How Do I Navigate the Encyclopedia?
This hypertext system consists of pages connected by links. The most basic navigation scheme is simply to click your mouse-pointer while it is on a link. Links are found as menu selections at the top and bottom of each page, as an outline of available pages in the blue navigation pane on the left of each page, and embedded within the text in the main content window in the middle of the page. As you jump from page to page using these links, you can prevent yourself from getting lost in hyperspace by keeping a close eye on the blue navigation pane on the left. Here you will find that the outline changes as you change pages. The current page is always highlighted in the outline so you can see its relationship to its organizational parents, siblings and children.
Other ways to navigate are:
- click on the navigation pane in the frame-box on the left side of your screen. You will see each page that is currently being displayed in bold in the navigation frame-box. You can use this navigation table of contents to learn how the encyclopedia is organized and to move around it.
- if you are looking for a particular subject, you can go to the search facility at the top middle or the top left of each page.
- if you want to move to the previous page you may use the back button (left arrow) of your browser tool bar.
- if you want to see all the pages which you have visited during the current session, use the history feature of your browser.
Page Border Menu Items
Every page in the Forest Encyclopedia System has the same layout. The menu items available at the top border of each page are:
- Forest Encyclopedia Network: use this menu selection to return to the system home page.
- Help: provides access to the USER HELP and AUTHOR HELP sections.
- Search: provides simple or complex search tools.
- Indexes: provides access to a list of figures and tables and a table of contents.
- Credits: provides information on who is working on the forest encyclopedia network.
- Feedback: provides an opportunity to contact the system managers for questions or critiques.
- Encyclopedia Collections: provides access to the currently available encyclopedias.
The menu items available at the bottom border of each page are:
- Log In/Log Out: select this link if you want to register yourself with the system as a new author.
- EID Search: if you know the Encyclopedia Identification Number (EID) for a particular page, you can enter it into this space and jump directly to that page.
In the bottom right hand corner of each page there are also some information items that may be of interest:
- Author Identification: names the author of each page.
- Encyclopedia Identification Number: provides the EID for each page.
- Date of Last Modification: identifies the date of last modification.
Navigation using Top-Level Drop Down Buttons
In the blue-grey bar directly above the main content window, you will see a menu list consisting of drop down buttons. The drop-down buttons are the top level organizational elements of a particular encyclopedia. The names of these drop-down buttons will vary depending upon which encyclopedia you are viewing. For example, the names for the drop down buttons in the Encyclopedia of Southern Appalachian Forest Ecosystems are: The Landscape, Resource Management,Ecology,Forest Health and Social Science. They each contain a number of sub-headings which, if selected, will be shown on the left in the navigation frame-box as well. As the user travels deeper into the hierarchical outline of an encyclopedia, the top-level drop down buttons and the navigation pane work together as an orientation device. This helps the user understand where within the structural outline the particular page of interest resides. It essentially identifies the logical structure of the subject matter that the selected encyclopedia covers.
