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

• 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. If you choose None, use the Go to Place item from the Places menu to display a Place field in a separate window when needed.
  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).

• Screen Typeface
  Choose a typeface for screen display from the options provided for your system.
  The default is SansSerif, which means "without serifs." (A serif is the fine line that "finishes off" the stroke of a letter, such as the horizontal line at the bottom of the letter "p" when displayed with a serif font.)

• Screen Type Size
  Choose Extra Small, Small, Medium, Large, or Extra Large.
  The default is Medium.

• Print Typeface
  Choose a typeface for printed output from the options provided for your system.
  The default is Serif.

• Print Type 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.

• Confirm when Quit
  Select this option if you would like the HotJava Browser to display a confirmation notice when you quit the application, asking you to verify that you really want to quit.
  The default is no confirmation when you quit.

• Underline Links
  To specify that links are underlined, choose the Underline Links option.
  The default is links are underlined and appear in color.
  If the Underline Links setting is off, links appear in color only.

• Show Lists in Places Menu
  Select this option if you want to access items in your places lists directly from the Places menu. This is on by default.

  You may wish to turn this off if you are using the HotJava Browser on a small screen, as the cascading pullright menus can potentially grow to a cumbersome size on a small display. If you deselect this option, the Go to List and Remember Place in List menu items become dimmed and inactive. (You can still use the Remembered Places window to access and add to your places lists.)

  See Places Menu for information about the Places menu items.

To Set Proxies

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

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

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

Setting Your Email Return Address

Setting Your Mail (SMTP) 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

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

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.

• Opening a URL
• Navigating the Web
• Creating a Places List