Visit the Site Services Web Pages

Introduction The new Site Services Web Pages represent a completely new way of looking at web pages for a lot of people, so we wanted to take a few moments to show you, the user, through some of the key features of our site to hopefully give you a little bit better understanding of how to navigate and find your way around. At last count, there were well over a thousand documents in the Site Services pages, so it's easy to get lost if we haven't done our job right. Frames One of the most important aspects of the new site layout is our Frames. To support frames, you must be running Netscape 2.01S. We chose to use frames to give us the ability to keep a global "sense of where you are" and to ease navigation through such a large site covering so much information. We're pleased to announce that our site is 100% Java Free! This means that you can safely navigate our site if you have Java turned off. By contrast, you must have JavaScript enabled, because our navigation system relies almost entirely upon it. JavaScript does not have the numerous security issues that Java does, and in fact, it is an entirely different language than Java. Netscape 2.01S allows you to disable Java or JavaScript seperately from within the "Security Preferences..." dialog box, under the "Options" menu. It's fine for you to have Java disabled, but you must have JavaScript enabled to view the Site Services Web Pages Below is a diagram giving a basic overview of the frames, and how we use them. Frame 1 is the global navigation frame, and will always display navigation tools to bring you to the major Site Services departments, search tools, and Silicon Junction. Frame 2 is the main frame, where documents are shown. Frame 3 is the local navigation frame. It has three buttons ("back", "index", and "next") that allow you to traverse through the current document tree. Frame 4 is the actual location frame. Since Netscape 2.01S currently has no convenient or simple way of displaying the location, title, or URL of the main frame, this frame is used to display that information. How To Navigate Global Navigation The Global Navigation Frame allows you to move through the top levels of the Site Services home page. Clicking on any one of the five departments will bring you immediately to its top level home page, and the icon will "glow" to let you know where you are. Local Navigation The Local Navigation Frame allows you to move through the documents within the site. Site Services has been constructed with a fairly tight structure in mind, and all the documents can be thought of being related to each other in a large tree structure, where you can traverse the branches. The Local Navigation Frame has been broken up by color into two main sets of buttons, Frame Navigation (Back and Forward), and Index Navigation (Prev, Up, Next) Frame Navigation The Back button should be thought of like the "Back" button built into Netscape. Clicking Back will return you to the page you were most previously viewing within the middle frame (Frame 2). The Forward button is similar to the "Forward" button built into Netscape. When you use the Back button to go back a page, using Forward returns you to the proceeding page. Forward is only available after you use Back. Index Navigation The Prev button should not be thought of like the "Back" button built into Netscape. Clicking Prev will send you to the previous document in whichever group or collection you are reading, like leafing through the pages of a book and going back one chapter. The Up button will take you up to the menu or index that points to wherever you are. This sounds a bit confusing, but it comes quite naturally to you as you navigate through the site, and shouldn't seem confusing at all. The Next button will take you to the next document in whatever group or collection you are reading, like leafing through the pages of a book and going forward one chapter. Actual Location The Actual Location Frame attempts to make up for one of Netscape's biggest shortcomings with Frames. The built-in Netscape "Location" window, which displays the location (or "URL") of the current document (if you have it displayed -- it is by default), doesn't understand frames, and isn't updated when travelling around the Site Services Web Pages. The Document Location Frame is always updated, however, so it will always display the actual URL of the document you are viewing in the main frame. You'll notice that the actual URL always starts with:

This tells your browser to put frames around whatever URL follows "doc=", and is a necessary part of the "Actual URL". Bookmarks This also helps to solve a problem with bookmarking a page. If you're viewing a page you would like to bookmark, and simply click "Add Bookmark", it won't work. It will bookmark the Site Services main page instead. However, if you click on it will bring up a properly formated page which you'll then be able to add as a bookmark.

Visit the Site Services Web Pages