Wanna break something?

Topher · Post by **Topher** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 2:47 pm

Break this for me (and then post in the forums how you did it or what you think):

http://www.backgroundbar.com

(Note using the service will kill your first born as well as any chance of making it with a lady. Other than that, you may get an error page as your background, my bad.)

Nitrofox125 · Post by **Nitrofox125** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 3:30 pm

Not using a PC, but it's a cool idea. PHP?

Topher · Post by **Topher** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 3:41 pm

ASP.NET

Being I don't own a Mac or Linux box, I don't know how it works, but if you can place web content in the background then you should be able to use this.

DCrazy · Post by **DCrazy** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 4:38 pm

Hey, you can probably get it to open in the Firefox/Mozilla sidebar too... save the URL of the page as a bookmark and check off the "open this bookmark in the sidebar" box. That would be neat.

[edit] Cool, it works! Use the URL http://www.backgroundbar.com/demobar.html in a Firefox bookmark to try it out. But it never stops downloading... [/edit]

Topher · Post by **Topher** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 4:47 pm

Hey, neat.

So say I just downloaded vanilla FireFox 1.0, how do I get a custom url to show up in the sidebar? (I don't see the "Sidebar" button a bunch of sites talk about)

DCrazy · Post by **DCrazy** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 4:50 pm

The only way I can find to bring up the sidebar is to create a bookmark that loads in the sidebar. Mozilla had a sidebar button, but it appears that Firefox does not. View :: Sidebar only has options for History and Bookmarks, not just a general "open the sidebar" option.

woodchip · Post by **woodchip** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 5:24 pm

Never knew about the Moz. side bar. Just went to the left of the screen, held the mouse button down and there it is. If I then click on the "tab" inside of the sidebar I see you can customise it.
Oh and if you click "what is related" I see "Kool Bear Cool Wear" shows up

roid · Post by **roid** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 7:07 pm

i put it on the firefox sidebar (my first time using the sidebar) and it worked for a few minutes until it seemed to try autorefreshing, then the sidebar turned into this message:

Please use the Generate Background Link feature to access your background.
(Sometimes you will get this message if you've deleted cookies recently, please regenerate the link to get your BackgroundBar back)

Topher · Post by **Topher** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 8:45 pm

roid wrote:i put it on the firefox sidebar (my first time using the sidebar) and it worked for a few minutes until it seemed to try autorefreshing, then the sidebar turned into this message:

Please use the Generate Background Link feature to access your background.
(Sometimes you will get this message if you've deleted cookies recently, please regenerate the link to get your BackgroundBar back)

Yah...you need to register. The demo is static, it doesn't update. Plus it's not customizable

....maybe I should have a "real lazy generic bar" for people?

Ferno · Post by **Ferno** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 9:02 pm

just give me a hammer and point me to the server.

Topher · Post by **Topher** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 9:07 pm

Ferno wrote:just give me a hammer and point me to the server.

If you're bored you can go spam/populate the forums so it doesn't look I'm the only one who uses it.

DCrazy · Post by **DCrazy** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 9:37 pm

Hey, according to this page you can use the window.sidebar object's addPanel() to load your page into the sidebar in JavaScript. Unfortunately SidebarBar doesn't have a nice ring to it.

Topher · Post by **Topher** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 9:43 pm

DCrazy wrote:Hey, according to this page you can use the window.sidebar object's addPanel() to load your page into the sidebar in JavaScript. Unfortunately SidebarBar doesn't have a nice ring to it.

Hehe, ironically I was just looking into that. I'll add a page on how to do it for most browsers in a bit...

Topher · Post by **Topher** » Mon Jan 03, 2005 11:11 pm

Actually, after a bit of experimentation, I found you can put stuff into most browser's side bars by setting the target of the anchor to "_search", it's not permanent (maybe not even useful, but it's a neat trick I didn't know...)