Netscape includes a help utility. To find help on using the Composer,
click on the Help menu, and choose 'Help and Support Center', or click
F1.
In the menu on the left side of the Help window, choose Creating Web Pages
to see the Composer help. If you click on the plus sign next to Creating
Web Pages, you'll see a table of contents of the information available.
You can also print out the whole help section using the Print button.
How to edit an
existing page off the web
View the page in Netscape, then choose Edit page from the File menu.
Opening a file to edit
in Composer
Choose Composer from the Window menu, then either choose Open File from
the File menu or click on the Open icon
.
Basic editing tasks
Paragraphs, Headings, Breaks
& Horizontal Rules
To make a break in a paragraph
(carriage return but no blank line), press Return or Enter.
To insert a new paragraph in a web page, press Return
or Enter twice.
HTML supports six layers of headings, though web designers
usually use only the first 4. To turn a paragraph into a heading, click
on the paragraph, and from the drop-down menu in the upper left hand
corner of the screen, choose the Heading level you want
To insert a Horizontal Line across the page, put the
cursor where you want the line to occur, then choose Horizontal Line from
the Insert menu.
You can change the appearance of the line by clicking on it with the
right mouse button and choosing Horizontal Line Properties from the drop-down
menu. In the Properties window Horizontal Line Properties you can set
the width of the line (in pixels or percent) the height in pixels, the
shading, and the alignment of the line.
Formatting: Text
style, color, font etc.
Bold, Italic, Underlinetext styles can
be set by selecting the text and clicking on the style icons:
or by choosing Text Style from the Format
Menu.
To change the text color, select the text and click
on the uppermost of the color icons
in the menu, or choose Text Color from the Format
menu. This will bring up a palette of colors from which you
can choose a text color:
Click on the color you want, then click the OK button.
Text alignment for a paragraph or heading can be set by
choosing one of the alignment icons in the top menu bar:
or choosing the alignment you want under Align in the Format menu.
To change the font size of your text, select it. You can then
either make it larger or smaller using the smaller
and larger
icons on the button bar, or choose Smaller or Larger in the Font Size
attributes in the Format menu; you can also choose a specific size from the
Font Size menu (extra small, small, medium, large, extra large, or extra
extra large).
To set a specific font, you select the text and choose the font from
the Font area in the Format menu. However, your choices in Netscape 7 are
limited: Helvetica/Arial, Courier, or Times, because Netscape developers
believe in minimizing the number of fonts set in a document.
Removing all text styles: to clear all the format styles in
existing text, select it and choose Discontinue Text Styles from
the Format menu. To start typing without text styles, click where you want
to type text, then choose Discontinue Text Styles from the Format
menu.
Page properties
Colors
To set the color scheme for your page, go to the Format menu and choose
Page Colors and Background:
In the window that comes up, you can click on the color boxes next
to Normal, Link, Active Link, Visited Link, and Background colors to choose
a specific color from the color Palette.
You can also use Choose File to select a background image
if you have one saved on your computer. Be sure to use an image with low
contrast and no sharp edges-- and make sure the text color will be visible
when displayed on the background.
Changing the Title of the page
To set the page's title, choose Page Title and Properties from the
Format Menu
In the window that comes up, you can enter the Title, Author and Description
of the page.
Links
To create a link, you have two options:
Type in the text you want to link, select that text, and click the
Link Button:
. A Link Properties window will come up, where you can type in the URL
(web page address) for the page you want to link to. (Be sure to include
the http:// part of the URL unless you are linking to a file in the same
directory! Click OK when you have put in the URL.
Or, you can enter both the Text and the Location at the same time:
click where you want the link to be, then click the Link button. Enter the
text to be linked in the upper box, and the web location to link to in the
lower box; then click OK.
Named Anchors
Named Anchors are a way to link to a particular point in a document,
either from inside the document or from another document. It's a two
part process.
First, you set the Named Anchor to link to. Click where you want to
link to (for instance, in front of a section heading if you are creating
a table of contents). Then, choose Named Anchor from the Insert menu.
The anchor properties window will come up:
Type in a name for the Anchor, and click OK. A yellow anchor mark
will appear in the page where your cursor was. (This anchor mark will
not be visible when someone browses the web page.)
Second, go to the place in the document where you want the link (the
blue and underlined part that the user clicks on to go to the anchor) to
be. (For a table of contents, you would want to go to the beginning of the
document, where you want the table of contents.) Enter the text for the link,
then select it. Click the link icon. In the Link window, click on the drop
down menu and choose the anchor you inserted. You will notice that it has
a pound sign in front of the anchor name. Click OK.
Note: You can also choose to link to the names of existing headings
from inside the document: Netscape will insert an anchor at the heading
if you link to it.
To link to the anchor from another file, in the Link properties, put
in the file URL and a pound sign (#) and then the anchor name.
Email Links
To make an email link (which will open a mail window to send mail to
a particular address), select the text that you want to make the link, click
on the link icon, and type mailto: followed by the (full) email address,
and click Ok.
Images
Images for web pages should be in .gif or .jpg format.
To insert an image into your web page, click the cursor where you
want the image to be, then click on the Image icon in the menu bar
(you can also choose Image from the Insert menu).
Enter the filename of the image in the Image Location box, or use Choose
File to find it.
Enter a description of the image in the Alternate Text box.
If you want to be sure the image is set to the right dimensions, click
on the Dimensions Tab:
Make sure 'Actual Size' is selected.
To set the alignment of the image, click on the Appearance tab:
Use the drop-down menu to set the alignment of the image.
Inserting special characters
To insert a special character, such as a symbol or an accented mark,
choose Characters and Symbols from the Insert Menu:
In the window that comes up, choose the radio button for the kind
of character you want to insert.
Then choose the character from the left-hand drop down menu at the
bottom. If you are inserting an accented letter, choose the letter to accent
from the right-hand drop down menu.
Then click Insert to insert the character.
Tables
To insert a table, click the Table icon
or choose Table from Insert menu.
Choose the settings for your table:
Rows is the number of divisions top to bottom
Columns is the number of divisions left to right
Width is the width of the entire table, which can be a percentage
of the window size or a fixed pixel width. If you leave Width blank, the
table will shrink or stretch to fit the contents you put in it.
Border is the size of the border around the table and between the
cells (divisions). Set this to 0 for no border.
Click OK to insert the table.
You can move from cell to cell in the table using the arrow keys or
the tab key (if you hit the tab key in the last cell in the table, it will
insert a new row.
To Select the whole table, right click on the table, and choose Table
Select, then Table, from the floating menu.
Inserting & Deleting Rows and Columns
To add a new column or row, put your cursor at the point in the table
where you want to insert the row or column and choose Insert from
the Table menu
(You can also right-click and choose Table Insert from the floating
menu)
From there you can choose to add a row above or below your selection,
a column before or after your selection. Inserting a new Cell before or
after will also insert a row or column to put it in.
To remove rows or cells, choose Delete from the Table menu (or Table
Delete from the right-click, floating menu):
And choose items to delete. To delete more than one at a table, selected
them before choosing Delete.
Joining Cells
To make two cells appear to be one, select them (click in one and drag
into the other, until their edges are highlighted in blue), then choose
Join Selected Cells from the Table menu.
To divide them back into separate cells, click on the cell in question
and choose Split Cell from the Table menu.
Table and Cell Properties
To set or change table properties, click on the table and choose Table
Properties from the Table menu.
In addition to the settings from Insert table, you can set:
Spacing: the amount of space between cells
Padding: space between the edge of the cell and what's in the cell
Table Alignment: whether the table is left, right or center aligned
(this will not affect the contents)
Caption: whether there is a caption and whether it is above or below
the table
Background Color: click this for the color palette to choose a background
for the table. This will affect the cell borders as well as the cells
To change the characteristics of a particular cell, row or column, select
the cell(s), row or column (you can use Table Select from the drop down menu),
then right click and choose Table Cell Properties. Or choose Table Properties
from the Table menu, then click on the Cell tab at the top:
Height is a default minimum (not maximum) height for the cell. Many
browsers will ignore this
Width is the default width for the cell. Most browsers will use this.
Content Alignment sets how the content lines up inside the cell.
You can set alignment on a particular paragraph in the cell and override
the default setting set here.
Cell Style can either be normal or header. Header cells are bold
and centered.
Background color is the background color for the cell(s), clicking
on it gives you the palette to choose from.
Find and Replace
Netscape Composer includes a find and replace functionality: choose Find
and Replace from the Edit menu
Type the text you want to find in "Find what" and, if you want to use
Replace, type the replacement in Replace With. Then choose Find Next, Replace,
Replace and Find, or Replace All. If you are currently in the middle of a
document, you will probably want to choose 'Wrap Around'; if you want to
correct capitalization, you'll need to choose Match upper/lower case.
Check Spelling
To check the spelling of the words on your web page, choose Check
Spelling from the Edit menu.
If the spell checker finds words it doesn't recognize, you can choose
to Replace with a word it knows, Ignore this instance, Replace all the instances,
or Ignore all the instances; or you can Add Word to your personal dictionary.
Once the spell checker has checked all the words in the page, it will
display "Completed Spell Checking":
You can click the close button to remove the window.
Previewing your page
To preview your page in Netscapechoose Browse Page from the File menu,
or click on the Browse Icon
.
If your page changes have not been saved, you will be asked to save
them; then the page will be opened in a Navigator window for browsing.
Looking at and editing tags
Netscape 7 Composer also lets you examine and edit the HTML source, or
just the tags, of the HTML on the page you are working with.
At the bottom of the Composer page, on the left, there are tabs for
the different views of the page you can have:
To see the tags, click on the Show All Tags tab; to work with the
HTML source, click on <HTML> Source.
To return to normal viewing, click on 'Normal'.
Publishing a file
Setting up a site
Before you begin publishing, you can pre-set one or more sites to publish
to. You will want to pre-set site settings for any site you routinely publish
to.
To create a new site to publish to at any time, choose Publishing Site
Settings from the Edit menu.
To create a new site, click on the New Site button, and the information
fields will be made blank. Fill them in as follows:
Site name is a nickname for the site you are publishing to (i.e.
My Web Page for your personal space, Club Name for your club page, etc.)
Publishing Location is the web directory address where you want the
file to go, with http replaced by https. For most people's home pages, that
will be https://www.lehigh.edu/~userid/
where userid is the person's Lehigh userid. For departmental pages, it's
probably https://www.lehigh.edu/~userid/subdir where
userid is the department's Lehigh userid and subdir is the name of the subdirectory.
HTTP address is the web address of the directory where the files
are going (same as above, but with http: instead of https:)
User name is the Lehigh userid (usually the person's, but sometimes
the department or club's)
Password is the password that goes with the userid. Don't click
Save password.
Publishing
When editing a file, you can publish it to the web by clicking the Publish
button:
or choosing Publish from the File menu. (If you are editing
a file for the first time, or working with a saved file, you may need to
choose Publish from the file menu, as the icon will not appear.)
If you are editing a page directly from the web, when you click Publish,
the settings will already be filled out.
Be sure to click on the Settings tab in the publish window and change
the Publishing address to include https:// rather than http://
If you are editing a page right off the web, most of these fields, except
for the username and password, will already be filled in.
If you are editing a page off your hard drive, be sure to click on the
Settings tab in the Publish window and if the fields in the publish screen
are filled in, check to be sure they are correct. If they are not, you
may need to change them to match the userid and directory that
you want to publish to.
When you first press Publish, it may bring up a screen saying 'Publishing
failed!' and then bring up a login screen. Do not be alarmed; simply
login with the userid and password that goes with the directory you are
publishing to.
.
in the menu, or choose Text Color from the Format
menu. This will bring up a palette of colors from which you
can choose a text color:
or choosing the alignment you want under Align in the Format menu.
and larger 
icons on the button bar, or choose Smaller or Larger in the Font Size
attributes in the Format menu; you can also choose a specific size from the
Font Size menu (extra small, small, medium, large, extra large, or extra
extra large).
. A Link Properties window will come up, where you can type in the URL
(web page address) for the page you want to link to. (Be sure to include
the http:// part of the URL unless you are linking to a file in the same
directory! Click OK when you have put in the URL.
will appear in the page where your cursor was. (This anchor mark will
not be visible when someone browses the web page.)
(you can also choose Image from the Insert menu).
or choose Table from Insert menu.
.
or choosing Publish from the File menu. (If you are editing
a file for the first time, or working with a saved file, you may need to
choose Publish from the file menu, as the icon will not appear.)
