SubscribeMy thoughts get a bit fragmented at times. Has something to do with being a creative type of person. So, one minute I’ll be thinking “gotta get the dream blog finished up,” and the next I’ll be thinking, “oh man, that’s a really cool word count status bar, I’ve got to figure out how they did that.” And so we have today’s blog about a status bar rather than finishing up dreams. I’ll post that tomorrow. Really. No, I promise. I really, really promise.
Now, I could do a bunch of research on all sorts of status bars, and in fact, at one time I did. I looked at a bunch of fancy graphics and the like but in the end decided on nothing at all. They all required me to fiddle around with html coding and updating manually on the blog, so I scrapped the idea. There was also the added risk of the site vanishing and your word counts vanishing with it.
Well, in my blog meandering, I came across a blog post [here] at nixyvalentine.com on this very subject. She used to use something called Zokutou until they vanished. Then she happened upon honorless.net. This progress bar is completely code generated; therefore, it does not vanish when the site vanishes. And because the webpage is also completely code generated, you can save it to your computer and run it without being online.
Simply type in your parameters, click the “Refresh Code” button and voila! Now copy that updated html in the box below and you’ve got your code. Drop it into an html box (in blogger or wherever you can use straight code in on the site of your choice) and you’ve got a status bar.
Want to title your status bar? Just type the title in before the coding and then add a break (a < followed by br followed by >) to get the status bar to appear below your title. After that string of code is done, add a couple more breaks and start over again with your next project. You can see mine in the crowded sidebar to the right.
By clicking on the “Appearance” button you can change fonts, colors and all sorts of other stuff. For mine, I changed the height to 4 pixels, the colors, and the font. I also changed the width to 100%. The percentage on the width will be how much of the column your status bar takes up. Because mine is appearing in a rather thin column, I had it take up the entire space whereas if it were appearing on a webpage (like it does when you are generating your code) it would need to be scaled down, like to 30% the way they have it on the site.
And there you have it. Now interested parties can keep up with your progress. You’ve also got a nice reminder that you’re actually getting things done, or conversely, you have a reminder of how much you’re NOT getting done. J If any of this doesn’t make sense, please let me know and I’ll see what I can do to clarify things. When it comes to coding and the like, I’m like a two year French student trying to travel France without the aid of a translator.
1 comments:
"You have a reminder of how much you're NOT getting done."
...and a perfect way to start creating excuses for yourself as to why you're not creating a literary masterpiece. See, if I put all that energy that I have to writing rather than procrastinating, who knows what I might have! ;)
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