Table of Contents
Introduction and Background
The World Wide Web (or the Web) is a
collection of
digital information and services. The Web operates over the Internet.
To use the
Web, you must have access to the Internet with a workstation. It must
be capable of
running a web browser (software that retrieves and
displays information and
performs interactive functions such as searching databases and
chatting).
Web conventions dictate that web browsers behave identically
on all computer platforms and under all contemporary operating systems
(Macintosh,
Windows, and UNIX). Therefore, all users may interact equally in a
shared
setting.
There are several web browsers, including Mozilla
Firefox, SeaMonkey
and
Internet Explorer.
Information on the Web is arranged in pages that are designed
to be displayed on a personal computer. Each page has a unique address
on the Internet
that allows it to be accessed by anyone using a web browser (and, in
some cases,
with the proper permission). These pages reside on web servers.
Web
pages are written in HTML (Hyper-Test
Mark-up Language) that permits linking
between pages, page formatting, and other capabilities.
Getting Started
There are two aspects to using the Web: understanding what
information, services, and functions it has to offer; and learning to
use a browser.
The Web has no master web site, web page, or organization. The
Web makes it possible for anyone to publish information.
The key feature of the Web is that any page can include
links to any other web page. Such links are
displayed as underlined words or are
highlighted in a contrasting color.
As well as linking documents, web pages can include fill-in
forms, such as a University admission form or a database query. The
data entered
into a form is sent back to the web server where it is processed.
Results are
returned in the form of another web page. This process can also be used
for real-time
group conversations.
Web pages include text, images, video, sound, and links to any
type of file. A computer's ability to display sound and video materials
depends on
the hardware and software.
Searching for information on the Web is made possible by
hundreds web search engines. Some web pages link to all of these web
sites and will
propogate a query to multiple search sites simultaneously. Thus
searches become a
problem of selecting which of the hundreds or thousands of hits apply
to your
search.
A home page is the main web page of a
person or
organization. The University has a home page, all colleges and most
departments have home pages, and
many faculty, staff, and students have home pages. They usually link to
other pages with
additional information.
A URL (uniform resource locator) is the
address of a web
page. It is how pages are found on the Internet and in web server
computers. A url usually
looks like http://www.somewhere.com or http://www.anywhere.edu/other/stuff.html.
Occasionally, you
will actually have to type such an address. Because parts of it might
be case sensitive, you
must preserve the use of capital and lower-case letters exactly. To be
safe, you should
treat the entire url as case-sensitive.
Browsers
Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer are commonly used web
browsers
at the University.
| Internet Explorer 7
Menubar in Windows XP / Vista |
|
| Mozilla Firefox Menubar in Windows / Mac
OS X |
|
| Safari Menubar in Mac OS X
| 
|
The title bar displays the title of the
web page.
Important features of the menu bar
include:
- File - For opening new windows,
closing
windows, and quitting the application.
- Go - Displays a history of pages viewed;
select
an entry to return to that page.
- Bookmarks/Favorites - Used to revisit
pages in
future sessions.
Important features on the button bar
include:
- Back/Forward - Go back to the
last page
viewed; can be repeated. Forward does the opposite.
- Print - Selecting this will print the
page.
- Stop - Used to stop the loading of a
page
(perhaps it is too big or transmission has stalled).
The URL (Uniform Resource
Locator) window
displays the
address of the current page. To enter a new URL, select the window and
begin typing.
Bookmarks and Favorites
In all browsers, you will find web pages that
you will want to return to in future sessions. In Firefox, while
viewing such a page,
select Bookmarks then select Bookmark this page.
To view your bookmarks, select
Bookmarks. To return to a page, select its entry in
your bookmark list. To edit your
bookmarks, select Organize Bookmarks.
In Internet Explorer, while viewing a page you wish to return
to, select Favorites, then select Add
Page to Favorites. To view your favorites,
select Favorites. To return to a page, select its
entry in your favorites list. To
edit your favorites, select Window and click Favorites
from that menu. Select
the icon next to the page you want to delete, and then press the Delete
button.
Tabbed BrowsingMost
modern browsers offer Tabbed style browsing. This enables viewing
multiple pages within the same instance of the browser. Not only does
this make it convenient but also reduces strain on the client machine.
In
this example, there are 3 tabs which contain pages from 3 different
websites.
|
[
Tab 1 ]
[ Tab 2 -
Active Tab ]
[ Tab 3 ] |
A new tab can be instantiated by clicking File->New Tab.
You can switch between tabs by clicking on them.
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