Helpful Features and Information
Our goal when designing this site was to make it easy for everyone to use. The following are some of the features and design considerations that were made to meet this goal:
Browser Experience
We do our best to ensure that our Web site looks and behaves the same in all major Internet Browsers, including Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.x and above, Firefox 2.x and above, Opera 9.x, Apple Safari 3.x, and Google Chrome, although you will notice some minor differences from browser to browser. If you discover any problems viewing this site in your browser, please feel free to contact us.
Optimal Resolution
Our site is best viewed at 1024 x 768 and higher resolutions.
Browser Windows
Our philosophy is to never force a new browser window to open from our site. Whether you click a link to a page or document on our site or a page or document on an external site, it will always open within the browser you currently have open. The reasoning behind our philosophy is as follows:
- Violates Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
- Can be extremely disorienting to blind users who are navigating by screen reader
- Breaks the "Back" button
- Bypasses the default behavior of your browser
- Can be treated as a pop-up window by pop-up blockers, thus preventing the page or file from opening
- Gives you the freedom to navigate in the way that works best for you
Changing Text Size
All of the text on our site can be made larger or smaller (within reason) without affecting the overall readability of the content. Consult your browser's help menu to learn how to do this as it varies from browser to browser.
Icons used to represent various document types or links
For your convenience, we display industry standard icons to represent common document types and links including:
- PDF Documents
- Word Documents
- Excel Documents
- Power Point Documents
- Links to External Web sites
- E-mail Links
Disclaimer: these icons do not show up in Internet Explorer 6.x or below.
Site Map
We provide a Categorized Site Map containing links to all of the pages on our Web site. We hope that our site navigation will make it easy for you to find what you are looking for, but the site map gives you an all at once glance at the contents of the site, which can be helpful when you are not sure where to look or your just want to browse the entire contents of the site.
Improved Navigation
Information Centers
We've added Information Centers to our left navigation in an attempt to better serve those who we feel are the most common visitors of our site. Each Information Center contains information that pertains to or may be helpful for the intended audience.
Breadcrumb Navigation
Just above the white content pane, you will notice (on all but the home page) one or more links that designate the page that you are on and the pages you came from. You can now more easily navigate our site with this added feature.
Skip to content link
We provide a Skip to content link at the top of every page to allow you to skip over repetitive content, such as the navigation and header links. This feature is most useful for those who use screen readers or a keyboard to navigate Web sites.
Help with PDF Files
Viewing Tips:
We recommend PDF files be opened directly in Adobe Reader and not in your browser. To do this:
- Open Adobe Reader
- On the menu at the top, click Edit / Preferences
- From the Preferences window, select Internet from the Categories list
- Uncheck the "Display PDF in Browser" option
- Click the Ok button(you may be prompted to restart your computer for the settings to take effect)
Why we recommend this:
- Adobe will open PDF files outside of your browser.
- You will be able to have many PDF files opened at one time in Adobe (instead of a single PDF in your browser).
- You won't be forced to use your browser's Back button because the PDF replaced the page in your browser.
Printing Court Forms:
Before printing these documents be sure not to select "shrink to fit" as a printing option. If you do select this option, the font size will be reduced when printed and will not be accepted by the court.
Downloading Tips:
If you want to download the files separately and view them later, right-click (shift-click on Macintosh) and select:
- in Microsoft Internet Explorer, "Save Target As"
- in Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome, "Save Link As"
- in Apple Safari, "Download Linked File As"
- or in Opera, "Save Linked Content As"
The link to download the Adobe Acrobat Reader is available in the footer of this and every other page on this Web site.