The text in userbars created with The Userbar Designer can now change automatically depending on a variety of factors including (but not limited to); A countdown timer, Your latest listen on Last.fm, Your latest blog post, your last "tweet" on Twitter or even your current USCF chess rating! Scroll down to the examples to get an idea of how you can use this powerful feature. If you have an idea for a dynamic source that isn't listed here, reply to this post and we'll see about adding it!
While this is an advanced feature of UBDesigner, novice users may still be able to get the dynamic text they want by using the Dynamic Text Assistant (linked at the bottom of the Text layer box in the designer). More advanced users should keep reading.
Dynamic text is achieved by the use of variables in your normal userbar text. A variable is usually surrounded by '%'s and will be replaced by the dynamic value once every 5 minutes. The contents of a variable are determined by the dynamic commands you set in the userbar text.
Available dynamic sources:
counterDate - Count Down/Up to/since date (date range can be from Jan 1 1970 to Jan 18 2038).
- Code: Select all
[counterDate=10/28/1976]
dynamicInfo - Internal dynamic data (Remote IP, current time, etc)
- Code: Select all
[dynamicInfo=true]
rssLci - Latest Channel Item from RSS feed.
- Code: Select all
[rssLci=http://someuser.livejournal.com/data/rss]
uscfId - USCF (United States Chess Federation) ID, for use with USCF rating variables.
- Code: Select all
[uscfId=55555555]
wowId - World Of Warcraft Stats (retrieved from The WoW Armory. Format is: "(RegionCode)Realm Name|Character Name". Available region codes are (us,eu,kr,cn,tw), or if no region is specified "us" is assumed.
- Code: Select all
[wowId=(Region)RealmName|CharacterName]
runescapeName - RuneScape Stats (retrieved from http://hiscore.runescape.com).
- Code: Select all
[runescapeName=YourRuneScapeName]
xboxLiveId - Xbox Live Stats (retrieved using Duncan Mackenzie awesome API).
- Code: Select all
[xboxLiveId=YourXboxLiveId]
imId - Instant Messenger Status (Format is: "Protocol|Login/ID". Available protocols are (aim, icq, yahoo, msn and skype),
- Code: Select all
[imId=aim|myAimName]
Available dynamic text commands:
timeZone - Time zone considered in all date/time dynamic commands. Use PHP's available timezone options. This command must be entered BEFORE the source is specified.
- Code: Select all
[timeZone=EDT]
dateFormat - Display RSS item pubDate format. (ex. "m/d/Y" is "08/01/2008"), see PHP's date() function fore more options. This command must be entered BEFORE the source is specified.
- Code: Select all
[dateFormat=m/d/Y H:i]
titleSplit - Split RSS item title by a character and use only the Nth part. This command must be entered AFTER the source is specified. (Below example will make the %title% be only the word "Smith" if the RSS item title was "My name is:Smith")
- Code: Select all
[titleSplit=:,2]
Note: When entering multiple commands they MUST be entered in the order listed above and precede any variables.
Available variables are:
%minutesUntil% - Minutes until counterDate.
%hoursUntil% - Hours until counterDate.
%daysUntil% - Days until counterDate.
%yearsUntil% - Years until counterDate.
%minutesSince% - Minutes since counterDate.
%hoursSince% - Hours since counterDate.
%daysSince% - Days since counterDate.
%yearsSince% - Years since counterDate.
%remoteIp% - IP address of viewer.
%now% - The current date/time (formatted by dateFormat)
%title% - Title of RSS item.
%pubDate% - Publish date of RSS item.
%uscfRegularRating% - USCF Regular Rating.
%uscfQuickRating% - USCF Quick Rating.
%uscfCorrespondenceRating% - USCF Correspondence Rating
%wowRealm% - World of Warcraft Realm
%wowName% - World of Warcraft Character Name
%wowRank% - World of Warcraft Rank
%wowLevel% - World of Warcraft Level
%wowClass% - World of Warcraft Class
%wowRace% - World of Warcraft Race
%rsName% - RuneScape Name
%rsSkillName_Rank% - RuneScape Skill Rank (replace SkillName with exact skill name from the highscores page)
%rsSkillName_Level% - RuneScape Skill Level (replace SkillName with exact skill name from the highscores page)
%rsSkillName_Xp% - RuneScape Skill XP (replace SkillName with exact skill name from the highscores page)
%rsMinigameName_Rank% - RuneScape Minigame Rank (Replace MinigameName with actual name of Minigame - Use underscores (_) instead of spaces if necessary!)
%rsMinigameName_Score% - RuneScape Minigame Score (replace MinigameName with actual name of Minigame - Use underscores (_) instead of spaces if necessary!)
%xboxGamertag% - Your Xbox Live Gamertag
%xboxStatus% - Your Current Xbox Live Status (online/offline)
%xboxGamerScore% - Your Xbox Live Gamer Score
%xboxZone% - Your Xbox Live Zone (Recreation, etc)
%xboxGameName_GamerScore% - Game Gamer Score (Replace spaces with underscores)
%xboxGameName_Achievements% - Game Achievements (Replace spaces with underscores)
%xboxGameName_TotalGamerScore% - Game Total Possible Gamer Score (Replace spaces with underscores)
%xboxGameName_TotalAchievements% - Game Total Possible Achievements (Replace spaces with underscores)
%xboxGameName_LastPlayed% - Game Last Played, use dateFormat to adjust (Replace spaces with underscores)
%imStatus% - Instant messenger status, either "online" or "offline".
Important: All dynamic text MUST contain at least one dynamic source (counterDate, rssLci, etc). You may not use the same dynamic source command more than once per userbar (for example, more than one imId per userbar will not work).
Important: Final text (dynamic or not) will always be truncated to 50 characters, unless you are a premium subscriber and check the "Multi-Frame" text option. With Multi-Frame you can also place a \n anywhere in the text to cause a new frame. For example:
Important: Scroller layers are ignored when dynamic text is present.
Important: Dynamic userbars can NOT be combined with other userbars at The Userbar Animator.
Important: Dynamic Userbars that have not been viewed at least once in 30 days will be automatically deleted.
Examples:
Here are a few examples, some of these you can just edit for your use and plug right into the Text field on ubdesigner.com. If you have any that you'd like to see added for other users, reply to this post and I'll update!
Count up counter:
- Code: Select all
[counterDate=06/29/2006]The Ubdesigner is %daysSince% days old.
Last artist played on last.fm (replace the word "username" with your real last.fm username:
- Code: Select all
[timeZone=EDT][dateFormat=D @ g:ia][rssLci=http://ws.audioscrobbler.com/1.0/user/username/recenttracks.rss][titleSplit= - ,1]Listened to %title% on %pubDate%
World of Warcraft character information, replace the "Realm" and "Name" with your actual WoW realm and character name.
- Code: Select all
[wowId=Realm|Name]%wowRank% %wowName%: Level %wowLevel% %wowRace% %wowClass%
Latest Xbox Live Achievements for GTA IV (replace "MyXboxLiveGamertag"):
- Code: Select all
[dateFormat=m/d/Y @ g:ia][xboxLiveId=MyXboxLiveGamertag]Last Played %xboxMostRecentName% on %xboxMostRecentLastPlayed%
Latest tweet on Twitter (replace the url for rssLci with your twitter timeline RSS url):
- Code: Select all
[timeZone=EDT][dateFormat=D @ g:ia][rssLci=http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/14479789.rss][titleSplit=: ,2]%pubDate%: %title%
Your current instant messenger status (replace protocol and login):
- Code: Select all
[imId=icq|55555]ICQ (55555): %imStatus%
Last post on LiveJournal (replace "username"):
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[timeZone=EDT][dateFormat=D @ g:ia][rssLci=http://username.livejournal.com/data/rss]%pubDate%: %title%'
Last post to a Wordpress blog (replace rssLci url):
- Code: Select all
[timeZone=EDT][dateFormat=D @ g:ia][rssLci=http://somewordpressblog.com/?feed=rss2]%pubDate%: %title%
Current Chess Rating at USCF (replace USCF ID):
- Code: Select all
[uscfId=55555555]USCF Reg Rating: %uscfRegularRating%
Current RuneScape Stats (replace runescapeName and skill/minigame):
- Code: Select all
[runescapeName=MyRuneScapeName]%rsName% - Attack Rank: %rsAttack_Rank%
or
- Code: Select all
[runescapeName=MyRuneScapeName]%rsName% - Bounty Hunter Score: %rsBounty_Hunters_Score%
