Active Channels: Subscribing


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"Subscriptions" at the click of a mouse
Also available on:

Windows 3.1 and NT 3.51

Macintosh

Setting up a site subscription is a no-fee, hassle-free way to keep current on information -- even when you're not online. Internet Explorer 4.0 lets users "subscribe" to any page on the Internet. Once you subscribe to a Web page, Internet Explorer 4.0 monitors the page, notifies you whenever it changes, and delivers the updated content at your convenience. Active Channel™ pages go even further, letting subscribers take advantage of the special functionality built into channels.

Subscribing to any page

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You can subscribe to a standard Web page by surfing to the page, then choosing Add to Favorites from the Favorites menu. It doesn't matter whether you subscribe to five favorite sites or fifty. Internet Explorer 4.0's built-in Web crawling agent regularly monitors all your favorite Web sites for changes and notifies you when one of them has been updated.

By telling Internet Explorer to download the sites onto your computer, you can take your favorite sites with you on the road, without having to "get connected." They also make better use of connect time, saving you money and allowing your computer to download sites during off-peak hours.

Subscribing to Active Channel pages

Click image for larger view.

When you click a channel subscription button or link on a Web page or in the Active Channel Guide, Internet Explorer opens up a whole new world. You have all the same options you have when you subscribe to normal pages,but there's more! Once you've subscribed to a channel, an icon appears in the Channel Bar on your Active Desktop. (NT users may need to turn the Channel Bar on by choosing Internet Options from the View menu, then clicking the Advanced tab.)

Click the channel icon, and Internet Explorer opens the channel in Full Screen mode, giving you a more immersive browsing experience and the equivalent of a visual "site map" of the most important pages. From there, the author or Web developer has the opportunity to make the pages come alive!

The Web authors and developers can choose to display Active Channel content in one or more of the following ways:

Full Screen Channels -- the most common option, which gives content developers a larger "canvas" on which to work.

Screen Saver -- which cycles through Active Channel content when the computer is idle.

Desktop Items -- which can be any size or shape, placed directly on the Active Desktop.

Channel Mail -- which delivers full HTML pages directly to the user's mailbox.

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