Best Practices for Using the Browser

Pop-up Blockers

Before using the web client, be sure to disable pop-up blockers for your Evergreen system’s domain.

  • In Chrome, select Settings from the Chrome menu and click on Content settings in the advanced section. Select Popups and then add your domain to the Allowed list.

  • In Firefox, select Preferences from the Firefox menu and then select the Content panel. Click the Exceptions button and add your domain to the Allowed Sites list.

Setting Browser Defaults for Web Client

To ensure that staff can easily get to the web client portal page on login without additional steps, you can set the browser’s home page to default to the web client.

Setting the Web Client as the Home Page in Chrome

  1. In the top-right corner of your browser, click the Chrome menu.

  2. Select Settings.

  3. In the On startup section, select Open a specific page or set of pages.

  4. Click the Set Pages link.

  5. Add https://localhost/eg/staff/ to the Enter URL box and click OK.

Setting the Web Client as the Home Page in Firefox

  1. In the top-right corner of your browser, click the menu button.

  2. Click Options.

  3. In the When Firefox starts: dropdown menu, select Show my home page.

  4. In the Home Page box, add https://localhost/eg/staff/ and click OK.

Turning off print headers and footers in Firefox

If you are not using Hatch for printing, you will probably want to configure your browser so that Firefox does not add headers and footers to items printed on certain printers. For example, if you are printing spine labels, you likely will not want Firefox to add a date or URL to the margins of your label.

You can turn off these headers and footers using the following steps:

  1. In the Firefox menu, click Print…​ to open the print preview screen.

  2. Click the Page Setup…​ button.

  3. Go to the Margins & Header/Footer tab.

  4. Make sure that all dropdown menus are set to --blank--.

If you only want to turn off those headers and footers for a specific printer, use these steps:

  1. In the Firefox address bar, type about:config.

  2. If a warning appears, click I accept the risk.

  3. Type print_header into this screen’s search box.

  4. Double-click on the relevant print_headerleft, print_headerright, and print_headercenter entries in the grid.

  5. Delete any existing data for that setting and click OK.

  6. Type print_footer into the screen’s search box and repeat these steps for the footer settings.

Turning off print headers and footers in Chrome

If you are not using Hatch for printing, you will probably want to configure your browser so that Chrome does not add headers and footers to items printed on certain printers. For example, if you are printing spine labels, you likely will not want Chrome to add a date or URL to the margins of your label.

You can turn off these headers and footers using the following steps:

  1. In the Chrome menu, click Print…​ to open the print preview screen.

  2. Click More Settings.

  3. Uncheck Headers and Footers.

Set font size in browser

Font size in the OPAC and TPAC can be increased/decreased by using the CTRL key with + (to increase), with - (to decrease), and with 0 (to restore default font size). Font sizes can persist via a setting in user preferences.

Turning Off Google Translate

If you have other languages available on your OPAC via language selector, it would be best to turn off Google Translate so it doesn’t automatically translate to English.

  1. In the top-right corner of your browser, click the Chrome menu.

  2. Select Settings.

  3. You can search 'Use Google Translate' in the search bar.

  4. Toggle off the option.

Tab Buttons and Keyboard Shortcuts

Now that the client will be loaded in a web browser, users can use browser-based tab controls and keyboard shortcuts to help with navigation. Below are some tips for browser navigation that can be used in Chrome and Firefox on Windows PCs.

  • Use CTRL-T or click the browser’s new tab button to open a new tab.

  • Use CTRL-W or click the x in the tab to close the tab.

  • Undo closing a tab by hitting CTRL-Shift-T.

  • To open a link from the web client in a new tab, CTRL-click the link or right-click the link and select Open Link in New Tab. Using this method, you can also open options from the web client’s dropdown menus in a new tab

  • Navigate to the next tab using CTRL-Tab. Go to the previous tab with CTRL-Shift-Tab.

Setting New Tab Behavior

Some users may want to automatically open the web client’s portal page in a new tab. Neither Chrome nor Firefox will open your home page by default when you open a new tab. However, both browsers have optional add-ons that will allow you to set the browsers to automatically open the home page whenever open opening a new tab. These add-ons may be useful for those libraries that want the new tab to open to the web client portal page.

Create a Toolbar Using Bookmarks

Your broswer’s bookmarks toolbar can act as a replacement for the toolbars available in the XUL client.

Create a Toolbar Using Bookmarks in Chrome

  1. In the Chrome menu, click Bookmarks and make sure that Show bookmarks bar is selected (CTRL+Shift+B).

  2. Navigate to the staff client page(s) you want to bookmark.

  3. In the Chrome menu, click Bookmarks and select either Bookmark this tab (CTRL+B) or Bookmark all tabs (CTRL+Shift+B)

  4. Name bookmark(s) appropriately.

  5. Click and drag toolbar bookmarks to re-order.

Create a Toolbar Using Bookmarks in Firefox

  1. If the toolbar is not already enabled, in the Firefox menu, click Library and then Bookmarks and then Bookmarking Tools and select Add Bookmarks Menu to Toolbar

  2. Navigate to the staff client page you want to bookmark.

  3. In the Firefox menu, , click Library and then Bookmarks and select Bookmark This Page (CTRL+D)

  4. Name bookmark appropriately and repeat for additional bookmarks.

  5. Click and drag toolbar bookmarks to re-order.