The following instruction sheets are an introductory lesson to utilizing Netscape's Bookmarks Window to organize your bookmarks, to create, export and import a Netscape Document and to utilize the Edit/Compose aspect of Netscape.

A version of these lessons for Netscape Communicator version 4.0x is available.

You may send any feedback to Barry Sovel.

Last updated April 4, 1999.

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The following instructions are to assist you in preparing for the Bookmark Feature activities.

1. Visit the locations listed below. You can do this by going to the File menu at the top left hand side of your screen. Click and hold your cursor over the File name, then highlight the phrase Open Location. When the small dialogue box opens, enter one of the URL's listed below, then click OPEN.

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2. Once you are at that site, ADD it to you Bookmarks files. You can do this by going to the Bookmarks menu item at the top of your screen, move the cursor over the word Bookmark on the menu, then highlight the phrase Add Bookmark.

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3. Repeat this process [File &emdash;> Open Location &emdash;> Add Bookmark] until you have entered all the addresses listed below, then move ahead to Bookmark Instruction Sheet #2 in this series of lessons.

Lycos Roadmaps

http://www.lycos.com/roadmap.html

Russian Settlement at Fort Ross

http://www.parks.sonoma.net/rosshist.html

AltaVista

http://www.altavista.com

Computer Links For Children

http://www.nidlink.com/~anitan/tutor.html

San Francisco Exploratorium

http://www.exploratorium.edu

Yahoo

http://www.yahoo.com

The Mother of all Search engines

http://www.mamma.com

Eudora- email package

http://www.eudora.com

RealAudio Home Page

http://www.realaudio.com

Judy Blume's Home Base

http://www.judyblume.com/home.html

Download a Dinosaur

http://www.rain.org/~philfear/download-a-dinosaur.html

Henrietta Leavitt Flat Screen Space Theater

http://www.voicenet.com/~peterscc/index.html

1492: An Ongoing Voyage

http://sunsite.unc.edu/expo/1492.exhibit/Intro.html

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1. In Netscape, go to the Window pull down menu at the top of your screen and scroll down to Bookmarks. Let go of the mouse button.

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2. You now should see that the Bookmarks window is active. It shows your bookmarks listed with an icon to the left of each one.
   
   
   
   
   
3. Your first task will be to alphabetize the bookmarks you've just imported. Click and hold on the icon to the left of AltaVista. Drag this bookmark until it is just above Computer Links for Children.

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4. Now drag the other bookmarks in the list until they are alphabetically arranged
   
5. Let's say you decided that your list is too long and you wanted to break it up into smaller pieces. Go to the Item menu and scroll down to Insert Folder and let go of the mouse button.

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6. A New Folder window appears. Notice the highlighted text New Folder. Type Map Folder and then click on the OK button. The window disappears and you should see Map Folder.

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7. Drag Lycos Road Maps into the Map Folder. Notice how the new location seems to be slightly indented from the rest of the bookmarks and folders. This means that it is inside the folder. You could now create more folders for your bookmarks, in order to group them by category or type.

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8. Close the Bookmarks window. Go to the menu bar, click and hold on bookmarks. Notice that the item maps folder, now has a triangle to its right. Scroll down to the item. What happens?

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Prior to this instruction sheet, you should have used instruction sheet 1 to import Support Sites into your bookmarks. If you already have the Bookmarks window open, skip to step 3.

1. Go to the Window menu and scroll down to Bookmarks.

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2. You now should see that the Bookmarks window is active.

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3. Single click on the bookmark called Lycos Road Maps.

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4. Go to the Item menu and scroll down to Edit bookmark.

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5. Notice that the following window appears
   
   
   
   
   
6. In the description box, fill in a description of MapQuest. If you haven't visited it, click on the Cancel box. Double click on Lycos Road Maps in the Bookmark window and notice that Netscape takes you to the MapQuest site. Click in the MapQuest site and the Bookmark window recedes to the background. Investigate what MapQuest is about. Scroll down the screen until you can enter an address. Enter your home address and click on Go Get It. When the new window appears, scroll down to the map and see how close it came. Then retrace your steps back to the Bookmark window and to the Item menu and to Edit Bookmark.

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7. After you've filled in the description, click on the OK button.

In the next exercise, you are going to learn how to save Netscape's bookmarks as files. This will create an actual Netscape document. Please notice that when you create and open the Netscape document, you will see what you just typed into Lycos Roadmaps.

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The "save as" method for saving bookmarks involves saving the bookmarks in your Netscape window to your desktop by creating a Netscape Bookmark Document.

With your Bookmark Window open [and active]:

1. Go to the pull down menu item File and highlight Save As... Give the file a name [I would use bookmark experiment for a Mac or bkmk.htm for a PC] and save it to your desktop. What happens?

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2. Open this new item, by double clicking? What do you notice?

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3. Does the new page appear to have "hot links?"

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4. Do you notice the original annotations that you made while it was in the Netscape Bookmarks Window?

This method ["Save As"] will let you take your Netscape bookmarks to another location. "Save As" will retain the annotations and can be imported back into Netscape as a bookmark [see Instruction Sheet 5]. It displays links as "hot". This document can be sent as an attachment, via email or saved to disk for use at another location. It can be read just as well by Mac OS or PC Windows. [note: if for Windows 95, make the title (name) one word, followed by .htm].

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1. Find the Netscape document, that was created with Instruction Sheet #4, on your desktop

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2. Open Netscape Navigator, if it is not already open.

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3. Once you're in Netscape, go to the Windows menu and scroll down to Bookmarks. Let go of the mouse button. What happens to the menu bar when the bookmarks window appears?

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4. In the new menu bar, go to the File menu and scroll down to Import Bookmarks ... Let go of the mouse button.

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5. You are presented with a dialogue box. You now have to find the file Bookmark Experiment document that you created and saved to your desktop. Click on the Desktop button in the dialogue box. In the scroll box, you should be able to find the Bookmark Experiment file. Double click on it.

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6. Close the bookmarks window by going to the top left corner of the screen and clicking on the close box (the little square in the upper left of the window). Shortcut: Command-W

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7. You should be back in Netscape with its standard menu bar. Go to the Bookmarks pull down menu. Move your cursor over the item bookmark, then click and hold your mouse. Observe the differences in your bookmark list. If you want a closer look, go to the Window pull down menu and highlight bookmarks.

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8. How has it changed? How?
   
   
   

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9. Has anything remained? What?
   
   
   

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10. Summary: What does importing bookmarks do?
    
    
    

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Now, lets begin a simple experiment. This experiment assumes that you are using Netscape, version 3.0 Gold or higher.

1. Go to the desktop and double click on the Netscape document you just created and saved.

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2. Once the document has opened Netscape and appears on the browser screen, click on the icon button Edit, found near the top of your screen, just above the location bar.
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. Now put your cursor anywhere on the page and click, then begin typing. You are now modifying/editing a page that can be read by any Internet browser, i.e., a homepage. The only difference between this page and what you usually see on your Internet screen is that this page is on your desktop [or diskette] rather than somewhere out there.

Experiment, occasionally saving, and we will explore this later.

For some good examples of teacher generated lessons created at this stage of the instruction lessons, click HERE.

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The last part of Bookmark Instruction Sheet #6 instructed you to open one of your Netscape Documents and to then click on the icon button EDIT. When you did this, your menu and icons should have changed to look something like the picture immediately below.

If it does not, then go to the Options menu and make sure that each of the following items has a check mark in front of it. You can make the check mark appear by highlight the indicated phrase.

Show File/Edit Toolbar

Show Character Format Toolbar

Show Paragraph Format Toolbar

Once your menus look close to the image above, slowly move your cursor over each icon button. A small title will appear, giving each items purpose or title.

Experiment with your Netscape document while it is in the Edit mode. If you should want to see what it would look like normally, click on the Save icon, then the Browse icon. Suddenly, another Netscape screen will appear, showing how this document would look. If you wish to edit further or add more, click on the Edit icon again, make the changes, save and browse.

You may treat this just like any other file or document you create with a word processor, a spreadsheet, a page layout program, etc. It can be saved, transferred or modified. In particular, the Netscape document you create can be saved on a disk, your computer or uploaded to an Internet server. It can be opened on any computer with an Internet browser. You have created a portable homepage.

For some good examples of teacher generated lessons created at this stage of the instruction lessons, click HERE.

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[Before starting this Instruction Sheet, make sure your Netscape Bookmark Window is open.]

There are basically two ways to save bookmarks, in order to move them to another computer, to share them with an associate or to utilize them as part of a lesson.

The first method is shown in instruction sheet number 3 [save as]. Another method simply involves saving them to your desktop as an individual item or folder of items. This creates a Netscape URL Pointer document.

1. With your Bookmark Window open, highlight an individual bookmark [with a single click], then Drag it to your desktop and let go. What happens? Note: be patient; sometimes it takes a minute for you know anything has happened.

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2. What is the name of the new item on your desktop?

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3. Double click on the item that is now on your desktop. What happens to your active Netscape page?

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4. This method of saving a bookmark has certain limits. They cannot be imported directly back into Netscape as a bookmark; it does not show any annotation done to it before it was saved to the desktop

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5. This is item is for Mac users:

A book mark pointer can be moved to the Apple Menu Items folder inside the Mac System folder. Once it is placed here, it will appear under the colored 'apple' in the upper left corner of your screen. It then becomes a handy shortcut for quickly moving to a certain page.

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