Setting Up HotJava Browser Preferences

Use Preferences to "tune" the HotJava^TM Browser to work in your particular environment and to customize certain user interface aspects of the HotJava Browser.

Choose Preferences from the Edit menu, then one of the following from the submenu:

Display
Proxies
Viewer Applications
Mail
SSL and Certificate Settings
Applet Security

Some of these Preference items are more advanced than typical Getting Started topics. For these items, this document briefly describes what that Preference item is used for, then provides links to the User's Guide for more detailed information.

To Set Display Preferences

Display preferences affect the first page displayed, the default home page, location of all the items that appear by default in the HotJava Browser header, link style, font typeface and size, and a clock display.

First Page Displayed
By default, your Home Page is the first page displayed when the HotJava Browser starts, and the page displayed when you click on the Home button. If you choose Blank Page at Startup, you will see a blank page when HotJava starts, but you'll still see your Home Page when you click on the Home button.
The default HotJava Browser Home Page is doc:/lib/hotjava/whats-hot.html. You can choose a different Home Page by typing in its URL in the Home Page text field. If you empty this field, HotJava will use the default home page.
Navigation Button Placement

Use the navigation buttons to move back and forward between previously displayed pages, and as shortcuts for many of the HotJava Browser menu items. (See Navigating the Web for details.)
Choose At Top, At Bottom, At Left, At Right, or None. The default is At Top.
Locator Placement
The Locator is the URL (Place) type-in field.
Choose At Top, At Bottom, or None. The default is At Top.
Activity Monitor Placement

The Activity Monitor consists of the miniature progress monitor and the Duke icon that animates when a page is being loaded.
Choose At Top, At Bottom, or None. The default is At Top.
Message Line
The Message Line is the area where all HotJava Browser messages are displayed. Choose At Top, At Bottom, or None. The default is At Top (below the URL type-in field).
Typeface
Choose a typeface from the options provided for your system.
The default is SansSerif.
Typeface Size
Choose Extra Small, Small, Medium, Large, or Extra Large.
The default is Medium.
Show Clock
To display a clock in the top left corner (beneath the menus), select Show Clock.
The default is not to display the clock.
Show HTML Errors Button
Select this to add the HTML Errors button to the Navigation Button set. HTML is the language used to create Web pages. If you don't choose to show this button, you can still see HTML errors on a page using the View->HTML Errors menu item, which is active only when HTML errors exist on the current page.
The HTML Errors button is active when the current page contains HTML errors. You can click on the button to display the errors.
The HTML Errors button is dimmed when the current page does not contain HTML errors.
Link Display
To specify that links are underlined, choose the Underline option.
The default is links are underlined and appear in color.
If the Underline setting is off, links appear in color only.

To Set Proxies

If you're running the HotJava Browser in a networked environment, and you're having trouble accessing Web pages, you might need to set Proxy servers to enable access outside of your company network. Proxies are the servers or gateways for Internet access through your network firewall.

To specify proxy servers, choose Proxies from the Preferences submenu of the Edit menu.

HotJava supports the following protocols for which you may need to set proxies and ports.

HTTP
HTTPS (Secure HTTP)
FTP
Gopher

In addition to the protocols listed, you can also set a SOCKS proxy and port. SOCKS is another kind of server that allows access across a network firewall. Ask your system administrator if you should be using SOCKS or the other proxy servers, and the name and port of the appropriate server(s).

If you have specified proxies but you want to ignore the proxies when connecting to particular hosts, such as those within your firewall, enter the full host names in the Don't Proxy field. Full host names are in the form host.domain. For example, enter server.mycompany.com to connect directly with the host server in the domain mycompany.com. Separate multiple names with spaces or carriage returns.

You can also specify that you want to bypass proxies for an entire domain by entering the domain name, starting with a period, in the Don't Proxy field. For example, enter .mycompany.com to bypass proxies for all hosts in the mycompany.com domain.

To Set Viewer Applications

There are a multitude of file types out on the World Wide Web. When the HotJava Browser encounters a file it can't display in a Web page, it looks in a table of viewer applications to find out how to display the file based on its type. For example, when it encounters an audio file, it launches the appropriate audio player.

The HotJava Browser uses a table of Content Type definitions, found on the Viewer Applications page, to map file types to methods for displaying files of that type. This tells the HotJava Browser to either:

Display the file within the HotJava Browser (HTML, ASCII text, GIF, and JPEG files).
Launch an external application.
Save the file to your local system.
Display a page to ask the user what to do with the file.

Use this page to modify the way you want the HotJava Browser to handle files of a particular type, or to define how it should handle new file types. See the User's Guide section about Viewer Applications for details.

To Set Mail Preferences

You can use the HotJava Browser to send email by choosing Send Mail from the File menu. To set up your return email address in advance, choose Mail from the Preferences submenu of the Edit menu.

Setting Your Email Return Address

Check that your email address is correct or click in the Email Address field to change it.

Setting Your Mail (SMTP) Server

In most cases, either the system you're running the HotJava Browser on is your Mail Server, or the server to which your machine is connected is your Mail Server.

If you don't specify a Mail Server, HotJava looks for a server named "localhost," and if that's not found, a server named "mailhost." If one of these servers is found, HotJava will use that as the Mail Server.

Check with your system administrator if you're not sure what to specify for your Mail Server.

To Set SSL and Certificate Settings

NOTE: Due to export laws, this feature is not available in the exported versions of the HotJava Browser. It is only available in the US Domestic release.

SSL support means you can transfer information securely from one site on the Internet to another, without risk of having a third site intercept and read that information. This is important because it allows you to securely transfer private information, such as credit card numbers and passwords.

When you access a secure site (using a URL that starts with https://), that secure server uses a certificate to encrypt information for transfer, and to validate the connection. At this point a dialog is displayed letting you confirm the transaction.

Use the SSL and Certificate Settings page to give the HotJava Browser permission to automatically accept, without the confirmation dialog, SSL connections from any site that uses a particular certificate, or from any site that uses certificates issued by a particular certificate authority.

See the User's Guide section about SSL and Certificate Settings for details.

To Set Applet Security

The HotJava Browser can run executable content in the form of applets, which are Java programs that can be included in an HTML page, much like images can be included. When you use the HotJava Browser to view a page that contains an applet, the applet's code is transferred to your system and executed by the HotJava Browser.

You can be sure that Java applets running in the HotJava Browser cannot inspect or change any of the files on your local system, or otherwise violate your system privacy without your permission. By default, the HotJava Browser provides a secure environment for applets to run in. The HotJava Browser also provides several options for you to fine-tune the desired level of security.

You can change or override the default capabilities of applets running in the HotJava Browser using the Applet Security Preferences page. See the User's Guide section about Applet Security for all the details.