Blog Stuff: BlogRoll Script... More Info

The details, the errata, the why's and wherefore's.

If you've signed up with Blogrolling.com and gone through the "browser sidebar links" section you've undoubtedly noticed that it requires separate code be added to your site to display your Blogroll in the sidebar of each of the major browsers. Should you wish to allow the greatest number of people to add your Blogroll to their sidebar, you must include a minimum of two separate links, one for IE and one for Netscape. Of course, these links—usually in form of buttons—must be large enough to describe, in even the most basic terms, their function and their intended browser (i.e. "Blogroll for IE users" and "Blogroll for Netscape users").

The existing code is cool, but cumbersome, especially if you wish to put the links in a fairly small space—as I do in my 180-pixel-wide left-most column.

Wouldn't a better implementation be a single button that automatically works with whatever browser your visitor is using?

Shouldn't it also include the other major browsers, Mozilla and Opera, and the non-JavaScript-enabled browser users out there?

I suppose it's up to you. Me, I want to include as many people as possible in my content... Without constricting my space. So, I wrote a JavaScript that creates a single link (button or text or whatever) that loads my Blogroll into the sidebar of either Internet Explorer, Netscape, Mozilla, or Opera. If the user is using a browser that doesn't have the sidebar functionality (e.g. Internet Explorer 3) the link launches a popup window with my BlogRoll. Finally, if the user is viewing my site through a non-JavaScript-enabled browser (quite a few out there, actually), the link becomes a standard HTTP link to a page that includes my BlogRoll via PHP (which doesn't rely on the browser).

I'm not a JavaScript programmer (despite the fact that I wrote this script). I'm a designer. I design to communicate something... I've been communicating with absolute control of my designs (within the ten-thousandanth of an inch) for fifteen years. For the eight years I've been doing web design, I have always hated the way the Web's limitations—HTML, browsers, et al—have tried to constrict my designs. I've always pushed through the limitations and made the code work however it needed to to render my designs and messages the way they needed to be, for myself and my clients.

This script I wrote for my Blogroll isn't anything really spectacular—just about anyone could do it. I did it because I like Blogroll, I like the ability to put it in the sidebar so I and others can navigate around without losing the list or using an awkward frame implementation, and, finally, because the current code to do that with Blogroll doesn't work for my design. :-) I'm a graphic designer, thus I'm a perfectionist (about my work).

So, the long winded point is: I wrote this script to improve (in my opinion) the implementation of the Blogroll sidebar functionality. And you're welcome to it.

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