About
Ever stared at that almost-black1 bar at the top of the page and thought "not awesome enough"?
Well, think no longer! Stack Exchange Topbar Tools is a userscript that contains an extensible framework for making that almost-black bar more awesome.
With this userscript installed, you can write plugins that
- Change the colour of the bar, and make it float at the top of the viewport or expand to the width of the screen
- Add links to the RHS (between your badge counts and the search box)
- lots of other cool stuff that will be implemented sometime in the future
The getting-started snippet (see end of post) provides plugin initialisation that
- behaves the same way (that is, working) no matter which order things are loaded in
- and won't blow up even if you don't load the underlying library at all!
It still won't work, though; it just won't blow up.
License
Some really old versions used the GPL v3, but a commenter made me realise that was not a great idea:
Just a suggestion, you could make the license MIT or BSD, which are also commercial-friendly. Thus, the code would be open source for everyone. After all, there's nothing wrong with an individual being able to make a profit, especially if it benefits the SE users.
Download
Plugins maintained in the official repository:
- Basic Config
Buttons to toggle whether the bar is attached to the top of, and/or spans the full width of, the viewport. - Meta/Main+Chat Links
Exactly what it says on the tin. Apparently people liked those links. - UTC Clock
Never lose track of the official SE time again!
Platform
Fully tested in latest Firefox (25 at time of writing); should theoretically work on Chrome.
Contact
It's just me, @michaelb958. You can contact me by:
- Creating an issue on GitHub. This is the preferred mechanism for providing feedback or suggestions for the library.
- Commenting on or answering this post. Feedback or suggestions provided this way will be accepted.
- Pinging me on chat. For general conversation and stuff.
- Emailing me (email address available on my GitHub profile). For use in case of emergency.
Code
Written in JavaScript, with ample use of jQuery.
Contribute on GitHub!
Really basic getting-started template for writing plugins (from the readme)
function with_jQuery(f) {
var s = document.createElement("script");
s.type = "text/javascript";
s.textContent = "(" + f.toString() + ")(jQuery)";
s.setAttribute('data-with-jquery', '');
document.head.appendChild(s);
};
with_jQuery(function($) {
if (typeof StackExchangeTopbarToolsPluginInit === 'undefined')
StackExchangeTopbarToolsPluginInit = [];
StackExchangeTopbarToolsPluginInit.push(function(tools) {
// Your plugin code goes here
// You can refer to the library object by the shorthand `tools`
});
if (typeof StackExchangeTopbarTools === 'object')
StackExchangeTopbarTools.pluginsReady();
});
1
Yes, it's actually #212121, not #000000.