Skinning IE question

....and yes I was totally wrong.... I should have said Hotbar instead and I would have been on the right track ;) http://www.hotbar.com (seems to be down at the moment) <BR>:snow

Hotbar doesn&acute;t skin IE.........just the toolbar background. <BR> <BR>Now for my 2 cents......if I went to a site that automaticlly changed anything, I would be upset, to say the least!

I&acute;m not sure how Hotbar works these days, but I was never aware of it being able to change the background on the loading of a website. And I&acute;d have to agree with Koasati that unless asked, I don&acute;t want my browser changing by itself (because a website told it to). <BR> <BR>If you give a user an option (like saying &acute;click here to have your browser use my site design in IE&acute;) then that&acute;s cool. That&acute;s like these skinnable sites (Skinbase, LOS and WC). <BR> <BR>Otherwise..... a turn off :(

Silly smileys ;) <BR> <BR>That should just say..... <BR> <BR>( like saying ´click here to have your browser use my site design in IE&acute; )

Yes I know I could not just auto change thier IE skin but I wanted to have an option or link to do so. The only problem with hotbar ect. is that the people who want to change thier skin have to install a 3rd party software. The company I work for (and this is for thier site) do not want 3rd party software accosiated with thier site and would rather have a link that can just change the skin by itself(if thats possible?)

I&acute;m afraid not, Supa. Anything that intrusive in the Windows operating system would leave too many holes in the OS for exploitation. And IE is an integral part of the Windows OS. <BR>It&acute;s a much more complex issue than it appears. <BR>Even &quot;3d party&quot; installed software would require permissions from the user/admin of the system...

Ahh well ok. What programs are good for skinning IE? I checked out Neoplanet and I-Net tabs and mad cow 2. Whats your comment on a good IE skinner?

Depends on the type of skinning you&acute;re looking for. We have a program called Themebar that only skins the toolbar area of IE, not the entire window frame. Don&acute;t know too much about the other apps, so I&acute;ll only describe ours: <BR> <BR>TB lets you change the background skin, toolbar, and animated logo in IE, Windows Explorer, other windows that use the IE shell (such as Control Panel and Search), and Outlook Express. TB also has WebPanel. WebPanel works in IE only and completely replaces the IE toolbar with one that you create by using HTML and simple scripting. If you&acute;re looking for corporate branding, you could use Themebar&acute;s WebPanel and build your toolbar exactly the way you want it. Also, WebPanel supports shortcuts, meaning that the currently loaded panel&acute;s source could be stored on some Website somewhere. That means that everytime the user starts IE, the latest greatest version of the panel would be used. Version 2.1, which will be released some time in March (probably) will add automated installs too. If you&acute;re using WebPanel, you&acute;ll be able to simply drag a .zip file from any webpage into WebPanel and it will extract and install itself. <BR> <BR>You can try Themebar at http://www.microgarden.com/themebar/index.htm . If you have any questions about the tool, send an e-mail to eric@microgarden.com. If you needed a stripped down, or custom version, we&acute;d certainly be open to that as well. <BR> <BR>regards, <BR> <BR>John <BR>Microgarden, LLC

I think apart from the ones you mentioned there, there is also WebBlinds, BrowserBob, Oligo and ThemeBar. All are 3rd party though. BrowserBob and Oligo are similar to I-Net Tabs and NeoPlanet in the way that they are browser replacements (that both use the IE engines if I recall correctly). <BR> <BR>WebBlinds skins IE and so does Themebar. <BR> <BR>BrowserBob - http://www.browserbob.com/ <BR>Oligo - http://www.inklineglobal.com/ <BR>Themebar - http://www.microgarden.com/themebar <BR>WebBlinds - http://www.stardock.com/

New: BrowserBob 1.2 <BR>out now... with new interface, generates fully resizable freeform browsers and much more! Build your own Weblications with BrowserBob within minutes... it&acute;s a lot easier than creating a homepage - anyone can do it with BB. <BR> <BR>This is promotalk from their website: http://www.browserbob.com/ <BR> <BR>BrowserBob has the unique option to ship your design as a seperate product... like you don&acute;t apply the skin, it just is a browser (still needs IE) you can present your friends, which is pretty cool. <BR> <BR>And this is what virtualplastic says about them. <BR> <BR>BB...I ran into that troubleshooting something last week and could not remember what it was...now I know...again :)

+0 .. yeah, BrowserBob have come a long way .. I&acute;m going to check out the latest V, sounds like they have included some neat features 8)

Hey thanks - Gotta love an active community. Themebar is has some nice possibilites but Browser Bob is actually what I&acute;m leaning towards just because you can zip it up and it is independant of 3rd party software. There is huge marketing here because you could brad it as your own browser (without spending 500k) and just have them download a zip. Thanks again people.

I just love a happy ending... {:p

Just in case anyone cares I&acute;m messing around with browser bob and this program kicks ass. Recomended to anyone who wants to skin IE fast.