.

Using Netscape Messenger for Email

Netscape Messenger is the application used to send and receive email. To start Messenger, select it from the Communicator program group, or, from within a Communicator application, such as Navigator, select Communicator >> Messenger or click on the letter icon on the Component Bar.

The Messenger Mailbox is divided into seven regions: a row of pull-down menus across the top, the Navigation Toolbar, the Location Toolbar, the folders list, the message list, and the message display window.

The pull-down menus are located at the top of the Messenger window and start with 'File' on the left and end with 'Help' on the right. A description of the pull-down menus may be found in the section following this one.

The Navigation Toolbar is the strip of buttons starting on left with the 'Get Msg' button and ending on right with the 'Stop' button. These are click-able buttons to help you quickly with tasks you'll most commonly carry out. All the buttons on the toolbar have an equivalent found in a pull-down menu. To hide / show the Navigation Toolbar, select View >> Show >> Message Toolbar.

The Location Toolbar displays the folders in which email which has been sent, received or deleted are kept. By default there are six folders: Inbox, email received; Unsent Messages, email waiting to be sent; Drafts, email being worked and not ready to be sent; Sent, copies of all email that has been sent; Trash, messages which have been deleted are moved into this folder where they are kept until deleted from there when they then are deleted from the hard drive and are unrecoverable; Samples, sample messages that may be composed and sent using Messenger. To switch from one folder to another, click on the folder name being displayed or click on the down arrow on the right to display a drop-down box of folders.

Each message within a folder line is listed by subject, sender and date / time in the Preview Pane. To read an email, single click on one of the items listed in the Preview Pane. The complete message will then be displayed in the Message Viewer.

Pull-down Menu Items

Across the top of the Messenger Mailbox is a row of pull-down menus, starting with 'File' on the left and ending with 'Help' on right. Many of the items are identical in form and function to the menu items given in the description of Navigator above. Below are menu items important to Messenger not given in the description of Navigator's pull-down menu items:

Composing and Sending An Email

To compose and send an email, you must bring up the email composer. From the Messenger window, click on 'New Msg' on the Toolbar or select Message >> New Message from pull-down menu.

The email composer is divided into seven regions. From top to bottom they are pull-down menus, Message Toolbar, Message Addressing Area, Formatting toolbar, Subject Line, message text area, and status bar. As with other toolbars in Communicator, the functionality of the buttons on the Message Toolbar are also available in the pull-down menus.

As an example, let's suppose we wanted to send a simple hello to our friend Joe who has an email address of joe@joes.com. We also want to send the same hello to our friends Betty and Sal having email addresses of betty@bettys.com and sal@joes.com, respectively. But we do not want Joe and Betty to know we are sending the same message to Sal. "Cc" indicates "Carbon Copy", or an exact duplicate of the message the first friend is receiving. "Bcc" indicates "blind carbon copy", an exact duplicate sent to this party without the knowledge of the first recipients. The message header and message text of the composer window would look like:

To: joe@joes.com [Press enter. On next line change 'To:' to 'Cc:']
Cc: betty@bettys.com [Press enter. On next line change 'To:' to 'Bcc:']
Bcc: sal@joes.com
Subject: Hello there

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Joe,

Hello there. Hope things are well for you and Betty. (I have sent her a carbon copy of this email).

All the best.

John

-----------------------------------------------------------------

To send this email, you would select File >> Send Now or hit the 'Send' button on the Toolbar.

Email Attachments

Messenger can open files and pages sent along with an email as an attachment, and it also can send an attachment to an email of your own.

Attachments that are image files or web pages can be viewed in two ways: inline (within the body of the message) or as a link. All other file types are attached as links. To view inline, select View >> View Attachment Inline. To view as links, deselect View >> View Attachment Inline or click directly on the paper clip shown in the header of any message that contains a linked attachment.

To send attachments to outgoing email, select from the 'New Message' page, depending on the type of attachment:

1. File >> Attach >> File >> [choose a file] >> Open, or..
2. File >> Attach >> Web Page >> [add URL] >> OK

You may also use the 'Attach Files and Documents' tab in the Messaging Address area in the email composer or click on the attach icon on the message toolbar.

The email composer of Netscape Messenger is capable of more functions than have been described here, such as posting to newsgroups, creating html documents for email transmission, and using an address book. For these features and others, please see the help pages available with Communicator (Help >> Help Contents).

Using Netscape Messenger for Usenet News

Netscape Messenger is used to read Usenet news. Usenet news is a collection of discussion groups. Although the number of groups varies in time as groups are added and removed, the total number is safely over 50,000. Each group is called a newsgroup. The topics which are discussed within a particular newsgroup will be loosely governed by those implicit in its title. For example, a newsgroup called 'soc.history.ancient' will have discussions going on within it that are concerned with aspects of ancient history. Discussions take the form of articles and responses to articles. On any given day, a particular newsgroup might have anywhere from zero to a couple thousands of articles posted to it.

As the total number of newsgroups is so large and the volume of articles within a group so heavy, you will want to restrict the number of newsgroups you actively follow. Reducing the number of newsgroups you follow is done through a process called subscribing. In general, you will find your news reading pattern to be something like:

1. Initially, build a list of subscribed newsgroups, that is, a list having the newsgroups you want to read with some regularity
2. Often, read articles within the newsgroups you have subscribed to
3. Periodically, unsubscribe to one newsgroup and subscribe another

To start Messenger, select it from the Communicator program group, or, from within a Communicator application, such as Navigator, select Communicator >> Newsgroups or click on the 'Read Newsgroups' icon on the Component Bar.

You will notice, starting Messenger, first opens your Message Center (also gotten using Communicator >> Messenger). You will see here a list of mailbox folder (i.e. Local Mail) and news servers.

To get a list of all newsgroups on a server, highlight the news server name, and select File >> Subscribe or hit the 'Subscribe' button on toolbar. If you have never done this before, Messenger will take a moment to download the full newsgroup list from the server. As there so many groups available, this may take a few minutes.

After downloading is complete, the window will show a list of all discussion groups to which you can subscribe. Many newsgroups will not be immediately viewable, but will be grouped together in folders, called news categories. To view the full list of all groups within a news category, highlight that category and click on 'Expand All' (or change to '+' which precedes the category name to a minus '-'); to see the category only, click on 'Collapse All' (or changing the preceding '-' to a '+').

You may view the newsgroup list in one of three manners

• by all available discussion groups
• by searching through newsgroups list using a keyword
• by listing only new discussion groups (since your last browse)

To subscribe to a newsgroup, highlight that group and hit Subscribe' or put a checkmark to the right of the newsgroup name. When you have gone through the list and marked the groups to which you want to subscribe, click 'OK'.

The server/newsgroups list now shows only those newsgroups you have subscribed to. To read from a particular group, double click on its name. This will download from the news server a list of articles posted to that group and start up the news browser window. This window, you will recognize, is identical in form and function to the Netscape Messenger window. For information on using this, please refer back to the discussion above on Netscape Messenger.

Using Netscape Composer for HTML Documents

Netscape Communicator v4.x includes an HTML editor, Netscape Composer. HTML is a display programming language and is used to create the documents (also known as homepages or web pages) that are viewed in web browsers. It is the programming language of the world-wide-web.

Netscape Composer incorporates WYSIWYG (or What You See Is What You Get) elements into document creation capabilities. With this technique, you see your page exactly as it will appear when published as you are creating it. The Composer editor includes editing and formatting Toolbars, and also 'cut and paste' and the 'drag and drop' processes to create HTML documents for the Web, emails and newsgroups.

To start Composer, select it from the Communicator program group, or, from within a Communicator application, such as Navigator, select Communicator >> Page Composer or click on the Composer icon on the Component Bar.

Basics on Composer

To Create Web pages from Template:

1. Select File >> New >> Page from Template
2. Choose a file or template
3. Once page is on browser, select File >> Edit page and it will appear in the Composer

To Create Web pages from Wizard:

1. Select File >> New >> Page from Wizard
2. The Wizard walks you through the steps to creating your first Web page
3. (Note: To use Template or Wizard, you must be connected to the internet)

To Edit the Page you're currently Browsing:

1. Select File >> Edit Page/Frame
2. The current Navigator Window becomes a Composer Window

To Open and Edit an Existing Document:

1. Select File >> Open Page
2. Enter file name or URL
3. Click 'Composer' and then 'Open'

The Composer window consists of two types of Toolbars: the composition and the formatting. Below the standard row of pull-down menus lies the Composition Toolbar. Each of the buttons on this Toolbar can be found in the pull-down menus as well. These buttons assist you in creating, opening and saving web pages, publishing to your remote server, viewing your page on the browser, standard editing tasks, creating links and targets, inserting images, horizontal lines, and tables, and spell checking. The Formatting Toolbar lies below this, just above the word processing screen. This Toolbar helps you with paragraph formatting, fonts, sizes and styles, text color and text alignment.

The Pop-up menus appear when you right-mouse click on a particular area of the page. The commands available differ depending on where the cursor is when you right-mouse click. For example, if the pointer is on text, the menu can: Change character, paragraph or list properties, insert a new ink, or paste from the clipboard. Different menus occur when you click on facets such as an A link, image, horizontal line, HTML tag marker, or table.

Publishing Your Homepage

Once you have written your HTML documents, you will want to make them available to everyone using the web. In order for a homepage to be accessible to people on the Internet it must be located on a server which is connected to the Internet and can speak HTTP (hyper-text transfer protocol). HTTP is the protocol the controls the interaction between a web browser and the web server, the machine on which an html document is located.

The process of moving your HTML documents to a web server is called publishing. To publish an HTML document in Composer, hit the 'Publish' button of select File >> Publish. Enter,

1. Page Title: [choose a title]
2. HTML Filename: [the name of the file you want to publish]
3. HTTP or FTP Location to publish to: [ftp://ftp.greenapple.com/usr/home/<your login>/public_html
4. User name: <your login>
5. Password: <your password>
   [x] Save password

And hit OK.

To specify a 'Default Location', select Edit >> Preferences >> Composer >> Publishing. Beneath the heading 'Default publishing location', enter

Enter a FTP or HTTP site address to Publish to: [ftp://ftp.greenapple.com/usr/home/<your login>/public_html

And hit OK.

Some Comments on Publishing HTML Documents

1. To publish an HTML document is to use FTP, file transfer protocol, to send files from your machine to the server. The publish facility in Netscape is a little awkward and we would recommend learning an FTP application, such as Ws-Ftp or CuteFTP for Windows and Windows95/98 platforms or Fetch on Macintosh. Documents are available on these applications in Green Apple's support library, http://www.greenapple.com/support/library/
2. Make sure your first html document, the homepage, is named 'default.htm' or 'index.htm'. This file is the lead document in a set of html documents: the one people view first.
3. When you have published all your documents, send email to 'subscribers@greenapple.com' letting Green Apple know that you have moved your pages over. Provide in the message the title you want displayed for your pages. If everything has gone correctly, you can view your homepage at www.greenapple.com/~<your login>
4. To see a list of users with homepages on Green Apple, go to: http://www.greenapple.com/content/hosted-sites/

 
This document is copyright Green Apple, Inc, 1995-2007.  Permission is granted for the free distribution of it provided that its contents, including this notice, are not in any way altered. Green Apple disclaims all responsibility of fitness and suitability of this document. User is responsible for any software they download or install. It is incumbent upon User to read and obey copyright and licensing notices of all the software they use.
 

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