Internet Explorer Basics

The Microsoft Internet Explorer browser is very well integrated into recent versions of Windows. This allows for the browser to easily incorporate other Microsoft products seamlessly.

The default user interface is very similar to Netscape Navigator. However, Internet Explorer allows much more customization of the top menu bars.

When Internet Explorer is opened up, the main screen of the program will appear. The parts of this window are described in detail below.

The "Title Bar" at the very top of the window tells you what the title of the page you are viewing is. The "Title Bar" will also tell you what Internet Explorer application is currently active.

Directly under the "Title Bar" is the "Main Menu Bar". This bar has many different sub-menus which control all options, functions, and commands for the entire Internet Explorer program.

Beneath this menu is the "Internet Explorer Toolbar". This toolbar contains all of the most frequently used commands and all of the browsing functions. (See the next section for more details)

Under the toolbar is the "Address Bar". This will tell you the exact URL location of the page you are currently viewing. You can also type a Web address directly into this bar and then press enter to go to that site.

Beneath the "Address Bar" is the "Main Browser Window". This window will display all of the information that is located at the Web site you are currently located at. Any text, images, movies, animation, links, or any other application files will be shown in this window.

The very bottom of the page is the "Status Bar." This bar tells you what the progress of the browser is while it downloads files to the page, where links go to when you move over them, whether or not a document is secure, and any other information that the program feels is necessary for you to know.

Internet Explorer Toolbar

The main toolbar is composed of eleven buttons. Each of these buttons has a different function and purpose in Internet Explorer. The individual button are described in detail below.

Back Button: This button will take you back to whatever document you were previously viewing. Pressing it immediately takes you back one document. If you have browsed many pages, pressing it repeatedly will continue to back you up one page at a time.

Forward Button: This button will take you forward to the next document if you have previously browsed multiple documents and had then backed-up to the page you are currently viewing. Pressing it repeatedly will continue to move you forward one page at a time. You can move forward until you reach the last page that you had browsed.

Stop Button: The stop button stops ANY current operations by Internet Explorer. It will stop any type of file from loading. It can also be used to stop animations from continuing once a page is loaded. If you press it before a page has finished loading, the page will display everything it had finished loading before the stop button was pressed.

Refresh Button: This button will reload the current document that you are viewing. It is useful if the page updates very frequently so that you can view these changes as soon as they are available. If you are loading a document and the transfer was interrupted, you can reload the full document again by clicking here.

Home Button: This button will return you to the page you have selected as the default start-up page for Internet Explorer.

Search Button: This button will open the Search menu. You can type the keywords that you want to search for into the search box and it will display the results below. Clicking the customize button allows you to change the search options such as what search site you would like to use.

Favorites Button: This button will open up the Favorites menu. You can choose a favorite that you wish to go to from the list, add a favorite to the list, or organize your favorites from this menu. To add a favorite, go to page you want to add, click the favorite button and click add. The page will be added to the list. To select a favorite, click the favorite button and click the link from the list.

History Button: The history button will open up the history menu. From this window you can open any page that you have visited previously. Click the link to the page that you want to return to and it will come up in the main browser window.

Print Button: The print button will print the current page in the browser window.

Mail Button: This button will open into a drop down menu from which you can select to read or send E-Mail. You can also open up your newsgroups from this menu.

Edit Button: This button will only be on your toolbar if you have a Web editor (such as Microsoft Frontpage or Microsoft Word) installed on your computer. If you press this button, it will launch that editor and open the document you are currently viewing in it.

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