# My Sidebar

In this section: What is My Sidebar? Using My Sidebar Adding My Sidebar Tabs Customizing Individual My Sidebar Tabs Reorganizing My Sidebar Tabs Removing My Sidebar Tabs Opening, Closing, and Resizing My Sidebar

## What is My Sidebar?

My Sidebar is a customizable frame in your browser where you can keep items that you need to use all the time---the latest news and weather, your address book or buddy list, stock quotes, a calendar---and many other options you can choose. My Sidebar presents these items to you in tabs that are continually updated.

Netscape 6 comes with some My Sidebar tabs already set up, but you can customize My Sidebar by adding, removing, and rearranging tabs.

[ Return to beginning of section ]

## Using My Sidebar

Unless you have closed My Sidebar, it is always open at the left side of your browser. To view a tab:

- Click a tab's title; for instance, click the words "What's Related." The What's Related tab opens, showing you a list of web pages related to the page you are currently viewing.

If you don't see My Sidebar, it may be closed. To open it:

1. Move the mouse pointer up and down along the left hand border of the Netscape window. The pointer changes to a hand when it touches the "handle" for My Sidebar, as shown in the picture.

2. Click the handle to open My Sidebar.

[ Return to beginning of section ]

## Adding My Sidebar Tabs

To add a new tab:

1. Click "Tabs" at the top of My Sidebar, and select Customize Sidebar from the menu.
2. In the Customize Sidebar window, select a tab from the list on the left. You can open and close folders by clicking the triangles.
3. Click Add.
4. Continue adding as many tabs as you like.
5. Click OK to finish.

You can also quickly turn My Sidebar tabs on and off.

1. Click "Tabs" at the top of My Sidebar. Current tabs are listed in the lower part of the menu.
2. Select the tabs you want displayed in My Sidebar. Remove the checkmark to turn a tab off (it will still be available from the menu).

[ Return to beginning of section ]

## Customizing Individual My Sidebar Tabs

1. Click "Tabs" at the top of My Sidebar, and select Customize Sidebar from the menu.
2. Select a tab from the list on the right.
3. Click Customize Tab. A window appears with information and options for customizing the tab. (Note: not all tabs can be customized.)

   The instructions vary depending on the source of the tab---in addition to Netscape, tab providers can be any company, organization, or individual who uses the Internet.

4. After you follow the tab provider's instructions, close the customization window (or follow the provider's instructions to close it).
5. Click OK to finish.

[ Return to beginning of section ]

## Reorganizing My Sidebar Tabs

1. Click "Tabs" at the top of My Sidebar, and select Customize Sidebar from the menu.
2. Select a tab from the list on the right.
3. Click Up and Down to change the tab's placement.
4. Repeat steps 1 and 2 to continue reording as many tabs as you like.
5. Click OK to finish.

[ Return to beginning of section ]

## Removing My Sidebar Tabs

1. Click "Tabs" at the top of My Sidebar, and select Customize Sidebar from the menu.
2. Select a tab from the list on the right.
3. Click Remove.
4. Continue removing as many tabs as you like.
5. Click OK to finish.

[ Return to beginning of section ]

## Opening, Closing, and Resizing My Sidebar

Use My Sidebar's handles to open, close, and resize:

If My Sidebar is closed, you can still see its handle. Move the mouse pointer up and down along the left edge of the Netscape window. The pointer changes to a hand when it touches the "handle" for My Sidebar, as shown in the picture.

- Click the handle to open and close My Sidebar.

- Click and drag the handle to resize My Sidebar.

To remove My Sidebar, including the handles:

- Open the View menu and uncheck the My Sidebar option.

[ Return to beginning of section ]

# Changing Fonts, Colors, and Themes

In this section: Changing the Default Fonts Changing the Default Colors Changing the Theme

## Changing the Default Fonts

Normally, web pages are displayed in the default font set by your browser, or in a font chosen by the web pages' authors.

To change the default fonts:

1. Open the Edit menu and choose Preferences.
2. Under the Appearance category, choose Fonts. (If no options are visible in this category, click to expand the list.)
3. From the "Language Encoding" pop-up menu, choose a character set. For instance, to set default fonts for the Western (roman) character set, choose "Western."
4. Select a variable width font and size. Most text is displayed in a variable width font. You can select both a serif font (like Times Roman) and a sans-serif font (like Ariel).
5. Specify whether the default font should be serif or sans serif.
6. Select a fixed width font and size. Certain types of text, such as equations and formulas, are displayed in a fixed width font.

Many web page authors choose their own fonts and font sizes. You can override the authors' intentions by selecting "Always use my font settings, overriding what web pages specify."

To adjust the readability of fonts, type a number for your preferred resolution in the field next to "Font display resolution." 96 dpi (dots per inch) is the standard resolution, but you may want to choose a larger value.

[ Return to beginning of section ]

## Changing the Default Colors

Normally, the background and text colors on web pages are determined by the default colors set by your browser, or by the pages' authors.

To change the default colors:

1. Open the Edit menu and choose Preferences.
2. Under the Appearance category, choose Colors.
3. Click the colored blocks next to "Text," "Background," "Unvisited Links," and "Visited Links." Choose a color for each from the color chart. You can also specify that links should be underlined.

Most web page authors choose their own colors. You can override the authors' intentions by selecting "Use my chosen colors, ignoring the colors specified."

[ Return to beginning of section ]

## Changing the Theme

You can change Netscape 6's look by changing themes.

1. Open the Edit menu and choose Preferences.
2. Under the Appearance category, choose Themes.
3. Click to select the theme you want to use.
4. Click the Apply button, then click OK to adopt your selection as your theme.

Shortcut: You can also change themes by opening the View menu, choosing Apply Themes, and then choosing the theme you want to use.

[ Return to beginning of section ]

# Toolbars

In this section: Navigation Toolbar Personal Toolbar Taskbar Hiding a Toolbar

## Navigation Toolbar

The Navigation Toolbar, pictured here, helps you move around the Web.

Back | Forward | Reload | Stop

[ Return to beginning of section ]

## Personal Toolbar

The personal toolbar is completely customizable---you decide what you want to keep there. The personal toolbar comes with some buttons already enabled, including your My Netscape page, your home page, and a link to the Net2Phone service. You can easily add, delete, and re-arrange items in the personal toolbar.

#### Turning Buttons On and Off

1. Open the Edit menu and choose Preferences.
2. Click Navigator.
3. In the Toolbars section, select the items you want to see in the toolbars.
4. Click OK.

#### Adding Personal Toolbar Buttons

You can add buttons for your favorite bookmarks, or folders containing groups of bookmarks. To create a new bookmark to add to the personal toolbar:

1. Go to the page you want to bookmark, open the Bookmarks menu, and choose Add Current Page. Skip this step if you already have a bookmark you want to add.
2. Open the Bookmarks menu and choose Manage Bookmarks.
3. Click to highlight the bookmark or folder that you want to display in the personal toolbar.
4. Hold the mouse button down, and drag the item you selected to the Personal Toolbar Folder (in the same window).
5. Open the File menu and choose close to close the Manage Bookmarks window.

Each item in the Personal Toolbar folder appears as a toolbar button. You may need to enlarge the browser window to see them all.

#### Designating a Bookmark Folder as Your Personal Toolbar Folder

1. Open the Bookmarks menu and choose Manage Bookmarks.
2. Select the bookmark folder whose items you want to appear on the toolbar.
3. From the View menu, choose Set as Personal Toolbar Folder.

The buttons in your personal toolbar now correspond to the bookmarks in the folder you designated.

#### Removing Buttons From the Personal Toolbar

1. Open the Bookmarks menu and choose Manage Bookmarks.
2. Click the Personal Toolbar Folder.
3. Select the bookmark or folder you want to delete.
4. Press Delete on your keyboard.
5. Close the Manage Bookmarks window.

#### Re-Arranging the Personal Toolbar

1. Open the Bookmarks menu and choose Manage Bookmarks.
2. Click the Personal Toolbar Folder.
3. Select a bookmark or folder and drag it to a new location.
4. When you are finished re-arranging items, close the Manage Bookmarks window.

[ Return to beginning of section ]

## Taskbar

Use the Taskbar at the bottom of the Netscape window to switch between tasks (such as browsing, mail, and instant messaging).

[ Return to beginning of section ]

## Hiding a Toolbar

There are two ways to hide the toolbars.

To minimize a toolbar:

- Click the small triangle at the left of the toolbar. To show the toolbar, click the triangle again. (Note: you cannot hide the Taskbar using this method.)

To completely hide a toolbar, including its triangle:

1. Open the View menu.
2. Choose Toolbars and uncheck the toolbars you want to hide.

To reverse this action, open the View menu, choose Toolbars, and select the toolbars you want to show.

[ Return to beginning of section ]

# Bookmarks

In this section: What Are Bookmarks? Using Bookmarks Creating New Bookmarks Organizing Your Bookmarks Changing Individual Bookmarks Searching Your Bookmarks Exporting or Importing a Bookmark List About the Pre-Selected Bookmarks

## What Are Bookmarks?

Bookmarks are shortcuts to your favorite and most-visited web pages. Rather than typing in long URLs (web addresses), you can create bookmarks that take you directly to the pages you want to see.

You access your bookmarks through the bookmarks menu. You can control what's listed in the bookmarks menu, by adding bookmarks for your favorite web pages and organizing your list of bookmarks any way you want.

## Using Bookmarks

Netscape 6 comes with some bookmarks already available. To use a bookmark:

1. Open the Bookmarks menu.
2. Choose a bookmark from the list. Most of the bookmarks are in folders such as "Business and Finance," "What's New and Cool," and so forth.

[ Return to beginning of section ]

## Creating New Bookmarks

You can bookmark your favorite web sites to make it easy to return to them.

To bookmark the current page:

- Open the Bookmarks menu and choose Add Current Page.

To see the bookmark you just created:

- Open the Bookmarks menu. A bookmark for the current page has been added to the list at the bottom.

[ Return to beginning of section ]

## Organizing Your Bookmarks

To organize your bookmarks, open the Bookmarks menu and choose Manage Bookmarks. Then do any of the following tasks in the Manage Bookmarks window.

To view bookmarks inside of folders:

- Click the open/close triangles at the left of each folder to view its contents.

To move a bookmark or a folder to another location in the list:

- Click to highlight the bookmark or folder that you want to move, and drag the item to the new location. To put a bookmark in a folder, drag it to the folder.

To create a new folder or separator:

- In the Manage Bookmarks window, open the File menu and choose New; then choose New Folder or New Separator.

To remove a bookmark or a folder from the list:

1. Click to highlight the bookmark or folder that you want to remove.
2. Press the Delete key on your keyboard.

#### Handling New Bookmarks and Bookmarked Search Results.

When you create a new bookmark, Netscape 6 normally adds it to the bottom of your bookmarks list. If you prefer to file your bookmarks in a folder, you can designate a new bookmarks folder.

1. Open the Bookmarks menu and choose Manage Bookmarks.
2. In the Manage Bookmarks window, select a folder to hold new bookmarks.
3. Open the View menu and choose Set as New Bookmark Folder.

If you use the My Sidebar Search tab to locate web pages, you can save your search results by clicking the Bookmark Search Results button in the Search tab. Saved search results are placed in their own folder at the bottom of the bookmarks list. For instance, if you searched for "parrots," and then clicked Bookmark Search Results, a folder named "Search: parrots" would be added to your bookmarks list. Each time you save search results, a new folder is added.

If you prefer to file all your saved search results in a single folder, you can designate an Internet search folder.

1. Open the Bookmarks menu and choose Manage Bookmarks.
2. In the Manage Bookmarks window, select a folder to hold search results.
3. Open the View menu and choose Set as New Internet Search Folder.

[ Return to beginning of section ]

## Changing Individual Bookmarks

You can change the information for any individual bookmark.

1. Open the Bookmarks menu and choose Manage Bookmarks.
2. In the Manage Bookmarks window, click a bookmark.
3. Open the Edit menu and choose Properties.
4. In the Properties window, click the General Information tab.

You can rename the bookmark (the name appears in your bookmark list), add descriptive information, or set a keyword. (A bookmark's keyword can be typed into the location field to go to the bookmarked site.)

You can also set Netscape 6 to check bookmarked web sites for changes.

1. Open the Bookmarks menu and choose Manage Bookmarks.
2. In the Manage Bookmarks window, click a bookmark.
3. Open the Edit menu and choose Properties.
4. In the Properties window, click the Schedule tab.
5. Use the pull down menus to specify how frequently you want Netscape 6 to check the bookmarked page for changes.
6. If you want to be notified when the bookmarked page changes, choose a notification option.

[ Return to beginning of section ]

## Searching Your Bookmarks

To search the bookmarks list:

1. Open the Bookmarks menu and choose Manage Bookmarks.
2. In the Manage Bookmarks window, open the Edit menu and choose Find in Bookmarks.
3. In the pop-up menus choose options to define your search, and then click Find. Bookmarks that match your search criteria are displayed.

Search options:

- Choose "contains," "starts with," or "ends with" if you know only part of the word or phrase for which you're searching.
- Choose "is" if you know exactly what you're searching for.
- Choose "is not" or "doesn't contain" to exclude pages.
- Click the fill-in field and type all or part of name or URL (web address) for the bookmarks or history listings that you want to find or exclude.

To use the search results:

- Double-click a bookmark in the list to go to it.
- Click Bookmark Search Results to save the list as a bookmark. The saved search is added to the bottom of your bookmarks list.

Tip:: If the list is hard to read, try expanding the Search Bookmarks/History window.

[ Return to beginning of section ]

## Exporting or Importing a Bookmark List (Advanced Feature)

Your bookmarks are stored in a file named bookmarks.html. You can export a copy of this file and save it in a folder of your choosing. You can then edit it and treat it as you would any HTML file.

1. Open the Bookmarks menu and choose Manage Bookmarks.
2. In the Manage Bookmarks window, open the File menu and choose Export Bookmarks.
3. In the Export Bookmark File window, choose a folder. Your bookmarks.html file will be copied into the folder you designate.
4. Click Save.

Your Netscape 6 bookmarks are not altered by this procedure.

You can also import bookmarks files from other sources, such as friends, earlier Netscape versions, or other browsers.

Before you start, make sure that the bookmark file you want to import is an HTML file.

1. Open the Bookmarks menu and choose Manage Bookmarks.
2. In the Manage Bookmarks window, open the File menu and choose Import Bookmarks.
3. In the Import Bookmark File window, locate and select the bookmark file you want to import.
4. Click Save.

The imported bookmark file is treated as new bookmarks, and added to the bottom of your bookmarks list. If you have designated a new bookmark folder, the imported bookmark file is added to that folder.

You can use any bookmarks file as your default Netscape 6 bookmarks, as long as it is an HTML file and is named "bookmarks.html."

Before you begin, close all Netscape 6 windows and exit from Netscape 6.

1. Go to the directory that contains Netscape 6 on your computer, and find the Users subdirectory.
2. In the Users subdirectory, open the directory for your current profile.
3. In the directory for your profile, find the current bookmarks.html file and rename it. (For instance, rename it "bookmarks.old.")
4. Put the new bookmarks.html file in the directory containing your profile. This replaces the file you just renamed.
5. Restart Netscape 6. Your new bookmarks file will be used as the default bookmarks.

[ Return to beginning of section ]

## About the Pre-Selected Bookmarks

Netscape 6 comes with a number of bookmarks already available for you to use, organized into folders such as "business," "travel," and so forth. These bookmarks take you to some of the Web's best sites and services.

The task bar along the bottom of the Netscape 6 window also contains bookmarks, arranged in a set of pop-up menus. These bookmarks take you to Netscape's web site, Netcenter, where you find services such as an address book and calendar, news, information about the latest software, and more.

[ Return to beginning of section ]

# Specifying How Netscape Starts Up

In this section: Specifying a Starting Page Changing Your Home Page Specifying Which Components Open at Launch

## Specifying a Starting Page

You can specify how your browser window opens up at launch.

1. Open the Edit menu and choose Preferences.
2. Under the Navigator category, chose "When Navigator starts up display:" to specify whether you want a blank page, your home page, or the last web page visited to open automatically when you launch your browser.

[ Return to beginning of section ]

## Changing Your Home Page

Your home page is the page that opens when you click the Home button in the personal toolbar. Depending on how your preferences are set, it may also be the page that opens automatically when you launch Netscape.

To specify your home page:

1. Open the Edit menu and choose Preferences.
2. Click the Navigator category.
3. In the Home page section, do one of the following:
   - Type your home page's URL (web address) in the Location: field.
   - Click Use Current Page to make the page currently displayed in the browser window your home page.
   - Click Choose File to select a local file from your computer's hard drive.

[ Return to beginning of section ]

## Specifying Which Components Open at Launch

1. Open the Edit menu and choose Preferences.
2. Click the Appearance category
3. Select the components you want opened automatically each time you start Netscape.

[ Return to beginning of section ]

10/12/00

Copyright © 1994-2000 Netscape Communications Corporation.