Proposal for dynamic banners
Posted January 10th, 2008 by jglassenberg
I've been working on a prototype for a new banner page for SpreadFirefox that generates dynamic banners. The primary advantage of such a web page applies to visitors of websites with "Get Firefox" banners who already use Firefox and therefore could be shown a different banner, most likely for SpreadFirefox.
Below is a link to the current prototype. Just unzip it and check out Readme.txt for a brief overview of the system, then start testing it out. Any feedback regarding bugs or ideas to improve this service would be very well appreciated.
http://www.jeremyglassenberg.com/CustomBanners.zip
I look forward to all of your critiques!
-Jeremy
Dynamic banners
I think you should just post a working example on your site (rather than post the zip), let people generate their bit of code to copy and past in their site.
I have been trying something similar for a while, see
http://www.7is7.com/software/firefox/futf_link.html (in the section "selective button") and we even had a whole discussion on the topic on the old SFx http://archive-sfx.spreadfirefox.com/node/23759
I need to give it a new impuls and make it easier to implement for users, just like you are doing.
Just as you say now, the idea was to show Firefox users something else than a download Firefox button.
- Otto - SOS
Website is up!
Thanks for the advice. Since there clearly are other third-party websites trying out their own Firefox banners, it should be alright for me post this site online. You can now try out the service from http://www.jeremyglassenberg.com/MozillaBannerGenerator.html
Obviously the page is not as visually appealing as yours at the moment, but the dynamic banners are working properly.
I really like your page as well, and would love to join in on the current project. I'm sure we can share our ideas in order to get this onto the main SpreadFirefox site.
It works nicely
Your script works nicely. It will be good to take it further especially by getting more buttons and banners. And of course you're welcome to join our project.
I mailed you back btw.
- Otto - SOS
No WinZip
can you post them here ? some members may not want to down a zip file
Jamey Boje
SFx Administrator Mozilla News
File posting restrictions
Unfortunately, we are restricted to posting only certain file types here. Zip files, javascript files, and HTML files were all restricted when I tried posting the prototype to SpreadFirefox. Hence I chose to link the prototype to my own website.
Another option is to set up the prototype for viewing on my own website, rather than provide the zip file for downloading. I was initially reluctant to set up a third-party web page with an experimental Firefox banner system, but if Mozilla Administrators are OK with it, I can do that. Otherwise, if you have another alternative, please let me know.
Thanks!
can you upload a gif or jpg ?
Post a gif or jpg what is the banner formate ?
Jamey Boje
SFx Administrator Mozilla News
Prototype is more than images
I can post a gif or jpg, but that won't do much for the prototype. This isn't a bunch of new banners, but rather a new system of banner management. It therefore includes HTML pages and javascript files which are more important than how a page looks or what banners I'm currently using.
With permission of an administrator, I'd like to post this code as a sample website for users who don't like zip files. Group members can then see the page and provide feature requests or create new banners. They should be able to pull the code straight from my page rather than downloading a zip. If the only concern is that some of our members don't have Winzip, this issue should be resolved.
Dynamic Banners prototype update
I just updated the prototype to resolve a couple of glitches and improve on some features (namely making sure that something is displayed when scripts are disabled). If anyone has checked out this idea recently, please download the latest version at http://www.jeremyglassenberg.com/CustomBanners.zip.
I would still appreciate any additional feedback people have, of course. Also, feel free to let us know if you are interested in joining in on this project. We could use another developer and some graphics designers in order to really get this idea out.