# 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 (Mozilla menu on Mac OS X) and choose Preferences.
2. Choose Navigator.

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

## 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 (Mozilla menu on Mac OS X) and choose Preferences.
2. Click the Navigator category.

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

- When Navigator 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.

- Default Browser: Allows you to set Mozilla as the default browser or shows you that it is.

- Set Default Browser: Unless it is greyed out, click this to set Mozilla as your default browser.

- Home Page: In the field, type the web page you want as your home page or do one of the following:

- Use Current Page: Click this to use the web page currently displayed in Navigator as your home page.
- Use Current Group: If you have two or more Navigator tabs open, click this to set them as your Home Page Group (a group of tabs that are opened as your home page). After clicking this button, the message "Home Page Group is Set" appears in the location field.
  Caution: If you edit the field after clicking Use Current Group, your Home Page Group will be lost.
- Choose File: Click this to locate a file on disk that you want to load as your home page.

- Select the buttons you want to see in the toolbars: 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 (Mozilla menu on Mac OS X) and choose Preferences.
2. Under the Navigator category, click History. (If no subcategories are visible, double-click Navigator to expand the list.)

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

- Browsing History:

- Remember visited pages for the last __ days: 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 the history list.

- 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.

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 (Mozilla menu on Mac OS X) and choose Preferences.
2. Under the Navigator category, click Languages. (If no subcategories are visible, double-click Navigator to expand the list.)

The Languages preferences panel allows you to choose the languages and character encoding 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 Encoding:

- Default Character Encoding: Use the drop-down list to select the character encoding 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 (Mozilla menu on Mac OS X) and choose Preferences.
2. Under the Navigator category, click Helper Applications. (If no subcategories are visible, double-click Navigator 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 file type.
- MIME type:Displays the MIME type of the selected file type.
- Handled by: Displays the program that will be used to open each file of the selected file type.

- 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.

- Plug-in Finder Service: Select this to always use the Plugin Finder Service (PFS) whenever Mozilla needs a new plug-in. If left unselected, the PFS is only used when a plug-in location is not provided by the web page that requires the plug-in.
- Opening files:

- Reset: Click this to clear any file-opening preferences you may have set by unselecting the "Always ask before opening 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 (Mozilla menu on Mac OS X) and choose Preferences.
2. Under the Navigator category, click Smart Browsing. (If no subcategories are visible, double-click Navigator to expand the list.)

The Smart Browsing preferences panel allows you to better browse web pages using Internet Keywords, and Location bar autocomplete.

- 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 web sites 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 (Mozilla menu on Mac OS X) and choose Preferences.
2. Under the Navigator category, click Internet Search. (If no subcategories are visible, double-click Navigator 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.

- 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 (Mozilla menu on Mac OS X) and choose Preferences.
2. Under the Navigator category, click Tabbed Browsing. (If no subcategories are visible, double-click Navigator to expand the list.)

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

Note: On Mac OS, where instructed to press Control (Ctrl), press Command instead.

- Tab Display:

- Hide the tab bar when only one tab is open: Select this to display the Tabbed Browsing bar only when more then one Navigator tab is open.
- 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 Location bar: Select this to open a web-page link in a new tab when you type a URL in the Location Bar and press Ctrl+Enter.

## Navigator Preferences - Downloads

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

1. Open the Edit menu (Mozilla menu on Mac OS X) and choose Preferences.
2. Under the Navigator category, click Downloads. (If no subcategories are visible, double-click Navigator to expand the list.)

The Downloads preferences panel allows you to set up how Mozilla handles files you download from web pages:

- When starting a download:

- Open the download manager: Select this to display the Download Manager, which displays the status for current and previous downloads. The status of all downloads is kept in a single window.
- Open a progress dialog: Select this to display a progress dialog box, which display the status for your current download. The status of each download is kept in a separate window.
- Don't open anything: Select this if you want to download files invisibly. No status is given for all your downloads.

For more information about downloading files from web pages, see Managing Different File Types.

7 October 2002

Copyright © 1998-2003 The Mozilla Foundation.