SillyDog701

[DJGM]

Later today, I will officially unveil "The DJGM.co.uk Browser Toolbar". Like other browser toolbars,
it will include a popup blocker and a Google search box. BUT, unlike other such toolbars, it will
also include a link to the SillyDog701 Message Centre, and a link to GetFirefox.com . . . !



Initially, the toolbar will be for IE only, although I'm considering a version for Mozilla Firefox,
even though it already has it's own built in Google search box, and a built in popup blocker.


Watch this space . . . more details later!



(In other news . . . this was my 3333rd post on SD701!)

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-GB; rv:1.7.10) Gecko/20050717 Firefox/1.0.6

[Antony]

[...]
Initially, the toolbar will be for IE only,

IE only?
and where is the link?

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/412.6 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/412.2

[DJGM]

Like I said, because Firefox already has a Google search box and popup blocking built in.

It'll also be very useful to IE users, in one very specific way . . . there's a "Get Firefox"
link on it, so they'll be just one mouse click away from getting a better browser than
the one they've just installed my new browser toolbar onto!

Eitherway, a slightly different version of the toolbar for Mozilla Firefox is in the works,
since I've also got a toolbar convertor, that'll quickly make the toolbar fully Firefox
compatible! The Firefox version will not include the popup blocker button.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-GB; rv:1.7.10) Gecko/20050717 Firefox/1.0.6

[DJGM]

I'm doing some internal testing to make sure it works on older versions of Windows as well as
the ones from Windows 2000 upwards. If it works on Windows 95 with IE5.5SP2 (currently
running within VPC) I can't see any reasons for it not to work on all the later versions.

All being well, I shall release a v1.0 beta of the IE version, and start on making a slightly
different version that (without popup blocker button) for installing on to Mozilla Firefox.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-GB; rv:1.7.10) Gecko/20050717 Firefox/1.0.6

[Andrew T.]

Will the DJGM.co.uk Browser Toolbar be compatible with Internet Explorer 3.02?

UserAgent: Mozilla/2.0 (compatible; MSIE 3.02; Windows 95)

[beanboy89]

and start on making a slightly
different version that (without popup blocker button) for installing on to Mozilla Firefox.

DJGM,

Maybe the Mozilla Firefox version of your DJGM.co.uk toolbar could implement a button that toggles Firefox's built-in popup blocker on and off, similar to that of the Netscape Toolbar that debuted with Netscape 7.2.

But on any note, I plan to test your DJGM.co.uk toolbar on both Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.11) Gecko/20050728

[DJGM]

The DJGM.co.uk Browser toolbar will require a minimum of Windows 95 with IE5.0+ for the IE version.

The Firefox version of the toolbar will require a minimum of Ffx 1.0.6 on Windows 9x or higher.
And since Firefox is cross platform, the Ffx version of the toolbar most likely will be as well.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-GB; rv:1.7.10) Gecko/20050717 Firefox/1.0.6

[DJGM]

Here are some screengrabs of the installer, and the actual toolbar on Windows 95 OSR2 . . .








And now . . . the "DJGM.co.uk Browser Toolbar" (v1.0 beta 1) is released . . . !




Filename - DJGM.co.uk-Toolbar-1.0b1-Setup.exe

Filesize - 255KB

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20050729 Netscape/8.0.3.3

[beanboy89]

I've installed the DJGM.co.uk toolbar on a Windows 98 SE computer with Internet Explorer 6.0 SP1.

The toolbar installed without problem, and likewise with the toolbar itself. My only problems with the toolbar were minor, at most. After installation, I opened IE, and the main navigation buttons were spaced out. That was easily amendable by right clicking and choosing "Customize..." and removing the "The DJGM.co.uk Browser Toolbar" entry. Next I did a search. I was taken to google.co.uk; not a major problem, but I'd prefer to use google.com.



Good job on creating this toolbar, DJGM. And I can't wait to test the Mozilla Firefox version.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.7.11) Gecko/20050728

[DJGM]

DJGM.co.uk Browser Toolbar 1.0 beta 2 released!

I have now built and released the second beta of the DJGM.co.uk Browser Toolbar 1.0,
and what's more, it ain't available just for Internet Explorer anymore. This new release
sees the welcome debut of a version especially for Mozilla Firefox users!

New in the version for Internet Explorer users is a dropdown menu with links to some
selected news sites. This same feature is also included in the Mozilla Firefox version.

The IE version of the toolbar still includes a link to the SD701 Message Centre, for
free tech help, and also a link to GetFirefox, so IE users can get a better browser.

As I said earlier, the Mozilla Firefox version of the toolbar would not include the
popup blocker button, since Firefox already has that feature built in by default.
Instead, there's an new dropdown menu with links to Mozilla Related websites.

And the Firefox version of the toolbar also links to the SD701 forums as well.

Now, before you download and install the new version for IE, make sure that
you uninstall the older one first. This is avoid ending up with two different
versions of the same toolbar within your installation of Internet Explorer!

To download the new toolbar for IE, right click here, then "Save Link As...".
Then just run the .exe file and install it just as you did with the old one!

For the Mozilla Firefox version, right click here, to download the XPI file,
save it locally, and drag it to the Extensions window in Firefox. When
prompted, restart Firefox, and the new toolbar will ready for use!

The only issue I've found with the Firefox version of the toolbar, is that
the icons are monochrome/greyscale. This is likely to be a bug in the
convertor program, and probably something I may not be able to fix.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-GB; rv:1.7.10) Gecko/20050717 Firefox/1.0.6

[Andrew T.]

This is the first time I've tried the toolbar out, since I'm not about to resort to using IE just to see the words "DJGM.co.uk" appear on the screen.



I easily got the toolbar up and running on Firefox 1.0.6 through your instructions. It's a handy accessory.

I notice that a few of the buttons bring up blank tooltips when I hover the mouse cursor over them. Other than this and the monochromatic icons, I have found no significant issues.

I find it interesting that you created the Firefox toolbar by creating it as an Internet Explorer toolbar and using a tool to convert it. Are there any easier ways to make toolbars as .XPI extensions for Mozilla Firefox or other similar Netscape/Mozilla browsers?

Edit: I notice that the DJGM.co.uk Firefox toolbar also adds a "DJGM.co.uk Browser Toolbar 1.0 Beta 2 search" option to the bottom of the context menu when I right-click; clicking on the option brings me to "http://www.google.com/webhp."

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win95; en-US; rv:1.7.10) Gecko/20050716 Firefox/1.0.6

[DJGM]

The program I used is called ToolbarStudio. It's made for the creation of 3rd party toolbars for IE.
The converter tool they offer (as a seperate download), launches a CMD.exe window, to convert
the contents of the .cab file for IE that the ToolbarStudio creates.

It seems to me, this convertor tool to be little more than an afterthought, considering the
amount of extra work I had put in to get it to create a fully functional Firefox toolbar!

I'll deal with the blank tooltips issue when I get around to the next beta build.

My initial plan was to just make a toolbar for IE, with links to SD701 and GetFirefox.com,
as a slightly sneaky way of getting IE users to upgrade to a better internet browser!

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-GB; rv:1.7.10) Gecko/20050717 Firefox/1.0.6

[Mandrake]

It doesn't seem to work with Deer Park, or the recent trunk nightly builds

When I try and install it on a fairly recent nightly build I'm presented with the following message:

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9a1) Gecko/20050813 Sunhyena (All your null/null are belong to Firesomething) Firefox/1.0+

[DJGM]

It doesn't seem to work with Deer Park, or the recent trunk nightly builds

When I try and install it on a fairly recent nightly
build I'm presented with the following message:

Just tested this myself, and confirm that the toolbar is not compatible with Deer Park releases or
any other Firefox test builds. It doesn't look it's something I'll be able to fix, unless the maker
of the converter tool releases a new version that supports DP and other "unstable" builds.

I doubt that'll be fixed until at least after Firefox 1.5 is officially released from Mozilla.

Meanwhile, it will definitely work on Firefox 1.0.x

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-GB; rv:1.7.10) Gecko/20050717 Firefox/1.0.6

[Antony]

For the Mozilla Firefox version, right click here, to download the XPI file, save it locally, and drag it to the Extensions window in Firefox. When prompted, restart Firefox, and the new toolbar will ready for use!

I found that under Firefox for Mac, the XPI file should be dragged to the Firefox window, not the Extension window.



Same monochrome problem as Andrew mentioned, but I have one more... the search box in DJGM.co.uk Toolbar shares the same problem as Yahoo! Toolbar and Google Toolbar ... not complied with Apple Human Interface Guidelines.

Overall, this is a good toolbar!

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.7.10) Gecko/20050716 Firefox/1.0.6