h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Use this URL if, when you click on a conversation, you want it to open in the window next to the sidebar (instead of in a new window):
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/MPxxxxxx?s_type=pop&s_target=_content

Thanks, I've changed the intructions to this as to me it makes more sense (if you want it open in a new window or tab you can always right click the link )

This has to be one of the most useful ideas I've ever come across on the net. I've never used the sidebar before, in fact it irritates the hell out of me, but now it's become extremely useful. I can set my homepage to something else now

While I got access to someone who know a bit about Mozilla, do you know if it is possible to set Mozilla to automatically open _blank links in a new tab (instead of a new window)

Not as far as I know, is that function available in Netscape Navigator, if it is, how do you turn it on?

I think (but not sure) that it's in the latest version (if not it is coming soon)

Well I've looked through all the preferences of last night's nightly-build of Mozilla, and I can't see it. But as you say, it'll probably be released in the next version of Netscape before it appears in Mozilla.

If you want to see a really funky use of the Mozilla sidebar have a look at this work in progress...

Add this sidebar:

title: The h2g2 Post
url: http://www.technoimbiber.co.uk/mozilla/post.php


when finished it'll look a bit better

-- technical bit --
the script it links to hacks the h2g2/thepost page and grabs all the links to dna/h2g2/A articles. The way that the page is displayed, this means that these are only the post articles links, not the stuff like front page and all that. then it processes the information and produces a sidebar ready page. in theory this will work with each current edition of the Post, although as it's only just being built, that's not been tested yet.

Hey, that is pretty cool!

Remember, the Post one is still a work in progress. As is this...

http://www.h2g2post.co.uk/mozilla/newSidebar.html

all addresses are subject to change, as are the pages. this last one was run up in my lunch half-hour.

Forgot to say thanks to §hiny §arah's (Archangel) §illy W±lly for figuring out the stuff for this

Sorry to ba a pain in the rear Pastey but I've got a suggestion thats going to make your life difficult

I am guessing that you are using a single PHP script to scan the page & display the results.

My suggestion is that you use two, one to scan and one to display.
The question is how do the two scripts communicate?

Easy, the script that scans broadcast its results as an RSS news feed.

The advantage of this would be that the RSS news feed would be available to anybody who wanted to use it.

Now how you do this I have no idea as I just use RSS news feeds not generate them but I know it has something to do with XML-RPC and a quick search came up with the following useful looking links
http://www.webreference.com/authoring/languages/xml/rss/intro/
http://www.xmlrpc.com/
http://xmlrpc-c.sourceforge.net/xmlrpc-howto/xmlrpc-howto.html
http://www.oreillynet.com/rss/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rss-dev/

(sorry to be a pain but it would be a lot more useful to a lot more people as an RSS news feed)

Never dealt with those, but I'll look into it

One question though... why would it be more useful?

*cough*

Actually it was HappyDude who came up with all this, I just discovered the target="_content" thingy.

I had to use php for my A Level Computing project, and it really is very useful!

As for RSS, I've heard of it, and I know http://www.theregister.co.uk/ provide an RSS newfeed, but for what I don't know

You can use php to grab news feeds and display the information within your own website, formatted to how you want it.

Seeing though as the Post is rather selective I think I'll leave it as it is.

I warned you that links were subject to change...

http://www.h2g2post.co.uk/mozilla/sidebars.html

this is where the page is going to stay.

re-think
An RSS feed would allow researchers to display the Post "Headlines" on there web-site using a cgi script/java applet or JavaScript. If they use a Website such as News is Free (http://www.newsisfree.com/ ) they could include on there personal news page of is the use dedicated RSS client Software such as "Radio Userland" they could include it in the news they read every day

I think taking the RSS route (unless for technical reasons its not an option) would be doing h2g2 researchers and Post readers a great service.

Did I read somewhere that RSS is limited to 15 articles at a time? If so, then it sort of counts itself out. The Post usually runs well upwards of 25-30 articles a week.

early versions were, that's no longer a problem.