Mozilla Preferences Help

# Navigator Preferences

This section describes how to use the Navigator preference panel. If you are not already viewing the panel, follow these steps:

1. Open the Edit menu and choose Preferences.
2. Choose Navigator.

In this section: Navigator History Languages Helper Applications Smart Browsing Internet Search Tabbed Browsing

## Navigator Preferences - Navigator

This section describes how to use the main Navigator preferences panel. If you're not already viewing it, follow these steps:

1. Open the Edit menu and choose Preferences.
2. Click the Navigator category.

The Navigator preferences panel allows you to customize three aspects of the browser.

- When Mozilla starts up, display: Choose one of these buttons to determine what Mozilla displays when it first starts up:
  - Blank page: Causes Navigator to start up without automatically loading a web page.
  - Home page: Causes Navigator to load your home page (specified below) every time it starts up.
  - Last page visited: Causes Navigator to start up by loading the page you were viewing right before you last exited Mozilla.
- Home Page: Type the web page you want as your home page, or click "Use Current Page" to choose the web page currently displayed on Navigator. Click "Choose File" to locate a file on disk that you want to load as your home page.
- Select the buttons you want to see in the toolbar: Select any of the available checkboxes to see them on your toolbars.
  The Go, Search, and Print buttons appear in the Navigation Toolbar near the upper-right corner of the Navigator window. All other buttons appear in the Personal Toolbar. For information about adding your own bookmarks to this toolbar, see Personal Toolbar.

## Navigator Preferences - History

This section describes how to use the History preferences panel. If you're not already viewing it, follow these steps:

1. Open the Edit menu and choose Preferences.
2. Under the Navigator category, click History. (If no subcategories are visible, double-click the category to expand the list.)

The History preferences panel allows you to configure three history settings on Navigator.

- Browsing History:
  - Remember visted pages for the last [number] pages: Type the number of days you want Mozilla to keep track of the web pages you have previously visited. For example, if you set this number to 10 days, pages 10 days old or less will be kept in history.

- Clear History: Click this to delete the list of sites visited.

- Location Bar History:
  - Clear Location Bar: Click this to clear the list of sites in the Location bar menu.
- Session History:
  - Number of pages in session history: Type the number of web pages Mozilla keeps track of via the Back and Forward buttons.

For more information about history in Mozilla, see Retracing Your Steps.

## Navigator Preferences - Languages

This section describes how to use the Languages preferences panel. If you're not already viewing it, follow these steps:

1. Open the Edit menu and choose Preferences.
2. Under the Navigator category, click Languages. (If no subcategories are visible, double-click the category to expand the list.)

The Languages preferences panel allows you to choose the languages and character coding for displaying web pages:

- Languages for Web Pages:
  - Move Up / Move Down: Click one of these buttons to move a selected language up or down, which sets the order of preference for the listed languages.
  - Add: Click this to add additional languages for displaying web pages.
  - Remove: Click this to remove a selected language.
- Character Coding:
  - Default Character Coding: Use the drop-down list to select the character coding you want for displaying web pages.

## Navigator Preferences - Helper Applications

This section describes how to use the Helper Applications preferences panel. If you're not already viewing it, follow these steps:

1. Open the Edit menu and choose Preferences.
2. Under the Navigator category, click Helper Applications. (If no subcategories are visible, double-click the category to expand the list.)

The Helper Applications preferences panel allows you set up how different file types are opened by other applications in Mozilla:

- Specify which application should handle each file type:
  - File types: Displays the file types that Mozilla uses. Select one of them to show the following information:
    - Extension: Displays the file extension of the selected filetype.
    - MIME type: Displays the MIME type of the selected filetype.
    - Handled by: Displays the program that will be used to open each file of the selected filetype.
  - New Type: Click this to add a new file type. Type or choose the description, file extension, MIME type, and application.
  - Edit: Click this to change the file-handling information of a selected file type.
  - Remove: Click this to remove a selected file type.
- Opening files:
  - Reset: Click this to clear any file-opening preferences you may have set by unselecting the "Always ask before open this type of file" checkbox in the download dialog box.

For more information about handling different file types in Mozilla, see Managing Different File Types.

## Navigator Preferences - Smart Browsing

This section describes how to use the Smart Browsing preferences panel. If you're not already viewing it, follow these steps:

1. Open the Edit menu and choose Preferences.
2. Under the Navigator category, click Smart Browsing. (If no subcategories are visible, double-click the category to expand the list.)

The Smart Browsing preferences panel allows you to better browse web pages using the What's Related Sidebar tab, Internet Keywords, and Location bar autocomplete.

- What's Related Sidebar Tab:
  - Domain: Type an Internet domain name and click Add if you do not want Mozilla to request What's Related information for that domain.
  - Remove: Click this to remove a selected domain from the unrequested domain list.
- Internet Keywords:
  - Enable Internet Keywords: Select this to enable fast access to services such as stock quotes, search, and other information from the Location bar.
  - More Information: Click this to learn more about using Internet Keywords.
- Location Bar Autocomplete:
  - Automatically complete text typed into Location bar: Select this to automatically complete text you previously entered into the Location bar.
  - Advanced: Click this and select one or more of the following options:
    - Autocomplete best match as you type: As you type in the Location Bar, Mozilla will automatically complete your web address using the visited web site it most closely matches.
    - Show list of matching results: As you type in the Location Bar, Mozilla will show a drop-down list of matching visited web addresses.
    - Show internet search engine: Shows a drop-down list item allowing you to search the default search engine for words you enter.
    - Match only website you've typed previously: Shows only websites that you've typed in the Location Bar and not sites that were opened in other ways, such as clicking a link on a web page.

## Navigator Preferences - Internet Search

This section describes how to use the Internet Search preferences panel. If you're not already viewing it, follow these steps:

1. Open the Edit menu and choose Preferences.
2. Under the Navigator category, click Internet Search. (If no subcategories are visible, double-click the category to expand the list.)

The Internet Search preferences panel allows you to configure how you search using Mozilla:

- Default Search Engine:
  - Search using: Use the drop-down list to select the search engine you want use for web searching.
- Search Results:
  - Open the Search tab in the Sidebar when search results are available: Select this to have Mozilla open the Sidebar and show your search results.
- My Sidebar Search Tab Preference:
  - Basic: Choose this to use one search engine when searching in Mozilla.
  - Advanced: Choose this to select one or more search engines from a list when searching in Mozilla.

## Navigator Preferences - Tabbed Browsing

This section describes how to use the Tabbed Browsing preferences panel. If you're not already viewing it, follow these steps:

1. Open the Edit menu and choose Preferences.
2. Under the Navigator category, click Tabbed Browsing. (If no subcategories are visible, double-click the category to expand the list.)

The Tabbed Browsing preferences panel allows you to set up tabbed browsing:

- Tab Display:
  - Hide the tab bar when only one tab is open: Select this to display a web page without a tab bar when using one tab.
  - Load links in the background: Select this to prevent Mozilla from switching to a new tab when using "Open in a New Tab" to open a link.
- Open tabs instead of windows for:
  - Middle-click or control-click of links in a Web page: Select this to open web page links in a new tab when clicking a link with the middle mouse button or while pressing Ctrl.
  - Control+Enter in the URL bar: Select this to open web page link in a new tab when you type a URL in the Location Bar and press Ctrl+Enter.

8 March 2002