Preferences

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AOLpress Help

Preferences

General
Network
Fonts
File Extensions/MIME Types
MIME Viewers
Save As Filters
MiniWeb Icons
Sites
Animation
Configure Toolbar

General Preferences

Choose the Tools Preferences General menu item to bring up the General Preferences window. You use this window to control general browsing and editing behaviors of AOLpress.

Load Remote Images

If you turn off Load Remote Images, images that are not stored on your local file system are not loaded unless you click on them. This speeds up page loading, especially if you are browsing pages with lots of large images or if you are using a fairly slow modem.

If you find a page with images you want to see, use the Browse Load Images menu item to load all the images in that page.

Prefetch Pages If you turn on Prefetch Pages, AOLpress preloads pages to which the current page has links (so that when you click on one of these links it will already be loaded into your computer's memory cache).

Show Java Windows Many browsers (including AOLpress until licensing issues are resolved) currently can't run or display Java applets. By default, AOLpress shows a box with an "X" in it where Java applets are placed. You can hide these "X"s to see the same page layout as people with other browsers that don't support Java. To do this, uncheck the Show Java Windows box and restart AOLpress.

Unix Style Delete

Under Microsoft Windows, the Delete key normally deletes the next character and the Backspace key deletes the previous character. On most Unix and Macintosh systems, both keys delete the previous character.

Setting Unix Style Delete causes both the Delete and Backspace keys to delete the previous character. Not setting this field causes the Delete key to delete the next character. Pressing CTRL+D always deletes the next character.

Edit Complex Lists

The Edit Complex Lists check box controls what happens when you paste paragraphs into a list or create a nested list (by adding list formatting to existing list items).

If this field is unchecked: Pasting paragraphs into a list adds new list items to the list. If you create a nested list, the nested list is added within the current list item.
If this field is checked: Pasting paragraphs into a list adds more paragraphs to the current list item. If you create a nested list, a new list item is added to the outer list to contain the nested list.

Backup Pages

AOLpress stores backup copies of the pages you have edited but have not saved. When you restart AOLpress after a crash, it opens these copies and tells you that it is recovering old files. You can continue editing these files without losing much of your work.

Use the Backup Frequency field to control how often AOLpress saves copies of your work. If you set this field to zero (0), AOLpress does not save any backup copies. The copies of your pages are stored with names like "auto1.htm" in the "autosave" subdirectory below the directory where you installed AOLpress (or in the system preferences folder under "NaviPress Preferences".

AOLpress does not make backup files for changes to MiniWebs!

If AOLpress has problems when you try to run it after a crash, the HTML in the page you were editing may be corrupt. Try moving the files out of the "autosave" subdirectory to prevent recurring problems.

Conform To

This field lets you choose whether you want AOLpress to create and display HTML code using the Netscape conventions or HTML 3.2. If most of your readers will be using Netscape to browse your pages, you should conform to Netscape conventions. Otherwise, HTML 3.2 may be a better choice.

Changing this setting affects the following areas:

Feature	Netscape	HTML 3.2
Does ">" end quoted attributes within tags?	Yes	No
Can pages have multiple `<TITLE>`s and `<BODY>`s?	Yes	No
Forces <SCRIPT> ...</SCRIPT> to be within the HEAD?	No	Yes

Multiple Spaces

By default, HTML displays multiple white-space characters (spaces, tabs, etc.) as a single space (except in "Preformatted" paragraphs). If Collapsed is selected in the Multiple spaces field, you can only type one space in a row.

AOLpress provides a way for you to type multiple spaces by using special "non-breaking space characters." When you type multiple spaces, spaces other than the first one are actually non-breaking spaces. Non-breaking spaces keep browsers from condensing spaces into one space. You can turn on this capability by selecting the "Nonbreaking" option in the Multiple spaces field. However, some browsers will show " " instead of spaces if you do this.

Server Side Include

If you use "server-side includes (SSI)

" (also called "server-parsed HTML") to automatically include other files, environment variables, or the results of programs in your pages, you can now edit your source code with AOLpress (if your pages are stored on a v2.0 or later AOLserver).

To make AOLpress load the HTML source files without interpreting the server-side include commands, choose ToolsPreferencesGeneral and put a check in the "Never Load" box for Server Side Includes. If you are viewing the HTML for a page, you can choose FileReload without SSI to see the server-side include commands and FileReload with SSI to see the results when the commands are interpreted.

Server-side include commands are stored as comments in the HTML code, so you only see them when you edit the HTML. For example, the command to include a file called "include.txt" would look like:

  <!--#include file="include.txt" -->

MiniWebs Create As

Use this option to restrict the file names you can use when you create pages and MiniWebs on any AOLserver. It is best to choose "DOS" if you need your files to be portable to a PC (even if you are using Windows 95 or Windows NT).

If you choose DOS, you are restricted to the eight-dot-three file name format.
If you choose Macintosh, you can use file names with up to 31 characters.
If you choose Posix, most Unix systems allow you to use 256-character file names.

MiniWebs Open

This field lets you decide which windows you want to open when you open a MiniWeb with the File

Open menu item or by moving to a MiniWeb URL that does not include the name of the page file to open. You can choose any of the following:

Home Page: Opens only the page that has been selected as the home page (initial page) for this MiniWeb.
Web: Opens the MiniWeb view for this MiniWeb.
Both: Opens both the home page and the MiniWeb view for this MiniWeb.

Note that other browsers do not support MiniWebs and always open the home page if the filename is not included in a URL.

Show Frames Uncheck this box if you want AOLpress to automatically load the "noframes" view of pages that contain frames. You can also hide frames after you have loaded a page with frames by choosing Format Frames Hide Frames. If you have frame viewing turned off in this field, you can show frames by choosing Format Frames Show Frames.

Image Display Method The first option allows AOLpress to show image backgrounds behind transparent GIFs, progressive (interlaced) JPEG files, and "ART" files. Choosing the second option ("Photshop4 JPEG") can prevent crashes that may occur when AOLpress tries to display some types of images.

Startup View

This field controls which page is displayed first when you start AOLpress (with no command-line arguments). You can choose any of the following:

Home Page: Starts with the page specified in the Home Page field. Use an absolute (complete) reference to the page you want. If you specify only a file name, AOLpress looks for the file in its help directory on your local disk first and then it looks on the http://www.aolpress.com/ Web site.
Blank Page: Starts with a new, blank page open.
MiniWeb: Starts with a new MiniWeb and a blank page.
Nothing: Starts with no page open.

Network Preferences

Click the menu Tools Preferences Network to bring up the Network Preferences window. You use this window to control how AOLpress interacts with your network.

If AOLpress does not allow you to browse the Web, you may need to ask your system administrator how to set some of these fields.

Mail Return Address	Type your email address in the Mail Address field. The email address you provide is used as a return address for mail you send from AOLpress, as a password when you download files with anonymous ftp, and as an identification line on all HTTP requests.
SMTP Mail Host	Type the name of the SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) mail host machine. This is a machine that takes care of putting email from your internal mail system into an accepted Internet format. Most systems do not require you to specify the SMTP Mail Host. If you do not know whether your system uses SMTP or the name of the SMTP mail host, ask your system administrator.
Name Server	A name server interprets Web page addresses, and finds the addresses that correspond to the addresses. Most systems do not require you to specify the Name Server. If you do not know whether you need to specify a name server, ask your system administrator. If you do need to specify a name server, type the IP address of the name server in these fields.
HTTP Proxy	AOLpress does not handle news, gopher, or WAIS requests directly. If you are browsing these kinds of links you have to specify a Proxy server. When AOLpress finds an access method it does not understand it sends it to the specified proxy server, which handles the request. For example, you may use a CERN httpd server, with a name in the form `hostname:port` (for example, `www.mycompany.com:81`). Do not type the leading `http://`. If your site is behind a firewall, then you even need to proxy http (Web page) requests through that machine, so click the Always Proxy check box. However, you will not want to proxy domains inside your firewall, so list them in the "except these domains" field. If you use another server to proxy all http requests, you may not be able to browse directories on an AOLserver or publish your pages to an AOLserver, depending on the configuration of the proxy server you use. If you are not behind a firewall, do not check the Always Proxy box. You only want to proxy non-http requests.
SOCKS Host	If your system uses the SOCKS protocol for firewall security, you should type the name of the SOCKS host in this field. You can allow pages stored on trusted domains (such as the domains on your side of the firewall) to skip the SOCKS checking by typing those domain names in the field provided.

Fonts

You can decide what fonts you want AOLpress to use in the pages you look at. This decision does not affect the fonts other people see when they read your pages. Many browsers let people choose fonts for regular text and fixed-width text, so you should test your pages with a variety of font sizes.

To change the fonts you see:

Choose the Tools Preferences Font menu item. You will see the Font Preferences window.
You can choose a different font or font size for the Proportional font, which is the font used for most text and headings in your page.
You can also choose a different font or font size for the Fixed Width font, which is used for preformatted paragraphs and text in the HTML editing window. (Note that the Fixed Width font controls the font but not the font size of text formatted as "fixed pitch", "code", "keyboard", "sample", or "variable" within a non-preformatted paragraph.)
Click OK to apply the changes to your font preferences.

If you want to change the font that readers of your page see, you can edit the HTML and add the <FONT FACE=> tag. For example, this paragraph uses the <FONT FACE="Helvetica,Arial"> tag.

File Extensions/MIME Types

When AOLpress loads a local file it attempts to handle it by looking at the extension on the file name, from which it can generate a MIME type. Then, it uses the MIME type and the external viewer you specify in the MIME Viewers preferences window to find out how to display the file.

(MIME stands for "Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions." This standard identifies files sent across the Internet so that the programs you use know how to deal with it correctly.)

To modify the list of file extensions:

Choose the Tools Preferences Extensions/MIME menu item. You will see the Extensions/MIME Preferences window.
Select a file extension from the scrolling list.
- To add an extension: Type a new file extension and a new MIME type. Then click Add. The new entry will be added before the selected entry. For example, you can add a file extension of .doc with a MIME type of application/msword to indicate that the files are Microsoft Word files. (You will also need to select winword.exe as the external viewer for this MIME type in order to have AOLpress open Microsoft Word automatically.) Or, you may want to add an entry with an additional file extension for a MIME type that is already listed.
- To change an extension: Change the file extension or the MIME type and click Change.
- To delete an extension: Select an entry and click Delete.

Mime Viewers

When you follow a link to a file that AOLpress does not know how to display (for example, a video), AOLpress looks through the list of MIME viewers for a program to run to display the file. If there is no entry for the MIME type, AOLpress asks if you want to save the file on your local system.

To add a MIME viewer:

Choose the Tools Preferences MIME/Viewer menu item. You will see the MIME/Viewer Preferences window.
Type a MIME type. For example, you might type application/msword, which is the MIME type for Microsoft Word documents.
Type the file location of the viewer for these files in the External Viewer field. Or, you can click Browse to search for the file. For example, the location of the viewer for Microsoft Word files might be C:\MSOFFICE\WINWORD\WINWORD.EXE.
Click Add to save your new entry. (If the Add button is gray, type an extra space in the External Viewer field.)
To change a viewer, select the MIME Type, modify the viewer name, and click Change.

For a list of common MIME types, choose the Tools Preferences Extensions/MIME menu item. (The file extensions are used only when you load local files. For remote files, the MIME type of the file is used directly.)

Save As Filters

On UNIX platforms, you may have AOLpress invoke a program to handle translation of HTML to another format.

MiniWeb Icons

If you have files with additional MIME types in your MiniWebs, you can add icons for these file types. These icons will be shown when you use the Web or Tree view.

To select an icon for a MIME type:

Choose the Tools Preferences MiniWeb Icons menu item. You will see the MiniWeb Icon Preferences window.
Type a MIME type. For example, you might type application/msword, which is the MIME type for Microsoft Word documents.
Type icon file' location in the Icon Location field. Or, click Browse to search for the file. You can use a gif, jpeg, or xbm file containing a 32x32 pixel image.
Click Add to save your new entry. (If the Add button is gray, type an extra space in the Icon Location field.)
To change an icon, select a MIME Type, change its icon location, and click Change.

Sites

This window lets you store a list of directories on your local drives and server sites on which you can save pages. AOLpress uses this list in various places. For example, the list in this window appears in the Drives / Sites field in the File Open window.

The list can contain more than AOLserver locations. You can add any directory on your local drives, any directory on a server on which you publish pages, or any MiniWeb to this list.

To add a new server or directory location:

Choose the Tools Preferences Sites menu item. You will see the sites preferences window.
Type the URL or location you want to add in the Site Location field.
You can add your AOL personal publishing directory, your PrimeHost hosting service directory, other AOLserver directories, local drives and directories, MiniWeb locations, FTP paths, and email addresses to this list. You can also add directory URLs on any server that supports and enables the HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) PUT protocol, as AOLserver does.
Click Add. The location you added will now be listed when you are prompted for a drive, MiniWeb, or site location.

Animation

You can change the animation in the upper-right corner of a window when a page is being loaded. AOLpress will prompt you to save the file and then ask if you want to use the file as the default animation. (Note that the animation format is different from other animation file formats.)

Configure Toolbar

You can add or remove icons from the AOLpress toolbar so that the commands you use most often are easy to select.

To change the set of toolbar icons:

Choose Tools Preferences Configure Toolbar. You will see this window.
Hold down the Ctrl key, which lets you select multiple items that are not sequential.
While you hold down the Ctrl key, click on unselected items you want to add to the toolbar. Also, click on any selected items you want to remove from the toolbar. Select the "-----" items in places where you want a wider space between buttons.
If you forget to hold down the Ctrl key, you can click the Revert button to return to the selections shown when you opened the Configure Toolbar window. Or, you can click the Default button to return to the default toolbar settings.
Click OK when you have selected the toolbar buttons you want.

Another way to configure the toolbar is to add toolbar navigation buttons to your pages. However, these buttons are not supported by many browsers. See the Page Attributes window for details.

Help Table of Contents

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