If you are new to using the World Wide Web as a medium, then it's simple; move around the magazine by "clicking" on links in the text. These show up as a different colour to the rest of the text. In addition, you can click on certain icons, to take you to other places within Ariadne; more of this in the next two sections.
You should be able to "read" the Web version of Ariadne on any browser. If you have graphics turned off, or you are using a text-only browser, then all of the links that appear as graphical icons will appear as text links. Turning the graphics off by, for example, deselecting the Auto Load Images in the Options menu on most versions of Netscape, will speed up your navigation around Ariadne and will not result in the loss of any information or potential links (apart from being able to see the cartoon or the caption competition).
As Ariadne has progressed, each issue has often become larger than the previous one. As a consequence, the Web version of every issue of Ariadne (from issue 4 onwards) is split into several more distinct sections. From issue 4 onwards, a set of "torn strip" graphics such as:
are used frequently. These can often be clicked on, either from the main menu, or from individual articles; in both cases, this will take you to the section menu indicated by the torn strip. As you may have guessed, the grey and gold buttons, such as:
...can also be clicked on.
To speed up access to Ariadne, as well as access to everything else on the Web (and to also cut down on the amount of network traffic your Web use generates), it is strongly urged, as a matter of principle, that you use whatever caching facilities your Web browser possesses. Caching is explained in some non-too technical detail in an article by Jon Knight and Martin Hamilton in issue 4.
If you are using more recent versions of Netscape, then the options for caching can usually be found off the Network Preferences sub-menu of the Options menu. Memory caching is more efficient than disk caching, though it may slow down your machine in some circumstances. Disk caching is a bit less efficient, and can mean heavy disk drive use, but is still good practise and will probably result being able to move around Ariadne on the Web several times faster than if no caching is used.
Last, but not least, Ariadne will survive, and hopefully flourish, from contributions by its readers. We would be delighted to receive feedback, suggestions for articles, comments, criticisms and/or letters for the letters page. Ariadne contains a page which tells you how to write in.
Material on this page is copyright Ariadne/original authors. This page last updated on 11-Jul-1997