"For those readers new to creating a Web page with Netscape Composer, the next few tips offer a basic guide to the major aspects of page creation. We will be going over setting colors and backgrounds, adding and formatting text, adding pictures, adding and modifying hyperlinks, and publishing the page to a Web server."
Getting Started with Composer
1. Open Netscape Communicator by double clicking the Netscape Communicator icon on the desktop of your computer.
2. Open Composer by then selecting File on the left side of the menu bar.
3. Then from the drop down menu, select New, followed by Blank Page.
Saving Your New Page
1. Click on File on the left side of the menu bar.
2. Choose Save As from the drop down menu.
3. Type the name of your web page in the File Name window.
4. Choose the location you wish to save it in from the Save In window.
5. Then click Save.
6. In the next dialog box that pops up, type the title of the page using capital letters and spaces as needed. This title will be the text that identifies the page in the window title and in bookmarks.
Setting Page Properties
The information you specify in the Page properties dialog box helps readers locate your document on the Web.
1. Place the cursor anywhere on the white background of the page and right click.
2. The Page Properties dialog box appears. Click on the General Tab. The title has already been created. So proceed by typing the name of the person creating the document in the Author window. This information is helpful to readers who find your document by using a web search tool.
3. Click in the Description field and briefly describe the document's contents.
4. In the Keywords field, type words or phrases that would describe your web page to someone doing an internet search. The keywords you type here help search engines lead users to your document on the web.
5. In the Classification field, type Educational. Classification names are another method used by searching services to locate documents.
Color Scheme
Generally, the first thing to do when you're creating a new page is to edit its title and color scheme.
1. Continue in the Page Properties dialog box by clicking on the Colors and Backgrounds tab.
2. Click on Color Scheme to see the list of color combinations available.
3. To individually select item colors, click on the color boxes next to each item. Choose the desired color from the color palette.
4. If you would like the settings to be applied to any new web pages you create, click the appropriate box in the lower left of the Page Properties dialog box.
5. To preview your settings, click Apply. To accept the changes, click OK.
Now that we've set the colors and general page information for our new Web page, we're ready to add some real content in the form of text.
Formatting Text
1. Type the text as you would in any word processing program. Text changes are made by highlighting the passage you desire to change.
2. You can change font style by clicking the arrow beside the text Variable Width.
3. To change the size, click the next arrow.
4. Font color can be changed by clicking the arrow beside the black box.
5. Font can be made bold, italicized, and underlined by first highlighting it and then clicking the appropriate buttons on the tool bar.
6. There are also three buttons on the tool bar to control text alignment once the text has been highlighted.
Bulleted Lists
1. To have Composer format a bulleted list for you, type the list items putting each item on one line.
2. Select the entire list by highlighting the text using your mouse.
3. Click Format, List, Bulleted (or Numbered).
4. You can specify additional settings for the list by right-clicking it and selecting Paragraph/List Properties.
Inserting Horizontal Lines
1. Click the location in the Composer window where you want the line to appear.
2. Open the Insert menu and choose Horizontal Line.
3. To specify the line's height, width, alignment, and shading, double-click on the line.
Inserting a Graphic
1. To insert a graphic click Insert and then choose Image.
2. Specify the image file location by supplying the path or click Browse to locate the file on your computer's hard drive.
3. If you click on the image, you can also edit it on screen. Once an image is highlighted, it can be aligned on the page by using the alignment buttons. The image can be resized or moved on the screen using the mouse.
4. If you want text to wrap around the image in a certain way choose the wrap style from the Text Alignment buttons.
5. If you want the image to have a border or other space around it, specify the amount in the Space Around Image settings.
Click OK to apply your changes. Be sure to save, then preview your work in Navigator by clicking the Preview button (the gold Netscape icon on your toolbar).
Hyperlinks
To hyperlink to an internet address -
1. Highlight the text you wish to link, and click the link button.
2. Beside link source, type http:// and the entire address. For example, to link to CNN.com, you would type http://cnn.com.
3. Click ok.
To hyperlink to an email address -
1. Highlight the text you wish to link, and click the link button.
2. Under hyperlink, type mailto: and the entire email address. For example, to hyperlink to Elvis Presley, you would type mailto:[email protected].
3. Click ok.
To hyperlink to a new page -1. First create and name the new page.
2. To hyperlink to this new page, highlight the text you wish to link and click the link button on the top tool bar.
3. Click Choose File and find the name of your new page.
4. Click ok.Hyperlinks can be associated with graphics as well as text. Just click the graphic to select it and continue by following the same steps for hyperlinking text.
Linking Within The Same Page
To link within the same page, create a target, then create a link that points to the target.
1. Put the cursor at the beginning of a line where you want to create a target, or select some text at the beginning of a line.
2. Open the Insert menu and choose Target.
3. Type a name for the target in the edit box (up to 30 characters). If you selected some text in step 1, this box already contains a name.
4. Click Ok. A Target icon (visible only in the Composer window) appears in your document to mark the target's location.
5. Put the cursor on the text or image that you want to link to the target.
6. Open the Insert menu and choose Link.
7. Access the Link tab and highlight the targeted word. Click on Apply, then OK/Close.