I visited fullpage chat, and viewing the source I found
an interesting set of HTML. After setting a cookie to
automatically log me in, I modified it a bit
and now have Chatterbox frames on my Windows Desktop.
How useless! How cool! Here is my modified HTML. 

<HTML>
<BASE HREF="http://www.perlmonks.org/">
<FRAMESET ROWS="150,*">
 <FRAME SRC="index.pl?node=ad_and_talk&displaytype=raw" 
MARGINWIDTH=0 MARGINHEIGHT=0 SCROLLING=yes>
 <FRAMESET COLS="80%,20%">
  <FRAMESET ROWS="1%,99%">
   <FRAME SRC="index.pl?node=showprivatemessages&displaytype=raw&type=
+superdoc">
   <FRAME SRC="index.pl?node=showchatmessages&displaytype=raw">
  </FRAMESET>
 <FRAME SRC="index.pl?node=showotherusers&displaytype=raw">
 </FRAMESET>
 <!-- <FRAME 
SRC="index.pl?node=talk+links&amp;amp;
amp;amp;amp;amp;displaytype=raw"> -->
</FRAMESET>
</HTML>

[download]

  1. Copied the HTML to a file and saved it in Windows Favorites as *.html.
  2. Added the BASE REF tag
  3. Added the page to Desktop Properties Web content.
  4. Logged in and saved a cookie.
  5. Fiddled with frame sizes and commented out vroom's disclaimer frame (and deleted the corresponding size attribute).

Theoretically, Windows should allow me to make the page
into a full background. I didn't want that, but my
experiments failed anyway.

mkmcconn

Edit: chipmunk 2001-03-16

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Chatterbox on Win desktop
by epoptai (Curate) on Mar 18, 2001 at 03:07 UTC
    Good idea mkmcconn. I combined it with the framechat concept and came up with a script that creates seven html documents for embedding in an active desktop. For people who aren't running Perl and a web server here's a screenshot of what you're missing. But a similar effect can be acheived with straight perlmonks html using mkmcconn's method.

    Grab a fresh copy of framechat so the forms target the correct window (_self) in active desktop mode. 

    #!perl -w
# For users of framechat and active desktop, and other purposes.
# Creates seven html files in script dir representing framechat's 
# frames. Run from shell or CGI and supply just the url at 
# command line or url=http://localhost/framechat.pl from CGI.

use strict;
use CGI ':standard';
use CGI::Carp 'fatalsToBrowser';
my$url = url();
my($uri,%i);

if(@ARGV){ $uri = shift }
else{ unless($ENV{'HTTP_ACCEPT'}){ print "\nPlease supply command line
+ arg:\n\n perl this_script.pl http://localhost/framechat.pl\n"; exit 
+}}

BEGIN{ if($ENV{'HTTP_ACCEPT'}){ my%i = map{$_ => param($_)} param}}

if($i{'url'}){
if($i{'url'}=~m|^https?://|){$uri = $i{'url'}}}

if(($ENV{'HTTP_ACCEPT'}) && (!$i{'url'})){
print header(),start_html(title=>"framechat desktop setup"),p("Please 
+append your framechat url to the url of this script: $url<b>?url=http
+://localhost/framechat.pl</b>");
exit}

my%items = (
inbox => "$uri?n=inbox",
chat => "$uri?n=chat",
talk => "$uri?n=talk",
xp => "$uri?n=xp",
users => "$uri?n=users",
ctrl => "$uri?n=ctrl",
framechat => "$uri",
);

print "Content-type: text/html\n\n<pre>" if $ENV{'HTTP_ACCEPT'};
print "\nFramechat URL = $uri\n\n";
for(keys %items){
    open(FILE,"> $_.html") or die "Need write permission in the curren
+t directory: $!";
    print FILE qq~<html><head><meta http-equiv="refresh" content="3"; 
+url="$items{$_}"></head><body><a href="$items{$_}" target="_self">Loa
+d $_</a></body></html>~;
    close(FILE) or die "$!";
    if($ENV{'HTTP_ACCEPT'}){
        print qq~Created <a href="$_.html">$_.html</a>\n~;
        }
    else{ print qq~Created $_.html\n~;
    }
}
print "\nDone!\n\n Now you can embed pieces of framechat\n in active d
+esktop by loading these html\n pages. Framechat URL should be set to\
+n the URL of your local copy of framechat,\n while your webserver is 
+running.\n";

    [download]
[reply]
[d/l]

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