Questions:
What started all this?
My interest was piqued after reading
a post/thread on Slashcode.com
regarding Slash and a nice-looking Mozilla sidebar tab. Knowing full well how
difficult it is to promote a Slash site (or any site, for that matter), I
saw this as a way to make a site more accessible via a nifty tab.
After modeling a CGI script based on the screenshot Slashcode
user Colin Viebrock (aka "Greedo") posted in the article, I thought it would be
far more efficient to make the script a client-side task called by slashd.
Where can I get the CGI version?
Currently, it can be played with under the old
SlashXML Project Section, where I stumbled through the first few
incarnations. Note that the CGI version is slow, mainly due to the fact that
it does not cache images locally. Each icon is handled by a call to
grabimg.cgi, which obtains the original topic icon from the Slash site,
resizes it to roughly 30x30 and displays the resulting PNG.
I can definitely see a use for the CGI version for sites that
do not want to run the slashd task or for users who just want to have a
sidebar tab for a site they like, without the admins doing a single bit of
work. Someday, after I clean it up a bit, I'm sure it'll be offered under this
project.
Can I see it in action?
The current version is up and running on my Slash site,
Kill-HUP.com.
The "launch" link is on the left-hand menu. If you'd rather see the tab HTML,
take a look at
http://www.kill-hup.com/mozbar.html.
I have added two screen shots of version 0.3.1: full browser window (71 KB) and
close-up of bar only (9 KB).
Does it resize the topic images on the fly?
In a word, no. The reason for this is not my burning desire to
be a pain in the ass, but my own bad experiences. I tried using ImageMagick
but found that most topic icons, when resized, looked like crap. During
testing, I had better results running my topic icons through Photoshop
(or pick your equivalent) and shrinking them to a 30x30 pixel size.
Perhaps, in the future, we can add automatic resizing to the
script. What might be cool is if it "auto-resized" images for which a
previously-resized icon is not available.
Update: I've added topic icon resizing support, using
ImageMagick, thanks to a suggestion that I convert GIFs before resizing.
The results look a lot better now ;) You can control whether or not the task
resizes images via a script variable, should you not want resizing support.
What is required to run Slash-MozBar?
The slashd task file that is "Slash-MozBar" requires:
- Slashcode version 2.x
and up.
- Perl version 5 and higher.
- Time::Local, usually installed by default with perl but available from
CPAN for those who lack it.
- XML::Parser, available from your local CPAN mirror or easily installed
using perl's CPAN module.
- ImageMagick and the
associated
PerlMagick
modules.
ImageMagick is only required if you want automated image resizing support.
All of these packages, including Slash-MozBar, are freely
available. Everything but ImageMagick is licensed under the GNU Public
License.
What else is included in the Slash-MozBar source file?
In addition to the slash_mozbar.pl task for slashd, you'll also
find:
- CHANGES
Version change history.
- README
A quick description of what Slash-MozBar is and how to use/customize it.
- UPGRADING
Quick instructions for upgrading from version to version. Probably not
required, but there's no such thing as too much information.
(First appeared in version 0.3.2)
- add_tab.html
Sample HTML file showing the code you'll need to have users add your tab
to their Mozilla/Netscape sidebar.
- div.png
Image to create the "separator bar" between time and comment count.
- spacer.png
Transparent image for spacing that no serious webmaster should be without ;)
...and, of course, a copy of the GNU Public License ;)
Why parse XML? Why not query the Slash db directly?
I saw no need to duplicate the code that generates the RDF / RSS
/ XML feeds within Slashcode. This task is a simple add-on that doesn't
require any core changes to your site. I think simplicity is best ;)
So, how do I get this running?
Here are the installation steps:
- Download Slash-MozBar source and untar it to a temporary directory.
- If you're not changing any of the hard-coded paths within
slash_mozbar.pl, make a directory called mozbar under your Slash
site's existing images subdirectory.
- Copy div.png and spacer.png into the newly-created
images/mozbar/ directory.
If you are using the image resize functionality, you'll need to make sure
this directory is writable by your Slash user.
- Create a file called "mozbar.html" in your site rootdir, allowing the
Slash user write access.
- Copy slash_mozbar.pl into your site's tasks directory,
usually <slash home>/site/<site url>/tasks/.
- Call up http://your.slash.site/mozbar.html in a browser and
verify that it looks okay.
- Restart slashd with a /etc/init.d/slashd stop; /etc/init.d/slashd start (or simply 'restart').
- Wait.
You can also run the task manually using Slash's run_task script,
located in <slash home>/bin/.
- Add the code from add_tab.html to a button or link on your Slash
site so users can quickly add your tab to their Mozilla/Netscape sidebar.
How can I help?
The easiest way to help, assuming you are running a site based on
Slashcode, is to test the code and report any bugs you find. Be sure to let me
know which versions of Slashcode and Slash-MozBar you are using, what you
believe may have caused the error and what exactly happened.
Relevant log file entries from slashd.log can also be extremely helpful
;)
I'm also open to suggestions for improvements, whether within
the code itself or the generated sidebar output.
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