Navigating a Web Page:

The Baptist Health site, like most World Wide Web servers, is organized around the concept of a "web page," an informational display that may contain both text and images, as well as hypertext links to other "pages." The term "page" is a little misleading, as the material it contains may take several screens to display. If you are using a graphical web browser like Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer there are some navigational aids that help you maneuver through a web page. These include the scroll bar, icons or image maps that appear on the page, the location bar, and the back, forward and home buttons at the top of your screen.

Hypertext links:

A hypertext link is a "hot" area within a web page that links it to another web page. Links can take several forms: colorized and underlined text (notice the links on this page?), buttons, maps or images. When you click on a hypertext link, the browser takes you to a new page by interpreting the address contained within the link. (Some browsers show the address of the web page at the bottom of your screen). This can be another page on the same server, or on another web server halfway around the world. When the link consists of colorized text, the text turns color (blue to red on many browsers) to indicate it has been activated. This is useful for keeping track of which links you've followed.

Scroll bar:

Scroll through the web page by clicking on the up and down arrows along the right hand side of the screen. (If your keyboard has page up and page down keys, they can be used to move a screen at a time in the desired direction).

Icons:

In the Baptist Health site, an icon is a small "thumbnail" image that may represent a larger image, a video clip, a sound file, or a link to another file. Clicking on an icon either activates a link, expands the image to its full size, or launches the helper application that is needed to run the video or sound clip. The progress bar at the bottom of the screen indicates that a video or sound file is loading and shows how the load is progressing. For large files (video files are the largest), be prepared to wait a short while. Click once on the Stop button at the top of the screen to halt the loading of an image. Not all small images in the Baptist Health site are icons. Icons are identified by their colored borders. These borders change color after the image has been activated, letting you know that you've viewed the full image.

Image map:

An image map is a "hot" image or collection of buttons that loads a new web page depending upon where you click. The map labels indicate where the link takes you.

Location bar:

Centered over the viewing area, the location bar shows the full World Wide Web "address" of the Baptist Health server, as well as the file name of the web page you are viewing. You'll note as you move through the web pages that these file names change while the first portion of the address remains constant. If you bookmark a particular web page, the browser records the full address, including file name, of that page.

Back button:

Each time you move from one web page to another by following links, your browser records those steps. By clicking on the back button, you retrace those steps one link at a time.

Forward button:

If, having retraced your steps through the Baptist Health site, you wish to revisit the pages you viewed earlier, the forward button takes you back along that same path, one step at a time. Note that the links that the back and forward buttons maintain are only good in the current browsing session. Unlike a bookmark, they are lost when you quit the session.

Home button:

Clicking the home button takes you to the "home page" of the web server your browser is set to. If your browser has the Baptist Health designated as its home page, clicking this button reloads the first Baptist Health screen.

What is a URL:

URL stands for "Uniform Resource Locator." A URL is the address for a resource on the Internet. It may be the address for a web server's home page or another file on the server. Our URL is: http://www.e-baptisthealth.com/. The first part of the URL, before the colon, specifies the access method. Subsequent parts define the server and who operates it, and appended to that might be the path to a file on the server. Knowing the URL of a server or file is useful for setting bookmarks to resources you wish to return to. URLs are "case sensitive," meaning they must be entered with the appropriate upper-case or lower-case letters. Your browser's bookmark feature will record the URL exactly as written.

What is a bookmark or hotlist and how does it work:

A bookmark file (or favorites in Internet Explorer) is a collection of URLs you have saved for future reference. The various web browsers allow you to sort and store these "addresses" in different ways. Most browsers store the title of a web page in the bookmark list. These titles are sometimes not meaningful and you may need to edit your list to better identify the resources. Opening the list and selecting a title automatically loads the URL. An important thing to keep in mind when bookmarking a file URL vs. the server URL is that the location of files on a server sometimes change, or files are purposely deleted when they become outdated, and when that happens a file-specific URL may no longer work. If this happens to you, eliminate the file path at the end of the URL to get to the server's home page.

What do the "question mark" and "broken" icons mean:

An icon with a question mark in place of the image means the server has not found that image file where it expects to. This is not a problem with your web browser, but simply means the web page is incomplete. A broken icon means that the image file is in the expected place but it's in an improper format that the server cannot handle. In both these cases, this is a problem on our end, not yours.

What is an image map and how does it work:

An image map is a "hot" image or collection of buttons that loads the URL of a new web page depending upon where you click. The map labels indicate where the link takes you.

Why do some files, particularly sound and video files, take a long time to load:

The rate at which a file loads is determined by three things: the size of the file, the speed of the Internet connection between your computer and ours, and the processing power of your personal computer. Our video and sound files are much larger than ordinary text files, and even under the best network conditions require patience. The Internet connection between the two computers is critical, and even the time of day makes a difference. A modem connection takes longer than an Ethernet connection, and both must contend with the load on our campus network and Internet trunk lines. Finally, the sheer processing power of a PowerPC or Pentium chip will do a great deal to aid throughput to the browser and helper applications.

What is a helper application:

A helper application is special software needed to view particular file types. The three file types used in the Virtual Hospital that require "helper apps" are .mov (QuickTime videos), .snd (sound) and .jpg (JPEG images). Recent versions of the popular web browsers (Netscape Navigator, Microsoft Internet Explorer) handle these file types internally or through "plug-ins," and don't require helper applications.

How do I play a video or sound file once it is loaded:

Clicking on the icon for a video or sound file launches the helper application configured in your browser to load that type of file. When the file is completely loaded a small box appears on the screen with either the first frame of the video or a representation of the sound file inside it. Click on the right-pointing arrow to the left of the image to play the file. Once the file has finished playing you can play it again without having to reload the file. Clicking back in your browser window makes the box containing the video or sound file disappear.

What Do These Error Messages Mean:

File Not Found (or 404 Not Found):

The URL for the page you are attempting to load is not correct, or has changed. If you've typed in this URL, doublecheck spelling, case sensitivity, colons and slashes. If this is a link that once worked but does no longer, you will have to eliminate the file path at the end of the URL to get to the server's home page and relocate the page from there. 401 Unauthorized:

The URL for the page you are attempting to load is correct, but you are not authorized to view that file. If we've advertised this as a public page (as a link from another page), we may have forgotten to change its file permissions, and would appreciate a note to webmaster@bmcjax.com

403 Forbidden:

The URL you are attempting to load is correct, but it performs a system process you are not authorized to do.

500 Server Error:

This is a catch-all error code which indicates that something has gone wrong in the server and the problem has stopped the request from being completed.

501 Not Implemented

The URL calls on the server to perform a system feature that has not been implemented.

Connection Refused:

The URL for the page you are attempting to load is correct, but there were too many users already on the server. If this happens to you, please send e-mail to webmaster@bmcjax.com and we will try to enable more connections.

Unable to Locate Host:

The URL for the server you are attempting to reach is not correct or has changed. If you've typed in this URL, doublecheck spelling, case sensitivity, colons and slashes. If this is a link from a page on the Virtual Hospital that once worked but does no longer, please notify us.

Unable to Contact Host:

The URL for the server you are attempting to reach is correct, but the server is not responding. Try again another time.


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