Options Menu

The Options menu

The first several entries on the Options menu are toggles -- if a check mark appears before the item, it is turned on or active; if no check mark appears, the function is turned off or inactive. For example, if a check mark appears before Display Toolbar, the tool bar will be displayed; if no check mark appears, the tool bar will be hidden.

The Options menu includes the following items:

Load to Disk

When Load to Disk is active, clicking on hyperlinks will pop up a Save As... dialog box and allow you to save the selected file to a local disk without displaying it on your monitor. A directory and filename may be specified via the dialog box. (Ignore the Save File as Type: field; all files are transferred in binary mode and saved in the original file format.)

When Load to Disk is active, documents and data files are only saved to disk; they are not displayed on the monitor.

Short cut: If you want to save a single document or file to disk without selecting the Load to Disk option, just hold the shift key and click on the hyperlink with the left mouse button. The same Save As... dialog box will appear. The document or file will not be displayed.

Warning: Note that many of documents you might download will not conform to the 8.3 filename standard (up to eight alphanumeric characters optionally followed by a period and up to three more alphanumeric characters) expected by Windows 3.1. If you save a file with a longer name to a disk on a Windows 3.1 system without assigning a name that conforms to the 8.3 convention, Windows 3.1 will assign a name using the following criteria: If more than eight characters appear before the first period in the original filename, only the first eight will be used. If more than three characters appear after the last period, only the first three will be used. If more than one period appears, everything between the periods will be dropped. Furthermore, Windows 3.1 filenames are not case sensitive. For example

NCSAMosaicHomePage.html will become ncsamosa.htm.

Mosaic.ps.Z will become mosaic.z.

WinMosaicInstall.html will become winmosai.htm.

Unfortunately, filenames that are truncated to meet the 8.3 standard frequently become unclear; in some cases, they actually become confusing. You will often find it beneficial to assign more informative filenames. For example, you might choose to rename the file in the third example wmosinst.htm or install.htm.

Show Toolbar

When Show Toolbar is active (checked), the tool bar is displayed (see ``The Tool Bar'').

Show Status Bar

When Show Status Bar is active, the status bar is displayed (see ``Status Bar'').

Show Current URL/Title

When Show Current ULR/Title is active, the Current Title and Current URL windows and, immediately to their right, the NCSA Mosaic logo are displayed (see ``Document Title and URL Bar and the NCSA Mosaic Logo'').

Show Anchor URLs

When Show Anchor URLs is active, the URL for the document associated with a hyperlink is displayed in the status bar at the bottom of the document view window. For example, move the cursor to point to a hyperlink but do not click; if Show Anchor URLs is active, you will see the associated URL in the status bar.

Change Cursor over Anchors

When Change Cursor over Anchors is active, the cursor changes shape to indicate that it has encountered a hyperlink.

Extended FTP Directory Parsing

When Extended FTP Directory Parsing is inactive and NCSA Mosaic is displaying the files and directories available on an FTP server, only the filenames and directory names are displayed. When Extended FTP Directory Parsing is active, file sizes are listed and icons are added to the display to indicate file types.

Display Inline Images

When Display Inline Images is active, inline images will be automatically brought across the network and loaded when a document is selected.

When Display Inline Images is inactive, NCSA Mosaic substitutes a small icon for inline images. Clicking on the icon with the right mouse button tells Mosaic to load that inline image. Clicking on the icon with the left mouse button tells NCSA Mosaic to follow the associated hyperlink.

Icon displayed to hold the place of an inline image:

This option is important for users who do not wish to take the time to allow inline images to be loaded (e.g., users who work over a slow network connection).

Show Group Annotations

When Show Group Annotations is active, all existing group annotations will be displayed with the selected document (see ``Annotations'').

Use 8-bit Sound

When Use 8-bit Sound is active, sound files are directed to the 8-bit system hardware.

Choose Font...

Using this menu selection, you can customize the appearance of any HTML document viewed through NCSA Mosaic on your system. Select Choose Font... and drag the cursor to the paragraph type you wish to modify:

Normal is the style used for paragraphs of text.

Header 1 through Header 7 are the section header level styles. Most documents use only the first three or four level headers.

Menu is used for menu entries.

Directory is used for directory names and filenames.

Address is an indented, short line style used for addresses (like postal addresses).

Block Quote is used for blocked quotations, quotations that appear indented and on a separate line from the surrounding text.

Example is used for short code samples.

Preformatted is used for situations where the author must specify the format of the text (line breaks, spacing between words, etc.). The Preformatted style is particularly useful in building tables.

Listing is used for longer code samples.

The Choose Font... style selection submenu

Once you have selected a paragraph type to modify, the font selection window below will appear. Select the new font, style, and point size.

The font selection window