Contents

• Any Browser, General Information
• Netscape
• Microsoft Internet Explorer
• Starting an Application from within a Browser

Any Browser

Downloading files from the World Wide Web, SOMIS is part of the WWW even if most of its information is internal to the University, is a an easy and simple task. Basically, when you see a link that says click here to download a file or may show you a filename to click on, just click on the link to download the file. Most often, browsers are not configured to recognise many kinds of files, they are usually set up only to recognise files releveant to the WWW.

If the browser does not recognise the kind of file it is asked to download (e.g. a spreadsheet or a wordprocessed document), it will prompt you to tell it what to do next. There is a possibility is that your browser may be set up to recognise certain files, say Excel spreadsheets, and call the appropriate program when you click on one of these files.

Let's see now what happens with a couple of popular browsers, when they do not know what kind of file they are asked to download.

Netscape

When Netscape does not know the kind of file it has to download, it prompts you to tell it what to do. You get a menu like the one shown below.

Select the option Save File ... and ensure that you save the file on your hard disk or in your area on the network. You may choose to pick up an application to view the file so you do not have to save it on your hard disk.

Unless the file you try to download has a txt extention, Netscape will (most often) show you the prompt shown above. Browsers tend to know that files with the extention txt are plain text which they can read, therefore they do not prompt to save the file and instead they read it and display it on the screen. If this happens, the file can still be saved by using the File Save As from Netscape's menu.

Microsoft Internet Explorer

When you try to download a file using MsIE, it will show you a menu similar to the one below.

Select Save As if you want to save the file on your hard disk or select Open if you want to start an application to view the file.

Starting an Application with Netscape

There are two ways to start an application like a spreadsheet program from within Netscape.

1. When Netscape prompts you for an action (see graphic above) then you can choose Pick App... Then either choose to browse and find the appropriate program which has an .exe extention, thus to load a spreadsheet you would need to find excel.exe or if you know where the program is located just type the path and filename in the window provided.
2. It is also possible to change the default behaviour of Netscape. It can be configured to automatically start an application when a file with the right extention is double clicked. Configuring Netscape to this extent is beyond the scope of this page and it is best left to your Network Administrator.

As information on SOMIS increases we will notify users whether it is best to, and how to, set up Netscape to start applications automatically. In summary, if you intend to manipulate a file, eg. calculate some values using a spreadsheet then choose to save the file. If you only want to read something in a file, print it and so on, then it is best to start the application and not save the file on your hard disk, thus minimise the time you have to spend # on keeping a tidy hard disk.

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Last Modified: 14:57:38
Mon, 26 Oct 1998