Use the Display Preferences page to change the HotJavaTM Browser display properties, the location of items that appear in the header by default, and the startup page. Access this page by selecting Edit->Preferences->Display.

When the HotJava Browser is started, and when you click the Home button, your HotJava Browser Home Page is displayed. (This is also called the Starting Place.) You can change this to be any page you'd like by typing in a new URL in the Show Home Page text field. This field can never be empty; if you empty the field, HotJava will use its default Home Page.

For performance reasons, you can choose to have the HotJava Browser display a blank page at startup by choosing Blank Page at Startup. The HotJava Browser will still display the Home Page whenever you click on the Home button in this case.

Navigation Buttons offers choices to display the HotJava Browser buttons at the top of the HotJava Browser window (the default), at the bottom of the window, vertically along the left or ride sides of the browser, or not at all. If you don't display the buttons, you can still use menu items to execute all of the button functions.

The Locator, also called the Place field, is where you type in the URL of a place you want to visit. Use this menu to choose the placement of the Locator field. You can also choose "None" if you don't want to see the Place field in either the header or footer. You can then choose Go to Place from the Places menu (or the right mouse pop-up menu) to display a Place field in a separate pop-up window.

The Activity Monitor, shown below, consists of the miniature progress monitor and the Duke icon that animates while a page is being loaded. Choose to display the Activity Monitor in the header (default), the footer, or not at all.

The Message Line is the area where all the HotJava Browser status and error messages are displayed. By default, the Message Line appears in the header beneath the Place field, or Locator. You can choose to move the Message Line to the footer, or not display it at all.

Screen Typeface and Screen Type Size determine the text font and size used by the HotJava Browser to display HTML pages. These settings affect normal HTML text, but they do not affect the text in applets running on your page. You may also find that some pages have "text" that is actually in a graphic, and is thus not affected by the typeface display settings.

Print Typeface and Print Type Size determine the text font and size used to print pages. Different options are provided for screen display and printed output to allow for differing requirements for optimal text display. For example, you may want a smaller type size for printed output than you want for screen display, or you may prefer fonts without serifs for screen display, and fonts with serifs for printed display. (Serifs are fine lines that "finish off" the main strokes of a letter, such as the horizontal line at the bottom of the letter "p" when displayed with a serif typeface.)

Note that if a page cannot be printed in the specified Print Type Size without "chopping off" some wide text, such as tables or preformatted HTML text (e.g. code samples), the page will be printed with scaled down type size in order for all text to fit on the page. You may want to try printing such pages in Landscape mode in order to successfully print the page using the specified Print Type Size.

Choose Show Clock if you'd like to display a clock (with date) in the upper left corner of the HotJava Browser, beneath the menus. You can change the format of your clock by editing a property. See Date Format for the HotJava Browser Clock for information.

Choose Show HTML Errors Button to add a button to the HotJava Browser that you can use as a shortcut for displaying HTML errors on the current page. See the HTML Errors documentation for more information.

Choose Confirm when Quit if you would like the HotJava Browser to display a confirmation notice when you quit the application, verifying that you really want to quit. The default is no confirmation when you quit.

Use the Underline Links option to specify whether HTML hypertext links are underlined. When the Underline Links option is off, hypertext links are displayed in a different color of text. When the Underline Links option is on, links are both a different color and underlined. The default is to have links underlined. In either case, when a link has previously been followed, the color of the link changes.

Choose Show Lists in Places Menu if you want to be able 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.

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Follow these links for information about other Preferences pages:

- Proxies (next topic)
- Viewer Applications
- Mail
- SSL and Certificate Settings
- Applet Security