Finding a ticker script

October 4, 2007 10:34 PM

I run a small forum where I would like to offer a "ticker" - as seen here, here, here and here - locally on my website. Where can I find this script to do this?
posted by cajo to computers & internet (6 comments total)

I can't see what it is you're talking about, but I suspect that it uses the "marquee" HTML tag. There isn't any script needed; it's built in to the browser. I'd give you an example here, except that MeFi won't permit it. It's one of those obnoxious tags like "blink" that self-respecting sites don't use.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 12:34 AM on October 5, 2007

I don't see any marquee tags on those pages, but I don't see anything that I would call a 'ticker' either (the stock exchange ticker could be implemented with marquee).

Have you tried looking around at sites like DynamicDrive.com? Here's a search to get you started that includes tickers from things like RSS, and some that use DHTML.

Actually, a javascript ticker is the first result on google, and Dynamic Drive is second. The third is a javascript ticker/marquee script. Are these what you're looking for?
posted by philomathoholic at 1:41 AM on October 5, 2007

What you've got on those pages isn't a ticker in the sense that any webdev type person would recognise.

[A ticker to us is normally a box that scrolls other content through it.]

The things you are looking at are background graphics with a progress bar that tracks across them based on either time or user entered data. This needs some PHP/ASP/CGI/whatever skills to do.

What server side languages do you have access to?
posted by twine42 at 5:38 AM on October 5, 2007

Thanks for the link to the dynamic drive site. I'll take a look at that.

Steven, it's not quite that. What is commonly known as a ticker is something like this image - an image generated on the fly based on values a user inputs. That's what I'd like to host on my site for my users (who all use these tickers). Some of them use them to track weight loss, pregnancy countdown, baby ages, etc.
posted by cajo at 9:28 AM on October 5, 2007

twine, I have access to PHP, ASP, CGI. I can poke my way around and not screw things up too much but I am hardly an expert.
posted by cajo at 9:29 AM on October 5, 2007

Okay, I'm PHP minded so my thoughts always head this way. I don't know of any tools that make this tickers for you automatically, but if you don't mind getting your hands a little dirty then it's pretty easy to write the php yourself. I mean, at a basic level it's one background image with nine different gif/png overlays.

Hell, I'm pretty sure I've some code to do it somewhere. It's a case of giving a script two file locations and letting it get on with it.

If you're interested I can probably dig it out for you. You'd need a server with PHP and GD2 support and not much else...

BTW, sorry if my last post sounded patronising... It's a bad habit when talking shop... :)
posted by twine42 at 2:38 PM on October 5, 2007