The settings in this panel determine the Communicator component you see upon startup and the appearance of the navigation toolbar.

• Specifying the Launch Window
• Specifying Toolbar Area Presentation
• Selecting Character-Set Encodings, Fonts, and Font Sizes
• Specifying the Font to be Used in a Page's Display
• The Colors Panel

Specifying the Launch Window

To specify the component window to view when you launch Communicator:

Choose from Navigator for web browsing, Messenger Mailbox for mail, Collabra Discussions for discussion groups, or Page Composer for creating and editing content. You may also choose the Netcaster component for automatic delivery of web pages or one of the professional edition components, if available. The default is Navigator.

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Specifying Toolbar Area Presentation

Choose from Pictures and Text, Pictures Only, and Text Only. The default is Pictures and Text.

On the Mac OS, a Show Tooltips checkbox allows the display of textual tips when your cursor remains positioned over a toolbar button.

Also on the Mac OS, check the Use Desktop Utility Pattern checkbox to use the Macintosh system utilities pattern as the background outside the content area (such as at the top of the Navigator window and in the status message area). You can set this pattern by choosing the Desktop Patterns control panel, scrolling to a pattern, holding down the Option key, and clicking the Set Utilities Pattern button. The utilities pattern is displayed outside the content area once you restart the Communicator application.

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Selecting Character-Set Encodings, Fonts, and Font Sizes

An encoding represents a mapping of glyphs (such as letters or other symbols) to computer codes (such as hexadecimal digits).

Each character-set encoding from the For the Encoding pop-up menu is associated with the display of a variable-width (proportional) and fixed-width (monospaced) font pair. You can view or modify the association of fonts for any encoding by choosing the encoding name from the menu, then choosing items from the variable-width and fixed-width font pop-up menus. For example, the default encoding, Latin1, is associated with the variable-width font Times 12 and the fixed-width font Courier 10.

Most pages display text in a variable-width font. The Variable-Width Font pop-up menu specifies the font of the primary type of text in the content area. Choose from the font and font size pop-up menus to select an alternative font or font size. You can make a selection for each encoding.

Fixed-width font text is used in editable fields and certain paragraphs preformatted by the author of a page. The Fixed-Width Font pop-up menu specifies the font of the secondary type of text in the content area. Choose from the font and font size pop-up menus to select an alternative font or font size display. You can make a selection for each encoding.

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Specifying the Font to be Used in a Page's Display

You can determine whether to use fonts specified by the transmitted page or your default fonts specified in your preferences. In addition, you can determine whether to allow Dynamic Fonts that are transmitted with a page. Using page fonts helps ensure that the page display matches the display intended by the page author; however, the use of Dynamic Fonts can increase download time.

• Select Use my default fonts, overriding document-specified fonts to specify that Communicator's default fonts are used instead of any specified page fonts.
• Select Use document-specified fonts, but disable Dynamic Fonts to specify that page fonts are used only when page fonts are available without downloading.
• Select Use document-specified fonts, including Dynamic Fonts to specify that page fonts are used regardless of download time. This is the default.

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The Colors Panel

When you click a color box, a dialog presents a color palette offering basic and custom colors. In the color palette, click any color box, then click OK to close the palette.

To set the color of page text and background

• Click the Text color box to select a color for text display. Black is the default color for plain text.
• Click the Background color box to select a color for background display. White is the default color for a background.
• Select the Use Windows colors checkbox (Use Default Colors button on the Mac OS and Unix) to set the text and background display to their original settings.

To create and store a custom color in the Color palette

1. Click a color box to display the Color palette.
2. Click the Define Custom Colors button.
3. Click inside the large color square and thin solid bar to select a color's hue, saturation, luminosity, and RGB composition. Alternatively, you can insert numerical values for each of these color-defining characteristics.
4. Click the Add to Custom Colors button to insert the color in the palette.

After you add a custom color to the palette, you can select the custom color the same as you would select a basic color. Click OK to close the Color palette.

To set the color and underlining of unvisited and visited links

1. Click the Unvisited Links color box to select a color for links to unviewed pages. Blue is the default color for unvisited links.
2. Click the Visited Links color box to select a color for links to pages you have already seen. Purple is the default color for visited links.
3. Select the Underline links checkbox to specify that text links in a page are underlined. This box is selected by default.

To specify the priority of your colors or page-specified colors

Select the Always use my colors, overriding document checkbox to make your color and background settings always override page-specified settings. By default, the box is unselected so that the background and colors set by a page's author are displayed.

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