Q. Can we have 10 different languages as far as Deskbar button text and menu text?
A. Yes two-byte (UTF characters) sets are fully supported. In addition to Spanish, German, French, Portuguese, Italian as others, Deskbar supports double byte languages, such as Korean, Chinese and Japanese.
Q. How can I organize news or advertising via the Deskbar?
A.
Just include a <BANNER> tag in your Deskbar and redirect it to an HTML page, which will be refreshed periodically.
<TOOLBAR name="Deskbar Sample" icons="icons.bmp" hot_icons="icons.bmp" dllname="deskbar">
<!- News banner (HTML approach) -->
<BANNER caption="news" href="http://www.yoursite.com/deskbar_news.html" width="200" expire="3"/>
<!- News include (XML approach) -->
<INCLUDE_XML filename="http://www.yoursite.com/deskbar.asp" expire="10"/>
</TOOLBAR>
Included XML file (placed at URL http://www.yoursite.com/deskbar.asp ):
<TOOLBAR>
<% ' ASP script (generates XML for deskbar) Randomize MyValue = Int((4 * Rnd()) + 1) ' Generate a random number for advertisement advText = "Advertisement #" & MyValue ' Image name%> <BUTTON href="http://www.yoursite.com/advert.asp?adv= <%=MyValue% >" command="redirect" hint="" caption=" <%=advText% >" />
</TOOLBAR>
Q. How can I refresh the mini web page in the banner periodically?
A.
You should use the expire attribute of the BANNER tag to specify a time interval at which the banner shall be reloaded.
Q. How can I have news, short jokes or ads scroll across the Deskbar?
A.
Use the <BANNER>. The below will create a 200 pixel wide HTML banner inside the Deskbar that is downloaded from your site (jokes.html).
Please see an example jokes.html below:
<head>
< META HTTP-EQUIV="PRAGMA" CONTENT="NO-CACHE">
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Cache-control" CONTENT="NO-CACHE, must-revalidate">
<style>
A.ticker { color:#FFFFFF; font-weight:bold; height:10px; filter:progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.dropshadow(OffX=1, OffY=1, Color='#666666', Positive='true')} </style>
<script language="javascript"> started = true; </script>
</head>
<body bgcolor="#D5D2CD" leftMargin=0 topMargin=0 marginWidth=0 marginHeight=0>
<marquee scrollamount=3 direction=left onMouseOver="if (started) { this.stop() }" onMouseOut="if (started) { this.start() }" onClick="if (started) {started=false; this.stop();} else {started=true; this.start();}">
<table cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0 border=0>
<tr>
<!-- TICKER TEXT 1 -->
<td width=12><img src="ticker_icon.gif" border=0></td>
<td width=200><a href= http://www.yoursite.com/jokes1.html class="ticker">A funny joke</a></td>
<!-- TICKER TEXT 2 -->
<td width=12><img src="ticker_icon.gif" border=0></td>
<td width=200><a href= http://www. yoursite.com/jokes2.html class="ticker">A very funny joke</a></td>
<!-- TICKER TEXT 3 -->
<td width=12><img src="ticker_icon.gif" border=0></td>
<td width=200><a href= http://www. yoursite.com/jokes3.html class="ticker">Another funny joke</a></td>
<!-- TICKER TEXT 4 -->
<td width=12><img src="ticker_icon.gif" border=0></td>
<td width=200><a href= http://www. yoursite.com/jokes4.html class="ticker">And yet one more funny joke</a></td>
</tr>
</table> </marquee> </body> </html>
Q. I need the ability for multiple, unrelated users, to enter and store their passwords to the html links on menus. Is that possible?
A. Yes it should be possible using server side scripting and <INCLUDE_XML> command in the Deskbar that will call to a server side script.
Q. How can I use RSS feed to notify users?
A. To use RSS feed you need to add RSS plug-in and define your channel like: http://www.yoursite.com/rss_feed.rss
This tells your Deskbar to periodically check this RSS feed
Q. How do I know if the update feature is working?
A.
Normally you need to verify that your serverpath and updateurl inside the <SETTINGS> </SETTINGS> are correctly configured like below:
Please make sure that they correctly point to the existent folder on your website and that the deskbar.cab file is there. Plus, please make sure that the version.txt file is there. It should be accessible as http://yoursite.com/deskbar/version.txt
The deskbar will upgrade itself either manually (when the UPDATE command is triggered by button or menu item) or automatically (see automatic update).
It will only update itself if the version.txt file on your server has a greater version number then the existent.
Q. How does it know in general to update ?
A. It pulls a version.txt file from the server after each X hours (where X is defined using the scope attribute of the SETTINGS tag). And if it finds the version number changed, it performs an upgrade.
Q. Is it possible to change the default install directory in the .exe installer?
A.
Yes that is possible. You should customize the.exe installer. For that you need to edit config.nsh file in: Program Files/Softomate/ToolbarStudio /cab2nsis folder
Full documentation is here: http://nsis.sourceforge.net/Docs/
Q. Is there any way to add or edit .EXE? I want to add "Terms of use" of the Deskbar, and let users choose to "Accept" or "Do not Accept" before they continue installation.
A.
Yes that is possible using the CAB2NSIS utility we have (although not very simple). You'll find a couple of .nsh files right after you've unzipped cab2nsis. You can modify those .NSH files as it is explained here: http://nsis.sourceforge.net/home/ to achieve what you require.
As an alternative (if you do not have the time to do it yourself), you can explain to us what exactly you are looking for. And we'll have one of our support guys doing it for you.
Q. What type of commands can I use with the "Shell command on the User PC"?
A. You can launch any programs (such as word.exe, notepad.exe) or execute any commands that are accessible from the Start->Run menu (like tracert and cmd).
Q. How can I include an .EXE into my deskbar's .CAB and make this .EXE file to be executed when someone presses a button or clicks a menu item in my deskbar?
A.
To achieve this, you should add the following lines to the <COMMANDS> section:
<SHELLEXECUTE name="Prog" command="progname.exe" options="/s %combo1" not_found="Can't open Prog application..."/>
Q. Do you use MFC or WTL for the Deskbar? Will it require additional DLL's or downloads?
A. We use Visual C++, ATL and WTL. It does not require any additional DLL's to be downloaded.
Q. Opening a page in a new or modal browser window.
A.
To do this, define a new WEBJUMP command. The command has to be defined between <COMMANDS></COMMANDS> tags in the configuration file. The syntax is as follows:
<WEBJUMP name="newcommand2" href="http://yourdeskbar.com/somepage.html" newbrowserwindow="modaldialog" options="status:no;help:no;dialogHeight:600px;dialogWidth:600px;dialogHide:yes;scroll:auto;" />
options parameter defines an option of the modal dialog or new window. It is the same as in javascript: window.open() function. This command can then be added to any button or menu item.
Q. Can I set up Deskbar to rotate multiple banner HTMLs in the same space on Deskbar?
A. You can use the local HTML file that you mention in your BANNER and that local HTML file has to contain Java Script used to redirect to different files.
Q. Sending POST requests via the Deskbar.
A.
To do this, define a new WEBJUMP command. The command has to be defined between <COMMANDS></COMMANDS> tags in the configuration file. The syntax is as following:
Q. I'm trying to edit the basis.xml file to contain a listbox. Clicking on each list item needs to redirect to a different site.
A.
You can use the following code:
And the below WEBJUMP command:
Q. How to use multiple search sites in the Deskbar?
A.
If you need to search on multiple search sites like google.com and your own site with your own site being the default, define the following commands:
In the above lines %combo1 symbol shows the position into which the search string will be substituted. "Combo1" here is a name of the combo box, from which Deskbar should get the search terms.
To specify that by default the search will be performed on your site you'll have to specify that the Search combo box uses the search1 command as shown in the fragment below:
Q. Disabling the down arrow shown beside buttons.
A.
You have to change the menu type from Split to Single. So that it will not show the down arrow near the button.
Q. Providing news/information.
A.
You can insert the following lines:
That will insert a mini web browser window into the place. By defining the url= http://www.yorserver.com/news.html you can achieve that the current news from your website will be displayed each time the new browser window is open. You can insert any html code into that page so that you can provide scrolling lines, flashing items and so on.
Q. How can I make some buttons disabled by default?
A.
The BUTTON tag has the visibility attribute. Setting the value to 0 disables a button until it's enabled in the options page.
Q. What will happen if I set two or more buttons with the same id? Will this mean that the checkbox for this id will be controlling the button with the same id?
A. The id's have to be unique. But you can use the Java Script inside your options.html to link 2 checkboxes together (I mean clicking on one should also trigger another).
Q. Does the Deskbar include any types of spy ware?
A. We do not contain any spy ware components inside our software. They have never been a part of and never will be. The problem is that a lot of people either create spy ware using the source code they purchased from us or simply mark our software as spy ware in error.
