You'll LOVE this: BrowserBob
Fresh from the July 2004 issue of PC Magazine. Page 60: Build Your Own Custom Browser.
http://www.browserbob.com/ is the company's URL. Sadly, it makes IE-based browsers. Interesting that it's a Bob product.
Here's some festive screenshots that came from the article at http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1606205,00.asp.
Screenshot 1: A BrowserBob weblication
Screenshot 2: An interface for beginners
Comments? Questions? Discuss it!
EDIT: Moved screenshots to SkyCache because the tag didn't like the exisitng location of them.
PC Magazine wrote:BrowserBob 3 Professional
<b>Build Your Own IE</b>
With BrowserBob 3.0, you no longer have to be a programmer to create branded or custom multimedia browsers. With this easy but powerful program, beginners will get the basics of building a working browser in minutes (based on Microsoft's HTML control), and advanced users can add more interaction with behavior grouping, custom parameters, and powerful graphic features. Developers can even integrate JavaScript or VBScript code, and Flash, audio, video, or any media supported by Internet Explorer can be used in Bob applications.
BrowserBob 3The object-based drag-and-drop environment lets you easily create custom browsers, which BrowserBob calls "weblications," using your own graphics for backgrounds, buttons, and actions. Photographs, cartoons, or clip art are all fair game for your free-form graphical interface. Imagine Lara Croft or your spouse lounging on the top of your browser. No coding is required to add buttons, text fields, labels, drop-downs, or pop-up windows. Just drag an object (like a button) to the background and set properties, behaviors, graphics, and alignment.
Creative use of transparent images let you liberate the browser from its rectangular bounds, though you'll need a third-party graphics editor for actual graphics creation. We used Macromedia Fireworks to build four-state buttons (up, touched, pressed, and disabled) in BrowserBob. We would have liked better integration between BrowserBob and our graphics editor. The included Puzzle tools help keep your graphics proportional when a user resizes your application.
BrowserBob's underpinnings are built into Windows, so no runtime libraries are required. Finished applications are compiled to single executables and will run on any system with Windows 98 and above. Windows 95 is supported but requires Internet Explorer 5.5 or above.
BrowserBob 3BrowserBob can also let Webmasters create custom skins that automatically load when users visit their site. A small ActiveX control is downloaded so any Bob-enabled site will display properly on the client. A special BrowserBob HTML Script extension language lets Webmasters create custom pages for Bob customers only. Users could then surf through to special pages without passwords, for example, just by using their Bob browser.
The Browser Bob tutorial-centric help system gets you started quickly but lacks search or index capability, which makes it difficult to find specific topics. An online forum, however, provides help from both other users and company representatives.
At $336 (list), BrowserBob Professional is aimed at business users. There are no licensing fees required for finished applications, so developers can build, deploy, and sell any application built with Bob. While Pro 3.0 offers advanced features, such as global variables, Web site skins, or F1 context-sensitive help, BrowserBob has three other versions that can get you started. The BB2.1 Developer ($89) and BB 2.1 Light ($29) editions each offer a 30-day trial version, or try the BB2 Freeware edition. All versions create standalone executable applications.
http://www.browserbob.com/ is the company's URL. Sadly, it makes IE-based browsers. Interesting that it's a Bob product.
Here's some festive screenshots that came from the article at http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1606205,00.asp.
Screenshot 1: A BrowserBob weblication
Screenshot 2: An interface for beginners
Comments? Questions? Discuss it!
EDIT: Moved screenshots to SkyCache because the tag didn't like the exisitng location of them.
Comments
EDIT: Ah damn, Im not paying $300
-Q
-Q
-Q
browserbob?
1. Did micro$oft take part in making this browser?
2. Is it a totally new browser or just a shell to Internet Exploider? Like MyIE2?
Yeah. Its pretty good.
they're distributing it under gnu pulic lisence
-Q
Really? Cool!
Yeah I designed a couple of browsers already, but make sure you have IE5 installed. It will be more enjoyable. I'll have it up in my server as soon as it gets back up. Otherwise, you could just contact me on AIM.
WINDES BOB BROSWER soon!!!
Did you buy it?
w00t w00t i now own browser bob