OF THE LAW SOCIETY OF SCOTLAND - The Journal Online

Journal
IT
Opening a
target in a new
However, it’s
also possible
t o s e t
window is
particular
pages within
also useful
the site as
favorites,
which allows
you to “deep-link” directly to the page, and saves
you having to start at the front page and click
your way through the navigational elements of
the site. In this particular case, setting up a deeplink
directly to the Supreme Court structured
search page allows you to go directly to that page
and saves you having to trawl through four
intermediate pages. This is where the frames
problem arises. You need to know the page
address to set it as a favorite. The address
www.scotcourts.gov.uk is not actually a page, it’s
just a space which contains pages. By default,
when you type that address in, it loads a page
called index1.htm. Normally, as you click through
a site, you’ll see that the page address changes in
the address bar, and, if it does, you can save any
particular page as a favorite without any difficulty.
This doesn’t happen with scotcourts. You’ll see
that it initially loads a page called
www.scotcourts.gov.uk/index1.htm. Click through
the site to other pages, and you’ll see that the
address is always index1.htm. Accordingly, if you
try to set any page as a favorite, you will always
arrive at the opening page instead of a direct
deep link to the page you are interested in.This is
because the frames structure always initially loads
index1.htm which itself contains no substantive
contents, just instructions to split the screen into
a left hand frame containing a navigation menu,
and a right hand frame containing the substantive
contents.
To get round this, from the opening page of
scotcourts, find your way to the Supreme Courts
search page. As per figure one, the green bit on
the left is one page consisting of navigation
options and the right hand bit is the substantive
content. Both these pages are loaded into the
two separate frames set up by index1.htm. You
are always looking at index1.htm, even though its
contents may periodically change depending on
the navigation choices you make. Now, however,
instead of using the left mouse button to click on
the words “Structured Search”, click the right
mouse button. From the menu which appears,
click “Open in New Window”.This opens a new
instance of your browser, and, this time, instead of
loading index1.htm all over again, it loads just the
Supreme Courts structured search page, and
you’ll see that the address is now
May 2002 Volume 47 No 5 42
www.scotcourts.gov.uk/cgi-bin/Supreme.pl.This is
a particular page address which you normally
can’t see within a frames structure.You can now
add this page to favorites as described above.
Now, this may seem a little pointless, but it doesn’t
just save you having to click through from the
opening page each time you want to do a
Supreme Courts structured search. If you find a
case while still within the frames structure, and
want to save it to your machine, remember that
you are looking at index1.htm which just happens
to be showing that case at the time, and also the
green navigation menu on the left hand side. If you
try to save this case, you will just save index1.htm,
not the contents: basically, when you open up the
saved file, you will see nothing. However, if you
follow the procedures described, to allow you to
open the search page directly, any cases found will
be loaded directly, not within index1.htm, and you
can then save them directly. Despite the problems
with navigation, saving, bookmarking and printing,
which framesets give rise to, a surprising number
of sites insist on using them. Knowing that you can
right-click and open the destination in a new
window is a good work-around. Opening a target
in a new window is also useful when, say, you find
a list of resources on a page, such as the searchresults
within scotcourts, and want to work your
way through them without having to jump
backwards and forwards between the searchresults
and each case.You can right-click on each
case and open it in its own window.
If you take an interest in the development of your
own website, this line of source-code will place
these words “Add this page to Favorites” on your
page, and will call the Favorites dialog box when
clicked.
Add this page to Favorites
The thinking behind this is that there’s a school of
thought which says that if a user option is made
more explicit, users will be more likely to take it.
You might want to include this line on a page
which carries an article about an area of law
which is under review, with say, a by-line saying,
Figure 1
“The Scottish Executive has issued a consultation
paper on possible reforms in this area. Bookmark
this page here as we’ll be updating this page as
matters develop.” People may be more inclined to
come back and then instruct you, or they may not.
Saving cases to your machine
Well, let’s be frank about this: unless you’ve been
brave enough to ask your secretary what the
difference between “save” and “save as…” is,
you’re probably still printing cases out and then
dealing with them as you would any other form
of printed media. Here’s how to store them on
your machine, so that you can do whatever you
like with them later on.
Minimise other programs so that you have a clear
view of the computer’s “desktop”. Click the right
mouse button. From the menu which appears,
put the mouse over “New “, then from the submenu,
click “Folder”.A new folder appears on the
desktop. Give it an appropriate name, such as
“Cases” by right-clicking on it, and selecting
“Rename” from the menu which appears. This
sets up a folder for future use.
When you find a case you’re interested in you
can save it here. Say you’re in the Supreme
Courts search page, you’ve found a case and
need to save it. From the menu bar at the top of
the page, click “file | save as”.This opens a dialog
box. At the “Save in..” select menu at the top of
the box, find and click the “Cases” folder.The textarea
should fill up to show other files already in
that folder. At the “File Name” box, you can rename
the file to whatever you think appropriate.
At the “Save as Type” select menu, you can leave
the type as “Web page, complete”, but if the page
has lots of unnecessary pictures which you’re not
interested in, you can change the type to “Web
page, HTML only” to save just the words. Then
click “Save”.The file will now be in the folder.
To view it later, click or double-click it, depending
on the set-up of your machine. It should open in
Internet Explorer. You may wish to take a quote
out of the decision to put into a letter: put the
cursor at the start of the section you’re
interested in then press the left mouse button
down. Keeping it down, drag the cursor to the
end of the section, then release the button. The
section should now be highlighted blue. Put the
cursor over the blue section and right-click. From
the menu which appears, click “copy”. This puts
the section into a temporary storage area called
the “clipboard”. Go to the letter, or e-mail or
whatever, place the cursor at the appropriate
point, then right-click, and from the menu which
appears, click “paste”. The section should be
placed into the letter. (Incidentally, “Save” is used