Guide to creating simple chromeless popup windows.
Popup windows - hate 'em or love 'em; they are a constant
companion during our Internet surfing. They can be quite useful,
especially the chromeless variety.
A chromeless popup window is one that doesn't show the browsers
menu or tool bar, but does retain the title bar (for easy
closing). Some visitors have so many options on their tool bars
that they take up over a quarter of the screen height!
Chromeless popup windows are a great way to deliver list
information and extra help for filling in forms without bogging
down your pages.
There are many scripts available for creating popups, but
sometimes you'll just want something simple that won't require
you to incorporate 100 lines of JavaScript!
This particular chromeless popup window procedure will work in
Netscape and IE Versions 4+. It will create a link activated
window of a fixed size, but will allow for scrollbars if
necessary.
To view a demo, click on the "20 second site survey" link on the
right hand menu of our home page:
http://wwww.tamingthebeast.net
INSTRUCTIONS:
First, create and save a standard page with the information you
wish to be displayed in the popup window. The elements should be
placed within a table structure. Suggested width of table:
around 330 - 350 pixels.
And if you want to create a "Close this Window" statement in the
page:
Close this window< d>
If you choose not to include this snippet, visitors will still
be able to close the window via the popup window title bar
controls.
Second, the script to launch the chromeless popup window. Copy
and paste this into the HTML (between the and
tags) of the page you wish to launch the popup from (change the
properties in capital letters to suit):
You can change width and height to suit, but don't make it too
narrow, otherwise site visitors will need to scroll horizontally
to view the content. Too wide a setting will cover the majority
of the screen area for those users still running 640x480
resolution.
When copying scripts like the one above, ensure you paste it
into Notepad first; then copy it again and transfer it to your
HTML. Copying and pasting code straight from a web page can
produce some pretty weird results.
Next, the hyperlink to use to engage the script (Change the
properties in capital letters to suit):
CLICK HERE
Done!
If you are looking for a script to create an automated site
entry or site exit popup window, check out our free javascript
code generators section, specifically:
http://www.tamingthebeast.net/scripts/windowsframesjavascripts.ht
m
but, use with caution - I don't know many visitors who upon
entering a site and seeing a popup window yell, "whoopeee!!!"
Michael Bloch