User Guide

Recognizing that not everyone viewing this website will have the same degree of proficiency, here are a few explanations and basic tips before getting started:

The design of the website has been optimized for viewing with Internet Explorer (IE) at 1024 x 768 pixels, however Mozilla Firefox also handles it reasonable well (with a few quirks). I have not tested the website on a Macintosh-based browser.

Several of the longer documents incorporate a Quick Navigation menu, which makes it easy to move to a particular section of interest.

If you are viewing the website with IE, after moving to the desired section click once anywhere within that section before attempting to scroll. If you don't, scrolling will cause the cursor to jump to the next section. (This trick is not needed in Firefox.)

At the bottom of most pages, and at several places within long documents, you will see a small blue triangle, like this one  . Clicking on it will take you immediately to the top of the page. This is a convenient way of moving up to the start of a document without having to scroll.

Many of the pages contain detailed references to original sources, indicated by a number in parentheses (#). Hovering over a reference number will pull up a note momentarily, until the cursor is moved away. Some of the references have external links, which can be accessed by clicking on them. All of the references are repeated at the end of the document so that they can be printed out, together with the rest of the document.

A few pages — in particular, the business directories found in the Reference section — contain accented (Polish) characters that require a small adjustment to one's browser in order to view them properly. When so advised: if you are using Internet Explorer, select View from the browser menu, then Encoding » More » Central European (ISO). If you are using Firefox, select View from the browser menu, then Character Encoding » More Encodings » East European » Central European (ISO-8859-2).

The website contains many photographs and other images. Several of the images that need to be magnified in order to be viewed properly can be enlarged by clicking on the image. A larger version of the image will then appear in its own pop-up window. For the time being, only a couple of dozen images (identified by a little 'hand' when you hover over them) can be enlarged in this way, but gradually I will be adding add more to collection.

Most of the web pages can easily be printed out for later reference. Click on the 'print page' button just underneath the main banner, on the right hand side of the screen, to print a properly formatted page.

The website includes a comprehensive search function, powered by Wrensoft. Simply type in the desired keyword and hit 'Enter', to bring up all of the relevant pages containing that keyword.

See also the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) for answers to other technical questions.