Neowin Toolbar?

[samo123_uk]

What happened to the neowin toolbar I heard about a couple of weeks ago.

Is it being made?

how's the development going?

[Vader]

Hi everybody

just uploaded a new beta which gives you the ability so do a search on the forums (will add the main site search later :p ) - Thanks to PiMPiN for finding a way to post data to vB forums :bandit:

And New Thread is back :)

As always post comments, suggestions and bugs.

Download is at the normal place.

Cheerio

[Rusty.Metal]

download were?

another cool thing would be is like you pick a forum right? im picking web programing. ok then like when the bar is at the top of the browser it checks every now any then and it tells if some one posted a new post/reply on that forum?

[CaPeRKiNG77]

aaronsam,

Download Neowin Toolbar

That one could be difficult. That would require a timed connection to the site where it would have to query the database itself. While I agree it would be a cool feature, I'd personally prefer to keep the toolbar from becoming bloated. It would ne nice to develop some sort of plugin architecture for the toolbar though. Who knows, it might happen, hehe.

Vader, check your PM's, I've sent the neccessary code for a site search. As with the previous search code, it's a basic search, unless there's a way to set options, you're basically stuck with flat searches.

PiMPiN

[Arpit]

where can i download this again?...i kinda lost the link in the 4 pages..

[Sleeper Veteran]

i cant get it to work..... i've installed it twice and restarting IE but it will not appear :( am i doing something wrong?

Running Windows 2000 SP2 with IE6

[Vader]

PiMPiN: Thanks for that and check your pms please.

Ok the download lik at the moment is:

Neowin Toolbar

and it will stay as this untill Neobond adds it to the software section (hint hint :))

Sleeper:

With Internet Explorer closed install the toolbar, when this done run IE and right click on the current tools and choose "Lock Toolbars" to unlock them.

next goto the "View > Toolbars" Menu and select "Neowin.net". This should then place the toolbar next to the address bar and then you can move it to a place you want.

Lastly right click the toolbars again and choose "Lock toolbars".

Job done.

Cheers

Vader

[Sleeper Veteran]

still no luck..... it just isn't there in the toolbar menu.

[Vader]

Ok strange..

Is it listed under "Explorer bars" ?

Cheers

[eth3l]

okay - thats sweet. IS there any way to get it to work in Opera or can I put it in my start bar?

[+Anarkii Subscriber²]

VERY NICE!!!!! I love it :) thanks man!

Now all we need is that msn tab happenin and then ull be god neobond! :p

[harleydog]

Originally posted by Sleeper

still no luck..... it just isn't there in the toolbar menu.

I was having the same trouble. I had to move all the toolbars around until I finally uncovered the Neowin toolbar, after checking the Google search bar again, (When I installed the Neowin bar, it unchecked the google bar in the view-toolbar menu, this happened on 2 computers).

[DanM602]

I Got my Neowin Toolbar showing all nicely the first try. I had to show it, then unlock all toolbars, then move it to where I wanted it, then I relocked all toolbars and its now all good. :)

[Vader]

harleydog: Don't know why that happened as I've only so far had 2 reports of this but it's been installed on no end of machines at work that have to google search bar installed, however I'll look into this :)

Eth3l: I dont think Opera has that type of support :(

Sleeper: Have you anyother toolbars installed? Did you have an earlier version installed?

Cheerio

Vader

[Sleeper Veteran]

nope it aint there either.... im stumpted :(

Originally posted by Vader

Ok strange..

Is it listed under "Explorer bars" ?

Cheers

[Vader]

Sleeper do you know which version you have ??

Try uninstalling the toolbar using add/remove and then doing a search of the C drive for "neowinband.dll".

if any show up run this in a command promt:

regsvr32 /u [location of file]neowinband.dll

restart the machine and try installing the latest version.

Vader

[Vader]

Sleeper: I am about to upload newer version of the toolbar can you give this one a go please and let me know what happens

Download Neowin Toolbar

Thanks

Vader

[cheekymonkey]

Vader - very nice :) :)

My "neobrowser" is coming along nicely. Thanks man.

I can sense an article on this coming to a page near you soon.

Some questions re Beta .49:

Clicking the button entitled "neowin.net" has the same effect as selecting "main news" from the dropdown. Is this correct?

Clicking "search" brings up the search page and only selecting either of the 2 options will start the search based upon the text. Could this not be cleaned up a little?

I use a modified links bar and have found "My Posts" to be extremely useful. Could this be replicated?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

All in all a great piece of work which enriches my browsing experience (gee I should work in marketing).

Keep up the good work. :)

[Rusty.Metal]

Hey uhh when i try to download it jsut sits there downloading.. never ends... can some one upload it some were else?? of e-mail it to [email protected] ??? i can host it on my site... if any one else is haveing problems... (the new one on the page be4 this)

[CaPeRKiNG77]

cheekymonkey,

Yes, "Neowin.net" has the same effect as selecting "Main News", this should be addressed in the near future (possibly by just removing the "Main News" option on the menu).

The reason that clicking "Search" brings you to the Forum Search page is that the current way that the search works is a very basic "search everything". Hopefully in within the next few releases we can see this improved to allow users to select the various options that the current site searches offer. This also applies also to the "Main Site" search unfortunately. Once we have a working model of an options panel this should be rectified.

As for the suggesstion of the "My Posts" button, I like that idea as I personally always search for the threads I participated in by searching my own posts, hehe. If you could provide an example of what you use, you could look forward to a screenshot of this added soon, possibly as an option under the "User CP" menu, and then added to a future release, in plugin form if nothing else.

Since Vader was kind enough to supply the source for the .49 beta to me so I can help in development, I'll also try to help field questions, without stepping on anyones feet. There's a lot that still needs to be done, and we are still fielding requests, so keep them coming. Personally I will be trying to implement a Plugin API to keep it from getting bloated, and allow new functions to be implemented easily. If anyone has any more requests just post them here. Thanks.

PiMPiN

[BeeJay]

Originally posted by PiMPiN

Yes, "Neowin.net" has the same effect as selecting "Main News", this should be addressed in the near future (possibly by just removing the "Main News" option on the menu).

How about making the button change with the active news area? When you are in the Software News section, the button would change to Software News. Just a thought. I don't know which is the most user intuitive way to handle it.

You could also do the same thing with the Search Button. You could made the search button say either "Forums" or "Site" depending on which search was last selected?

Again, these are just ideas for possible alternative ways of handling these buttons. I am smart enough to handle whichever way they work. :)

[Vader]

Thanks BeeJay I think the search one is spot on the news one not so sure about, however one way of going about it would be to remove the menu altogether :)

Any ideas for inclution under "User CP"??

Thanks

Vader

[TommyTourettes]

I have a separte link for the "headline" view of all 3 news categories... not sure how other people feel about this view, but I think it would be nice to have the "Neowin.net" button go to that view, and to go to the others keep the menu under it the way it is. Just a thought, I'm already very pleased with it and I'm sure any advancements will turn out just as good. Thanks a lot Vader.

[CaPeRKiNG77]

Zombivac,

I like that idea also, possibly have a way to set it via the Options panel that will hopefully be included soon.

BeeJay,

This could also be included without much trouble I think, but again, it will probably be dependant on the Options storage. Right now I seem to be getting a 100% CPU usage with the way it checks for activiating the buttons, and there are a couple of small bugs that I'm personally working on.

Vader,

Maybe a "Subscribed Threads" option under the User CP (I've added it to my build for the time being). Seems to work well atm. Still working on the Plugin API and saving options. I thought I had it with the INI format, but it doesn't seem to read it properly :/. Will keep trying though and will keep you informed.

PiMPiN

[Vader]

Hi all,

So far tonight I've added the following:

1. Dynamicly created forums menu.

2. The search option suggsted by BeeJay (Just to see how it goes).

3. Under "User CP" I've added "Users Online" & "PM's".

And fixed the following:

1. Now using a better search function for the threadid.

PiMPiN: I've finaly cleaned the code up abit and started to comment it through ;)

If you need a hand with the INI stuff PM me I have a bit of experiance with the things (we use them to store all the program options at work).

Vader

[TommyTourettes]

I'm looking forward(probably too much) to the next version of the toolbar. I assume you didn't release a version that had the changes you mentioned in the post prior to this one, since I downloaded the install file again a couple hours after you(Vader) posted it and its still .49 and doesn't have the new features you mentioned. I'm fairly new to Neowin, but I spend a good amount of time here lately and that toolbar is just so damn convienient, little things excite me I guess :p Not trying to rush anybody, just thought I'd keep the thread alive for the time being and say thanks again :)