Using Tabs in Firefox 2.0
One advantage of browsers such as Firefox is that they make it possible to use tabs. This tutorial will illustrate how to use and save tab settings so that the Web pages you visit routinely are available when you open your browser.
1. Open Firefox and click on “Tools” in the menu bar. (If Firefox is not currently your browser, you may download a FREE copy at www.mozilla.com/en-US/.
2. In the pulldown menu, click on “Options”.
3. Click on the “Tabs” option.
4. Make sure that “a new tab” is checked under “New Pages should be opened in” and that all four options are checked, then click on “OK”.
5. Now enter the address of a Web site that you visit regularly such the one for USC Webmail (i.e., email.usc.edu) and press “Enter”.
6. Place the cursor in the rectangular space to the right of the USC Web Mail tab (as shown below) then right click to see the tab pulldown menu box.
7. In the tab pulldown menu, click on “New Tab”.
8. Once again type in or use your “Bookmarks” to insert the address of a second Web site that you visit daily such as the New York Times online as in this example below.
9. After this page opens, repeat the process as many times as you like. Each time, right click to get the tabs pulldown menu to open a new tab, and, after the new tab opens, enter or insert the URL to a Web site that you regularly visit.
In the example below, the Weather Channel Web site for Pasadena has been opened. (My Firefox browser opens to 10 Web sites that I check regularly.).
10. When you have added all the Web sites that you want to check when you first open Firefox, once again click on “Tools” in the menu bar (near the top of the browser), then as before click on “Options” in the tools pulldown menu, but this time click on the “Main” options tab. The two items that you are concerned with are in the “Startup” rectangle in the top third of this box.
11. In the text box at the right of “Home Page:”, you will see the URLs for all the Web sites that are open in the tabs. Click on “Use Current Pages”.
12. To ensure that Firefox will open on these Web pages, click on “Show a blank page” in the text box next to “When Firefox starts:” to see all three startup options. Click on “Show my home page” which makes all the pages in the “Home Page:” textbox your “home” pages.
13. Finally, click on “OK”.
The next time you open Firefox, you will see the first of your home pages. Tabs for each additional home page will also be visible. To move to one of these, simply click on the appropriate tab.
To obtain Firefox, go to www.mozilla.com/en-US/.
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