DON'S FREEWARE CORNER - JAN 2017
TIPS AND SHORTCUTS FOR BROWSERS

1. BROWSERS
   There are more than one hundred browsers (see  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_web_browsers ) with most, if not all, free, so you can download and try out their features at no charge.  They are based on different "engines" and hence have different features.  You may find that for some things you like one better than others.  Below, I'll indicate some features of one or another that I like and use for certain things.  CHROME is the most popular browser at present and is used by more than half of users.  It's the one I use as my default browser.  There are browser usage statistics on  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers .


2. WINDOWS 10 FEATURES
   The features of WINDOWS 10, as we discussed last month, apply here, since browsers run in some operating system and that's the most used OS (Operating System).  CHROME has versions for Mac, so I imagine these tips will work on Mac's too, but I don't use a Mac, so I don't really know.  The WINDOWS 10 features of things like Highlighting a Group by left clicking the top item, then holding down the Shift key while clicking the last item, works in browsers running there since it is a WINDOWS 10 feature.  Same for the features of Left vs Right Clicking, copying, pasting, moving, etc.


3. KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS
   Keyboard shortcuts make it so you don't have to take your fingers off the keys to use the mouse to perform operations.  This makes it faster and easier, but there are so many shortcuts that it is hard to remember them all.  Many can be found by reading them from the right-click menus while using the mouse.  You will see on many right-click menus that to the right of the button to click is the shortcut key combination that does the same thing as the mouse there.  A list of 47 keyboard shortcuts that work in CHROME, FIREFOX, and EDGE is at  http://www.howtogeek.com/114518/47-keyboard-shortcuts-that-work-in-all-web-browsers/ .  A comparison table of keyboard shortcuts for several of the most popular browsers is at  http://dmcritchie.mvps.org/firefox/keyboard.htm .  Another webpage with 50 shortcuts that "work across all web browsers" is at  https://www.groovypost.com/tips/50-universal-web-browser-hotkeys/ .  You could print these to have reference guides or save them, as indicated below.


4. SETTING YOUR DEFAULT BROWSER
   Any browser can be set as your default browser.  In Windows 10 click on the Windows icon (lower left corner), then Settings > System > Default Apps and set whichever browser you want to be your default.  You can also do it by going to the Settings window in any browser.  This is usually in a menu of an icon across the top of the browser somewhere.  If you install a new browser and use the standard installation, not the custom one, it will probably change your default browser to the one you are installing, so I always use the custom installation.  The default browser will be the program that opens when you click on any icon that uses a browser.  This will be useful when you have downloaded html file for a webpage (see below).  html is computer jargon for Hypertext Markup Language and is the computer language that webpages are written in to tell browsers how to show them.


5. SETTING YOUR BROWSER HOME PAGE
   After setting your default browser, you can set which Home Page and search engine you want.  The Home Page is the webpage it will start with when you open it.  To set these, go to Settings (see above) where there are options to set your Startup Home Page and Search Engine.  I use CHROME as my default browser, Google as my Home Page, and Google as my search engine.  In Settings there are also other items you can set such as the font size, etc.  When you download another browser (or any program), if you use the Standard Installation, it usually changes your default browser, as mentioned above, and also your Home Page and other default programs.  To avoid changing these, the Custom Installation usually has a way to install it without changing them.


6. ALT-TAB TO SWITCH BETWEEN BROWSERS
   You can have several browsers open at once, and several copies of a single browser open, and each open to a different webpage.  To go between them, hold down the ALT key and press TAB.  This cycles through them all and you see a box around the one that is active.  Stop when the box surrounds the one you want to use and that program becomes the active one.  This shortcut is also helpful to see which programs you have running, since you may have several open that you have forgotten about.  To open more than one copy of a program or browser click on the icon on the desktop, not on the pinned icon on the taskbar below.  Clicking on the pinned icon on the taskbar just toggles between maximizing and minimizing the open program.


7. CTRL-CLICK TO OPEN A LINK WHILE KEEPING YOUR PLACE IN THE BROWSER ON THE OLD PAGE
   On webpages with links to other websites, holding down the CTRL key while clicking the link makes the link open in a new window, so you keep your place in the original webpage.  When browsing websites this makes it easy to get back to where you were without having to use the back arrow key and scrolling through the old program to find your old place.  For example, if you do a Google search for an ancestor, you can check the results by holding down the CTRL key while clicking on a result link and you always have the original Google results page there, exactly where you were, so you can go back and try other results.  But, since this opens the link in a new window, don't forget to click on the new tab to see the new linked page.


8. FORM A DESKTOP ICON FOR A WEBSITE
   When you find a website that you want to go back to easily, drag the small icon that is in front of the website's address in your browser over to your desktop or down to your taskbar.  This forms an icon there that will open that particular browser and go immediately to that webpage.  Whichever browser you had open when you clicked-and-drug the icon will be the one that opens to the page when you click the icon, regardless of which browser is set as your default.


9. CHANGING THE SIZE BY ROLLING THE MOUSE WHEEL
   If the text or picture or whatever on a website is too small or too large, hold down the CTRL key and roll the mouse wheel.  Rolling one way makes it larger and the other way makes it smaller.  There are other ways to increase or decrease the size, but this is the easiest way for me.  This is very helpful to see more or less on the screen.  When the text is too small, this makes it larger and easier to read.  For large type, if a button you need to click is off the screen, making the whole thing smaller may bring it back on screen.  The html language has the property that rolling the mouse wheel will keep the margins where you have them in the window, so the text will word-wrap in order to stay within the window.  You can change the size of the window by moving your mouse to the bottom or side or corner and dragging that to be larger or smaller and the word-wrap will change to fit the new size. 


10. PINNING TABS
    When you have a window open to a particular website that you want to keep, right click on the tab (at the top) and one of the menu items is Pin.  Clicking on it will make the tab smaller and move it to the left and it will be there any time you open that browser.  With this, if there are several webpages you want to go to each time you open your browser, pin those tabs and every time you open that browser, those tabs will be open and available.  I keep my Gmail, a scripture link, and Google as pinned tabs that open every time I open CHROME.  You can close a pinned tab by right clicking and unpinning, then closing it.


11. PRINT TO PDF
    When you click Print in any WINDOWS 10 program, you see the options of which printer or program to use.  A feature that is new in WINDOWS 10 is Print To PDF.  This sends the print information directly to a pdf file and not to hard copy.  For other versions of Windows there are several freeware programs that will do the same thing, e.g.  http://www.cutepdf.com/Products/CutePDF/writer.asp  and  http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/doro_pdf_writer.html .  There is an entire Freeware Corner article about PDF PRINTERS on my webpage.  I usually leave my default printer set as Print to PDF, so I can see exactly what the hard copy will look like without wasting paper.  When it is just the way I want, I save it by printing to pdf, and then print that pdf to hard copy.  That way I always have the file to print additional copies, if I ever need them.  I am finding that I print less and less to hard copy now and more and more to pdf.  The pdfs are easier to find and work with than the hard copies, too.  But, be sure you have backups of everything!


12. DOWNLOADING HTML TO SAVE WEBPAGES
    As mentioned above, html is short for Hypertext Markup Language and is the computer language in which webpages are written so browsers know how to show them.  BTW, I am writing this article in EVERNOTE, but when done, I will copy the text and send it to our TAGGology Newsletter editor, Eileen Phelps.  Then I will copy it into my html editor to edit in the control characters to get it ready to post on my webpage.  For some programs you might want to keep a copy of exactly the webpage with text, pictures, etc, displayed the way you see them in the browser.  An example of when you might want to do this is OURTIMELINES.COM, a free website that generates beautiful timelines of you or your ancestors with colored bars representing the time during the person's life that the event occurred.  There is a Freeware Corner article about OURTIMELINES.COM on my website.  The OURTIMELINES website has a button to click to change the colored picture to a printable black-and-white copy, but the colors really look better.  The new Print to PDF printer works OK to save a pdf copy of the colorful timeline, but you need to set the pages to have no margins top and bottom, so the timeline goes directly onto the next page.  This gives a continuous pdf of it with all its colors.  Another way to save it is by saving the html so it will open in a browser just as though you were online.  For this particular website CHROME will not allow it to be saved to html, but other browsers will, e.g. FIREFOX.  To save the html in FIREFOX open the website and generate the timeline in FIREFOX, then right click any place on the page where there is no text and click Save Page As.  Navigate to the folder where you want to save the file, give it a name, and use the option Save Only the html.  You now have an html file that when opened in any browser will show the colored timeline in all its glory.  This process can be used to save an entire webpage with pictures, frames, etc., by using the option of saving the Complete Webpage.  This puts all the necessary files into a folder with the name you give it.  Then clicking on the html file will open all the files in the folder and show the complete webpage.  Most webpages can be saved this way, even in CHROME, but OURTIMELINES doesn't allow this in CHROME.  To avoid problems with pictures, I usually write all my articles with text only, so you can save any of my articles by saving just the html file.  Another time when you might want to use this html-download process is when you will be giving a presentation where the Internet is not available.  Just download all the files, Complete Webpages, or just the html's or whatever you need, in advance, and show them in your browser, as if you were online.  Of course, if you are online, then all the links will be active and clicking on one will take you there.


13. HISTORY
    Browsers keep track of the last few websites you visited.  To see this list in CHROME open the menu in the icon with 3 vertical dots in the upper right corner, the same menu that has Settings (see above).  Another item in this menu is History.  Clicking on it shows you a list of the last few websites you visited and clicking on any one takes you to it again.  This is helpful when you want to go back to something you saw or generated, e.g. your timeline as above, or you don't remember what websites you visited recently.


14. PRINTING TO PDF WITH FIREFOX
    To print copies of my notes from my webpage to use for classes, I use FIREFOX since it has a better Print to PDF option.  I open my webpage in FIREFOX and click on Print.  FIREFOX allows you to set the print margins the way you want, put page numbers, the file name, and other information in various locations at the top and/or bottom of the page, and increase or decrease the font size so the pdf takes goes on to a given number of pages.  I haven't found any way to do those settings that easily in any other browser, including CHROME, so I use FIREFOX to print my notes to pdf for classes.  From that pdf I can print to hard copy, or send the file to whoever needs it, and then I have an exact copy on my computer for reprinting and later use.


15. CONCLUSIONS
    There are more browser tips and keyboard shortcuts, so I'll probably write still another Freeware Corner article on this later.  I hope you find these helpful.