Iceweasel – select and search

Launching a search request from within a web page is a very quick way of obtaining additional research to complement what you are reading. Search results are displayed in another tab allowing you to continue to view the current web page and or select further search terms.

To search the Web from a web page, select a word (double-click) or words within a web page and click the right mouse button (right-click) to display (in Firefox/Iceweasel) the workspace[1] menu and choose Search Search Engine for the word(s) you have selected.

For example, from the ABC’s Rare NT fish added to global DNA database web page, I have selected ‘The Barcode of Life’ and clicked the right mouse button to use Google to search for the selected words.

You can change the search engine by selecting another from the drop-down list displayed when you click the Search Engine icon. For example, in the snapshot below I have clicked the Google icon, and selected ‘Creative Commons’ as my new search engine from the drop-down list.

Choose Manage Search Engines … to add, delete, or change the priority of your search engine list.

[1] You may know of the workspace menu as the popup menu, shortcut menu, desktop menu, or right-click menu. Try right-click in other programmes or applications to see menu choices only a click away.

Menu items are unavailable

If you click to display menus in your browser or any other programme, you will probably see that some menu items (choices) are greyed out or dim. This means that the choice is not available to you at that time.

For example, when the Open Directory Project web page is first displayed, the first item that I can choose from the Browser Edit menu is Select All. Greyed out are the Undo, Redo, Cut, Copy, Paste, and Delete menu items.

When I click in the Search field and type in a search term or keyword, the Edit menu shows that I can choose Undo. That is, I can undo what I have typed in the Search field.

Note: Some applications or programmes hide the menu items rather than make them grey or dim.

Justified or ragged?

In order to read text comfortably, you must be able to find the beginning of each consecutive line quickly and easily over and over again. The English language is read left to right. Your word processor or editor will often be set so that the left edge of each line is aligned with the left margin.

If the copy is centred, or is aligned on the right only, the reader has to search to find the beginning of each line.

Therefore, if preparing long columns of text, justified, or aligned left with ragged right are the only two prudent choices.

If your text columns are narrow, justified text can be difficult to read because the lines often become noticeably letter-spaced and have excessive wordspacing leaving rivers of white space within the text, and making some paragraphs look darker than others. When using narrow column widths, it’s better to set your columns aligned on the left and ragged right.

Sending an email to many people

If you wish to send an email message to multiple email addresses, then you need a way to address the email. For example, you may be emailing to and fro with a colleague, and wish to include another person in the conversation. Or, you may wish to send your travel plans or party invitations to all your friends and family at the same time.

In the To: field of your email programme, you can enter as many email addresses as you like by separating them with commas.

In Thunderbird (the email programme that I am currently using), you can press ‘Enter’ on your keyboard to give you another space or field to type in another email address.

Depending on the purpose of your email message, you may wish to use the Cc: (courtesy copy) or Bcc: (blind courtesy copy) email address fields.

Think of Cc: as the carbon copy or courtesy copy that you provide to others for their information, rather than their action. The person that you addressed in the To: field is the main recipient.

For privacy, you may use the blind courtesy copy. This way, none of the people who you send the email to will see the other addresses added in the Bcc: field; only their own and the person you addressed the email in the To: field. This is the polite way to do things so you don’t disclose people’s email addresses without their permission.

Make the To: field your own email address if you do not wish any of the Bcc: recipients to see any email addresses except yours and their own. Note: You will get a confirmation copy back yourself, of course, because you listed your own address in the To: field.

The same way you listed many addresses in the To: field, you can list them in the Cc: and Bcc: fields.

If you will be sending the same email message to a group of people, you may wish to set up their email addresses in an address book.

Stitching pictures together

There are many specialised tools available to stitch, mosaic, or create a panorama. But if you just want to create a simple banner for your web site or blog, then you may be able to use your favourite graphics or image manipulation programme.

The following steps are how I created a banner for a web site using images from BurningWell.org and the GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP).

Create a new background canvas the final size of the banner that you want for your blog or web site. For this example, I chose the “Web banner common 468 x 60″ listed in the template drop-down list. The Create a New Image dialogue allows you to change the dimensions, so I changed the height from 60 pixels to 80 pixels.

Collate the images that you wish to use to create your banner. For example, I downloaded the thumbnails of four images of circus performers from BurningWell.org.

Add the images to your canvas. I aligned my file manager window alongside the GIMP canvas window and dragged the images onto the canvas roughly in the order that I wanted them.

Position the images as you wish. For example, I needed to move the images so that the person or action was centered in the banner.

Most graphics programmes will add new images into what is called a layer. Think of the images as printed photographs that you are spreading out on the table in front of you. You can choose to butt them up hard against each other or overlap them.

To change which image is on top of another, you will need to locate the dialogue or view function that allows you to manipulate the order of the stack of images.

I filled in the gaps by adding the image that has a black background and added it to either side to complete the banner.

Don’t want the rubbish bin in the picture

Being able to manipulate photographs on your computer saves you the expense of a dark-room and requiring a lot of skill in photography.

The most common manipulation (thing you can do with digital photographs) is to create a new digital image from the original so that your subject fills the picture. That is, you wish to remove a lot of the background or unrelated subject matter.

My first steps at macro photography are not going to pass muster with professionals, but it doesn’t matter as the purpose of having the picture is not to include it in any print publication of garden plants, but as a personal record that the Frangipani cutting that Ethel gave me is starting to do its thing. Actually, all of the pieces of Frangipani have started to grow much to my amusement as I had this notion that if one survived I would be happy.

Find on your computer the application or programme that allows you to do things with images. At last count, I had three such applications that would do the job, but decided on the GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP).

I don’t want the photo to include a lot of the Frangipani branches or the fence, which are out of focus anyway.

Remember select, then, do?

Select that part of the photograph that you wish to keep, in this case a budding Frangipani branch.

Find an option to crop that part of the photograph.

Then remember to save this new digital photograph. Note: It is probably a good idea to save your new image with a different name to that of the original. Digital cameras have silly number schemes for names anyway. I called my cropped digital photograph frangipani051118.jpg to include the subject and the date.

How not to waste hours following your nose

Have you ever visited a web page that has lots of juicy looking links for you to follow? The ABC’s Gateway to Science does that for me, or the Google News.

Displaying one link, then going back, following another link, then going back, and so on, is a really slow way of surfing the ‘net. Displaying a web page in a new window is not effective as it places the web page right over and obscures what you were currently reading. Better, that you can open new web pages behind the current web page (in the same window) that you are reading, to look at when you are ready.

Like most activities using your computer and surfing the WWW, there is more than one way of doing things. But this is the fastest, without resorting to key presses.

Point to the link that you wish to “open” and click the right mouse button (RMB) to display a pop-up menu. Note: If you are not pointing to the link, i.e. your mouse cursor is over the link, a different pop-up menu will be displayed.

The function that you are looking for is “Open Link in New Tab”. You can use your left mouse button (LMB) or right mouse button to select this function from the pop-up menu.

Subsequent web pages are downloaded behind your current web page. To view the newly download web page, select the appropriate tab at the top of your browser window. Note: Select is usually equivalent to clicking the LMB once.You can open as many tabs as you feel comfortable with, and closing them is similar to closing a window. Look for the button with the cross alongside the row of tabs.

If no amount of clicking the RMB displays an option to open the link in a new tab, then may I suggest that you download and install the Mozilla Firefox browser.

How many spaces between sentences?

If you were ever a typist, you will have been trained to use two wordspaces between sentences. This style does not apply to word processing because it creates unsightly white gaps or streaks that appear as rivers of white within blocks of text.

To ignore or remove extra spaces look for an option in an auto-correct or preferences dialogue window in your word processing software.

Use only one wordspace between sentences.

Attaching a file to an email message

How to include items with your email message, for example, digital photographs or wordprocessing documents.

Sometimes you will wish to send a file with your email message. We include this file, for example, a digital photograph or wordprocessing document by attaching it to the email message. Much in the same way we include photographs or additional bits of paper in the envelope when sending a letter by post. Often we will attach these extra items to our letter with a paperclip.

The paperclip (Attach button) is located in the Compose dialog window.

To display the Compose message dialog box, create a new message or reply to an existing message.

Click the Attach button. to display the Attach File(s) window.

Locate and select the file that you wish to attach, and click the Open button.

Or if you have your File Manager window open, drag and drop the file into the message window. Complete your message, and click Send to post your message.

Depending on the size of the attached file, your message may take a little longer to send than one without an attachment.

Note: If you are sending a digital image, for example a photograph, check that the size of the file is not too large to be received by the recipient. Some ISPs have a limit on the size of the message (including attachments) that they can receive and send.

Select, then, do

Three magic words that unlock much of the potential on your computer – select, then, do. It doesn’t matter if you are using a mouse, keyboard or even your own voice.

You need to indicate to the computer, i.e. select the thing on your computer you wish to do stuff with.

“Then” is necessary as a pause while you think of what you wish to do or locate the function on your computer.

And, just “do” it. Which for most of us, means invoking a function that actually performs some action straight away. Other functions display a space that allows us to provide further information to the computer, often referred to as a dialogue window or box.

Hint: On many computers, those functions or actions that display dialog windows are indicated by “…” after the name of the function. For example, see Open in the File menu below.

Remember, “select, then, do”. Select the file that you wish to display on the screen, then click the Open button.

Works every time.

There are many ways of selecting things, whether they are functions on a menu, text or pictures in a wordprocessing document, or areas within a digital photograph.

Amongst the myriad of ways that you can select objects, having explored them, you will settle down to a few that you prefer. One that I think is very useful if not universal is “double-click”. You can double-click to select a continuous string of characters. For example, a word or a web address in the Address field of your browser.

Web addresses can get very long and are not fully displayed in the Address field. Simply point to the web address and double-click to select. The “do” part is up to you. If you simply start typing you will replace the selected web address with the one you enter.

Lawrence Goetz has provided a Practice movement, Single clicking, and double clicking exercise that rewards you with a picture of a butterfly when you double-click.

Three magic words – select, then, do.