One of the challenges of browsing the web is keeping track of your open web sites: unless you want to visit only one web site at a time, you typically need to open multiple browser windows. Rather than do this, Netscape Browser enables you to view multiple web pages in the same window, with each web site displayed in its own tab.
Besides making it easier to keep track of the web sites you are visiting, the tab bar also includes features for:
This chapter describes these features in more detail.
Note: For help on using the site controls icon 
on the tab bar, refer to Setting Site Controls.
| In this section: |
Tabbed browsing is a feature that enables you to open multiple web pages in a single window. Open web pages are organized into a series of tabs which appear along the top of the browser window. For example, you can visit netscape.ca, cnn.com, and SI.com within one window instead of three:
Tab currently being viewed |
Close tab |
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| Open a new tab |
Site controls |
Open tabs list |
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| The Netscape Browser
Tab Bar |
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Using tabs to browse the web means that you don't need to have multiple browser windows open when you visit more than one web page. This enables you to:
The rest of the topics in this chapter describe tabs and how you use them in more detail.
There are a number of different methods for opening a new tab, and also different ways to tell Netscape Browser what you want it to display when a new tab opens. For example, among other methods, to open a new tab you can:
(which appears on the left side of the tab bar)In addition, when you open a new tab, you have various choices as to what Netscape Browser displays. For example, you can specify that the new tab displays:
The following section describes these options in more detail.
The following figure shows different buttons that appear on the tab bar, and briefly describes how you can use them to open new tabs.
| Open new tab | ||
| Open new tab menu |
Open tabs list |
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| Methods for opening
new tabs from the tab bar |
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Open new tab button | Open a new tab based on your default setting. Depending on your settings, clicking this button will open either a blank page, your home page (or pages), or a copy of the current page you are viewing. Click on the down arrow on this button to display a menu that enables you to specify whether you want a new tab open to a blank page, your home page (or pages), or a copy of the page you are currently viewing. In addition you can display the Tab Browsing options panel to set more tab options. |
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Open tabs list button | Display a menu listing all open tabs. The active tab has a checkmark. To activate another tab from the list, simply click on it. |
Other methods for opening new tabs include:
Tip: To move between open tabs, press <Ctrl + Tab>.
There are various types of links that you can select in the browser that will open a new window. For example, besides links, you can click on bookmarks, history links, search results, and so on. For each type of link, you can set your preference for whether Netscape Browser should display the link within the current window or in a new tab.
To set these options:
For more details on setting these preferences, refer to the help for the Options window.
If you want to hide the tab bar and reclaim this space for viewing web pages, do the following:
This section gives a brief overview of the tab menu. Most of the tab menu options are discussed in more detail in the rest of this chapter. To display the tab menu, right-click on a tab.
The following menu options are available:
| Show Site Controls | Open the Site Controls window (the same as if you clicked the site controls icon). |
| Close Tab | Close the active tab. |
Close All Other Tabs |
Close all tabs except the one you have currently selected. |
Close All from this Site |
Close all other tabs displaying pages from the site you have currently selected. Selecting this option does not close the tab you have selected, nor does it close any tabs displaying pages that are not from the selected site. |
Close All Not from this Site |
Close all other tabs that are not from the site you have selected. |
| Bookmark this Page | Add this page to your bookmarks. When you click this, Netscape Browser displays the Add Bookmarks window. For more information on bookmarking refer to Bookmarking Tabs. |
| Bookmark this Group of Tabs | Bookmark all of pages displayed in the open tabs. When you click this option, Netscape Browser displays the Add Bookmarks window. To add all the tabs, you must check Bookmark all tabs in a folder. This will create a new folder with the name you entered, containing all of the tabs that you have open. |
| Add to Home Page Group | Add this page to your list of home pages. Refer to Changing Your Home Page for more information. |
| Help with Tabs | Display more information on how to use tabbed browsing. |
To bookmark a site from the tab menu:
A bookmark group is a single bookmark that opens multiple web pages. For example, suppose you were researching a news story and found different versions of the same story on multiple news web sites. If you have each story open in a tab, you can create a bookmark group so that when you select that bookmark, Netscape Browser opens all of these stories at the same time.
To bookmark a group of tabs, open the sites that you want to bookmark, and then select Bookmark this Group of Tabs from the Bookmarks menu. Add the bookmarks as usual, except select the option Bookmark all tabs in a folder. This will create a new folder with the name you entered, containing all of the tabs that you have open.
As you browse the web, you may start to find that you have a large number of open tabs, especially if you use features such as multiple home pages, bookmark groups, and so on. Accordingly, there are several different methods you can use to close open tabs.
To close a single tab, display it in Netscape Browser and do one of the following:
Note: You can also close a tab by double-clicking on it. To enable this feature, select the option Double click to close tab on the tab browsing options panel.
Use the tab menu (right-click on a tab), to close multiple windows.
Netscape Browser includes several options and preferences that you can set for controlling your tab behaviour. You can define your tab browsing settings using the Tab Browsing panel on the Options window. From this panel you can set the following:
June, 2005
Copyright 1994-2005 Netscape Communications Corporation.
