In a graphical user interface A graphical user interface (sometimes pronounced gooey) is a type of user interface item that allows people to interact with programs in more ways than typing such as computers; hand-held devices such as MP3 Players, Portable Media Players or Gaming devices; household appliances and office equipment with images rather than text commands. A GUI on a computer monitor A monitor or display is an electronic visual display for computers. The monitor comprises the display device, circuitry, and an enclosure. The display device in modern monitors is typically a thin film transistor liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD), while older monitors use a cathode ray tube (CRT) a toolbar is a GUI widget In computer programming, a widget is an element of a graphical user interface (GUI) that displays an information arrangement changeable by the user, such as a window or a text box. The defining characteristic of a widget is to provide a single interaction point for the direct manipulation of a given kind of data. In other words, widgets are basic on which onscreen buttons, icons, menus or other input or output elements are placed. Toolbars are seen in office suites, graphics editors and web browsers A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content. Hyperlinks present in resources enable users to easily navigate their browsers to.

Earlier forms of toolbars were defined by the programmer and had set functions, and thus there was no difference between a toolbar with buttons and just a row of buttons. Most modern programs and operating systems however, allow the end user to modify and customize toolbars to fit their personal needs. Some prominent examples of customizable toolbars are panels of the GNOME GNOME (abbreviation of GNU Network Object Model Environment) is a desktop environment—a graphical user interface that runs on top of a computer operating system—composed entirely of free and open source software. It was created by two Mexican programmers, Miguel de Icaza and Federico Mena. It is an international project that includes creating and KDE KDE is an international free software community producing an integrated set of cross-platform applications designed to run on Linux, FreeBSD, Windows, Solaris and Mac OS X systems. It is best known for its Plasma Desktop workspace, a desktop environment provided as the default working environment on many Linux distributions, such as openSUSE, desktop environments In graphical computing, a desktop environment commonly refers to a style of graphical user interface (GUI) that is based on the desktop metaphor which can be seen on most modern personal computers today. These graphical interfaces are designed to assist the user in easily accessing and configuring (or modifying) the most important (or frequently, functions of which range from expandable menus and buttons for applications, window lists, notification areas, clocks and resource monitors to volume controls and weather report widgets.

Detachable toolbars of Inkscape Inkscape is a vector graphics editor application. It is distributed under a free software license, the GNU GPL. Its stated goal is to become a powerful graphics tool while being fully compliant with the XML, SVG, and CSS standards. Shown inside is Inkscape with undocked toolbars.

Some applications, e.g. graphics editors, allow their toolbars to be detached and moved between windows and other toolbars.

The first toolbar appeared on the Xerox Alto The Xerox Alto was an early personal computer developed at Xerox PARC in 1973. It was the first computer to use the desktop metaphor and graphical user interface computer in 1973[citation needed].

Contents

Web browser toolbar add-ons

Toolbars implemented as web browser plug-ins In computing, a plug-in is a small software computer program that extends the capabilities of a larger program. Plugins are commonly used in web browsers to enable them to play sounds and video clips, or automatically decompressing files. Add-on is often considered the general term comprising plug-ins, extensions, and themes as subcategories have become a popular advertising platform for major brands, as well as smaller spyware Spyware is a type of malware that is installed on computers and collects little bits of information at a time about users without their knowledge. The presence of spyware is typically hidden from the user, and can be difficult to detect. Typically, spyware is secretly installed on the user's personal computer. Sometimes, however, spywares such as and malware Malware, short for malicious software, is software designed to infiltrate a computer system without the owner's informed consent. The expression is a general term used by computer professionals to mean a variety of forms of hostile, intrusive, or annoying software or program code. The term "computer virus" is sometimes used as a catch- vendors. Browser toolbars are commonly bundled with installers for other "partner" products as an "opt-out The term opt-out refers to several methods by which individuals can avoid receiving unsolicited product or service information. This ability is usually associated with direct marketing campaigns such as telemarketing, e-mail marketing, or direct mail" default without the user's explicit consent.[1]

Browser toolbars provide helpful and useful functionality such as additional search fields, form-fill, links back to popular sites, malware detection, etc. However, their primary purpose is generally to collect anonymous marketing statistics or reinforce a brand (by displaying the logo at the top of each browser window).[2] As plug-ins to the web browser application, toolbars can also degrade computer performance or create compatibility problems[citation needed].

Popular third party In computer programming, third party software component is a reusable software component developed to be either freely distributed or sold by an entity other than the original vendor of the development platform. The third party software component market thrives because component oriented development improves the efficiency and quality of web browser toolbars include:

Bookmarks toolbar

A bookmarks toolbar or favorites toolbar features in a number of modern web browsers, including Mozilla Firefox,[3] Safari Safari is a graphical web browser developed by Apple and included as part of the Mac OS X operating system. First released as a public beta on January 7, 2003 on the company's Mac OS X operating system, it became Apple's default browser beginning with Mac OS X v10.3 "Panther." Safari is also the native browser for the iPhone OS. A, and Google Chrome Google Chrome is a web browser developed by Google that uses the WebKit layout engine and application framework. It was first released as a beta version for Microsoft Windows on 2 September 2008, and the public stable release was on 11 December 2008. The name is derived from the graphical user interface frame, or "chrome", of web, and serves as a means of persistently presenting a user's most necessary Web bookmarks. Folders of bookmarks (and, in the case of Firefox, live bookmarks of web feeds A web feed is a data format used for providing users with frequently updated content. Content distributors syndicate a web feed, thereby allowing users to subscribe to it. Making a collection of web feeds accessible in one spot is known as aggregation, which is performed by an aggregator. A web feed is also sometimes referred to as a syndicated) are represented in a bookmark toolbar as drop-down lists A drop-down list is a user interface control GUI element, similar to a list box, which allows the user to choose one value from a list. When a drop-down list is inactive, it displays a single value. When activated, it displays a list of values, from which the user may select one. When the user selects a new value, the control reverts to its which display the titles and (if the site was already visited and cached Web caching is the caching of web documents to reduce bandwidth usage, server load, and perceived lag. A web cache stores copies of documents passing through it; subsequent requests may be satisfied from the cache if certain conditions are met) favicons A favicon , also known as a website icon, shortcut icon, URL icon, or bookmark icon is a 16×16, 32×32 or 64×64 pixel square icon associated with a particular website or webpage. A web designer can create such an icon and install it into a website (or webpage) by several means, and most graphical web browsers will then make use of it. Browsers of bookmarked websites.

Website toolbar

A website toolbar is a feature which can be found on many modern websites, including Facebook Facebook is a social networking website launched in February 2004 that is operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc., with more than 500 million active users in July 2010.[N 1] Users can add people as friends and send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves. Additionally, users can join networks, MySpace MySpace is a social networking website. Its headquarters are in Beverly Hills, California where it shares an office building with its immediate owner, News Corp. Digital Media, owned by News Corporation. MySpace became the most popular social networking site in the United States in June 2006. According to comScore, MySpace was overtaken and CNET.com[4]. A website toolbar serves as a means of persistently presenting visitors to a website with a means of quickly performing many common site functions such as sharing articles of content on a social network A social network is a social structure made up of individuals called "nodes," which are tied (connected) by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as friendship, kinship, common interest, financial exchange, dislike, sexual relationships, or relationships of beliefs, knowledge or prestige, searching through the home website or presenting features which further enhance the community-aspects to a website such as live chat Online chat can refer to any kind of communication over the Internet, but is primarily meant to refer to direct one-on-one chat or text-based group chat , using tools such as instant messengers, Internet Relay Chat, talkers and possibly MUDs. The expression online chat comes from the word chat which means "informal conversation" features. In 2009, a range of free options for everyday site owners to include their own website toolbar on their webpages was made available by companies such as Wibiya and Meebo Meebo is an instant messaging program which supports multiple IM services, including Yahoo! Messenger, Windows Live Messenger, AIM, ICQ, MySpaceIM, Facebook Chat, Jabber/XMPP, Google Talk, Myyearbook IM; it is based on the free and open source library libpurple created by the software developers of Pidgin via an easy to install Wizard A wizard is a user interface element where the user is presented with a sequence of dialog boxes. Through these dialog boxes, the user is led through a series of steps, performing tasks in a specific sequence. Sometimes it may be easier to perform tasks using a wizard, especially for complex or infrequently performed tasks where the user is or alternatively JavaScript JavaScript is an implementation of the ECMAScript language standard and is typically used to enable programmatic access to computational objects within a host environment. It can be characterized as a prototype-based object-oriented scripting language that is dynamic, weakly typed and has first-class functions. It is also considered a functional embed code. Custom-made website toolbars are also possible [5] and many open-source plugins are also freely available for this purpose. Website toolbars differ from conventional browser toolbars in that they appear only when a user is on a specific site, whilst Browser toolbars appear in a web browser persistently regardless of which site a user is on.

References

  1. ^ "Browser Toolbars", by Cade Metz, PC Magazine 6/8/2004
  2. ^ "Browser add-on toolbars may be spying on you.", by Peter Martin
  3. ^ "Bookmarks toolbar". Mozilla support. http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Bookmarks#Bookmarks_toolbar. Retrieved 2009-07-24.
  4. ^ "CNET.com". http://www.cnet.com. Retrieved 2010-03-10.
  5. ^ "jQuery Website Toolbars Tutorial". by Addy Osmani. http://addyosmani.com/blog/jquery-fubar-how-to-create-a-website-toolbar-from-scratch-and-add-widgets-to-it/. Retrieved 2010-03-10.

See also

GUI widgets In computer programming, a widget is an element of a graphical user interface (GUI) that displays an information arrangement changeable by the user, such as a window or a text box. The defining characteristic of a widget is to provide a single interaction point for the direct manipulation of a given kind of data. In other words, widgets are basic
Command input Button In computing, a button is a user interface element that provides the user a simple way to trigger an event, like searching for a query at a search engine, or to interact with dialog boxes, like confirming an action · Context menu A context menu is a menu in a graphical user interface (GUI) that appears upon user interaction, such as a right mouse click or middle click mouse operation. A context menu offers a limited set of choices that are available in the current state, or context, of the operating system or application. Usually the available choices are actions related · Menu In computing and telecommunications, a menu is a list of commands presented to an operator by a computer or communications system. A menu is used in contrast to a command-line interface, where instructions to the computer are given in the form of commands · Pie menu In computer interface design, a pie menu is a circular context menu where selection depends on direction. A pie menu is made of several "pie slices" around an inactive center and works best with stylus input, and well with a mouse. Pie menus work well with keyboard acceleration, particularly four and eight item menus, on the cursor keys
Data input-output Check box In computing, a check box is a graphical user interface element (widget) that permits the user to make multiple selections from a number of options. Normally, check boxes are shown on the screen as a square box that can contain white space (for false) or a tick mark or X (for true), as pictured. A caption describing the meaning of the check box is · Combo box A combo box is a commonly-used graphical user interface widget. It is a combination of a drop-down list or list box and a single-line textbox, allowing the user to either type a value directly into the control or choose from the list of existing options · Drop-down list A drop-down list is a user interface control GUI element, similar to a list box, which allows the user to choose one value from a list. When a drop-down list is inactive, it displays a single value. When activated, it displays a list of values, from which the user may select one. When the user selects a new value, the control reverts to its · Grid view A grid view or a datagrid is a graphical user interface element that presents a tabular view of data. A typical grid view also supports some or all of the following: · List box A list box is a GUI widget that allows the user to select one or more items from a list contained within a static, multiple line text box. The user clicks inside the box on an item to select it, sometimes in combination with the Shift key or Control key in order to make multiple selections · Radio button A radio button or option button is a type of graphical user interface element that allows the user to choose only one of a predefined set of options. They were named after the physical buttons used on older car radios to select preset stations - when one of the buttons was pressed, other buttons would pop out, leaving the pressed button the only · Scrollbar A scrollbar is a graphical object in a graphical user interface (GUI) with which continuous text, pictures or anything else can be scrolled including time in video applications, i.e., viewed even if it does not fit into the space in a computer display, window, or viewport · Slider A slider is an object in a GUI with which a user may set a value by moving an indicator, usually in a horizontal fashion. In some cases the user may also click on a point on the slider to change the setting. It is different from a Scrollbar in that it is typically used to adjust a value without changing the format of the display or the other · Spinner A spinner is a graphical widget in a GUI, typically oriented vertically, with which a user may adjust a value in an adjoining text box by either clicking on an up or down arrow, or by holding an arrow down, causing the value in the text box to increase or decrease (if the down arrow is held). In most cases holding a button down causes the speed at · Text box A text box, text field or text entry box is a common element of graphical user interface of computer programs, as well as the corresponding type of widget used when programming GUIs. A text box's purpose is to allow the user to input text information to be used by the program. User-interface guidelines recommend a single-line text box when only
Informational Balloon help Balloon help was a help system introduced by Apple Computer in their 1991 release of System 7.0. The name referred to the way the help text was displayed, in "balloons", like those containing the words in a comic strip. The name has since been used by many to refer to any sort of pop-up help text.[citation needed] · Heads-up display · Icon On computer displays, a computer icon is a small pictogram. Icons have been used to supplement the normal alphanumerics of the computer. Modern computers now can handle bitmapped graphics on the display terminal, so the icons are widely used to assist users · Infobar An infobar is a widget used by Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome and other programs to display non-critical information to a user. It usually appears as a temporary extension of an existing toolbar, and may contain buttons or icons to allow the user to react to the event described in the infobar · Label A label is a user interface control which displays text on a form. It is usually a static control; having no interactivity. A label is generally used to identify a nearby text box or other widget. Some labels can respond to events such as mouse clicks, allowing the text of the label to be copied, but this is not standard user-interface practice · Loading screen · Progress bar · Splash screen · Status bar · Throbber · Toast · Tooltip
Containers Accordion · Disclosure widget · Frame · Menu bar · Panel · Ribbon · Tab · Toolbar · Window
Navigational Address bar · Breadcrumb · Hyperlink · Tree view
Special windows About box · Alert dialog box · Dialog box · File dialog · Inspector window · Modal window · Palette window
Related concepts Layout manager · Look and feel · Widget toolkit · WIMP

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Categories: Graphical user interface | Widgets | Internet Explorer add-ons | Mozilla add-ons

 

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'Toolbar' News
How to Create a Custom Toolbar in Windows - Technology Bites (blog)
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How to Create a Custom Toolbar in Windows - Technology Bites (blog)
Mon, 05 Jul 2010 00:59:10 GMT+00:00
in Windows Technology Bites (blog) Another way to quickly access your favorite programs, folders as well as internet shortcuts is by creating a custom toolbar in your Windows taskbar. ...
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2 Choose the Shape tool and then the Rounded Rectangle tool from the toolbar 3 Decide what you want your radius to be for your rounded corners In this example I have chosen a radius of 15px the radius option is at the top of the page Draw the rounded rectangle

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Mon Jul 19 09:22:11 2010
'Toolbar' Blogs
Macro Toolbar disappears after a mail merge in Word mail
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Macro Toolbar disappears after a mail merge in Word mail

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hu, 07 Jan 2010 08:00:00 GM

I am using Word 2003 and am running a merge using Excel as the data source. The data is being merged into a template that contains several tables with.

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Thu Jul 29 16:41:48 2010
'Toolbar' Answers
How to unhide a toolbar for internet explorer?
Q. I was hiding toolbars, and I accidently hide the toolbar itself used to control the other toolbars. Now I can't get it back up. Any suggestions?
Asked by Jasper - Wed Jul 28 14:16:17 2010 - - 1 Answers - 0 Comments
Yahoo Answers Search: Toolbar,
Wed Jul 28 15:20:17 2010
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