Glossary
Don’t overlook the Glossary in the How To tab. It describes terms used in the site and gives helpful hints about many of them.
Underlined Words or Phrases
Throughout this site, clicking on an underlined word or phrase will take you to another pertinent page or website. Try it here.
Tabs
It is pretty easy to get around our site. The first thing you see by entering www.FamilyStoriesBlog.com in your browser is our Home Page. There is a tool bar at the top of our site. Move your cursor over the tool bar. Notice that drop-downs appear for some of the items; click on the one you want. If no drop-down appears, then click on the tab title.
Basically there are two ways that sites handle tabs. Both approaches have advantages and disadvantages.
- On some sites a new tab opens each time you select a page or topic. On our site, people frequently open twenty or more pages during just one visit. If a new tab is opened for each page viewed, that would create a lot of tabs that must be closed in order to leave the site.
- Other sites do not open additional tabs. When there is just one tab, closing it closes down the site.
We use a combination approach. While you navigate around our site, generally just the one FSB tab appears at the top of the site page. However, when you click on one of our links, a new tab appears for that location. Closing down that locations’s tab does not take you away from FSB. If a member creates a link in a story, it is up to that member to establish how the linked site will display. We prefer that the link open in a new window.
Tricks of the Trade
Several things to know when navigating the site:
- Clicking on any link with the middle key or wheel on your mouse will create a new tab at the top of your page for the link destination. You then can click on that tab to open the link. Some browsers also give you options when you right click.
- Sometimes browsers do not respond as quickly as you wish. You can refresh the page or action you are attempting by clicking on CTRL and F5 at the same time.
- Cursor problem … if your cursor suddenly disappears, click on the
icon. Changing the size of the viewable screen will cause the cursor to reappear.
Moving From One Page to Another
When you are ready to view a new page, just click on an item title and the current page is replaced by it. If you click on the back and forward arrows on your browser you can move between pages you have opened. Regardless of where you are in the site, you can always return to the home page by clicking on “Home” on the top toolbar.
Speed of Connections
Our site is hosted by GoDaddy. Sometimes their server may be slowed by heavy traffic. This could affect the speed in which you can navigate through our site.
Links might take you to other websites that could be hosted by servers other than GoDaddy. Traffic at those sites can also affect performance.
One other thing that can slow down performance is when a file size is large. My story The Music of My Life originally was in one part with over 100 video clips included. Opening that story took a while. That is why I split it into six parts.