SuperSumo's Active Desktop | 2.5
[Installation ]- [Caution! ]- [New Tags ]- [Changes ]- [Credits & Thanks ]
- Installation -
First and foremost, you have to do some registry editing. This is how it is on Win2K. It might be different on WinXP, I don't know.

  • Go to Start » Run, type in regedit and click ok.
  • Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\Zones\0.
  • Double click on the "FLAGS" dword, change it to decimal, type in 71, and click ok.
  • Close regedit and open Internet Explorer
  • Go to tools » internet options » security tab.
  • If you don't have a "My Computer" security zone, reboot and come back.
  • Highlight the "My Computer" zone icon.
  • Click "Custom Level".
  • Under "ActiveX Controls and plug-ins", change "Download signed ActiveX controls to "Enable".
  • Change "Download unsigned ActiveX controls" to "Enable".
  • Change "Initialize and script ActiveX controls not marked as safe" to "Enable".
  • Change "Run ActiveX controls and plug-ins" to "Enable".
  • Change "Script ActiveX controls marked safe for scripting" to "Enable".
  • Click "Ok", "Apply", and "Ok".


    • These changes only affect the security settings for your local computer and not settings for internet websites. Internet website settings are located under "Internet Security Zone".

    If you don't want icons on your desktop (which many people don't), it's pretty simple. Go to your desktop. Right click and select "Arrange Icons by" and uncheck "Show desktop icons". It will remove all your icons/shortcuts from the desktop.

    Finally, here are the steps to actually getting this script placed on your desktop.

  • First, rightclick on your desktop and go to Properties » Web tab, and enable "Show Web content on my Active Desktop".
  • If you don't want icons on your desktop (which many people don't) read this step. If you do want icons, skip this step. Click "Ok" to take you back to your desktop. Right click and select "Active Desktop" and uncheck "Show Desktop Icons". Bye bye icons. Go back to the web tab in the desktop properties.
  • If "My Current Homepage" is checked, uncheck it.
  • Click on the "New" button.
  • Click "Browse", navigate to the folder where you extracted all this stuff, click on "desktop.htm", click "Open", click "Ok", and click "Ok" to close your display settings.


    • You should now have a small box with the script in it somewhere on your desktop. Go to the top edge of that box, and a toolbar should come up. Click on the icon on the top/left corner and click on "Cover Desktop". If everything was done correctly, you should now see an awesome active desktop script! :D Click on "Edit" and have fun.
    - Caution! -
    When you are editing your desktop, make sure you adhere to the XHTML rules. XML and XHTML are more strict than HTML, and if you make a mistake, your desktop won't show up. If this happens, you can open up your editme.xml in IE and it will tell you what you goofed on. There are many good references on XHTML syntax, and if you are lazy,    hereis a good one.

    XML many times doesn't like crazy characters, so you have to use the HTML Number equivilent. An Example is if I wanted to type an "@" symbol, you would have to type in "@" instead. A good list of all these codes can be foundhere. You can either use the HTML Number or HTML Name.

    If you aren't going to use either the clock, calendar, or notepad, be sure to edit desktop.htm and remove the line associated with it, otherwise your desktop will not show. All 3 are activated by default. An example: if you only want to use the calendar and notepad, edit desktop.htm and take out the line that says clock();.

    This Active Desktop script was only tested on Win2K and WinXP with IE v6.0. I don't know how well (if at all) it will run on anything else.

    If you want to add your own functions or elements, you do so at your own risk. Making a mistake on the functions.js or xml_parser.js will probably make the entire script not work. Back them up before you make changes!

    This script is actually very versatile. I actually use it to create some of this readme. If you can find other uses of it, by all means, go ahead, just credit me, ok? :)
    - New Tags -
    There are many new tags, but with them comes more functionality. I made these new tags for ease of layout in the desktop, and so people didn't have to type as much cryptic code to get certain things to work.

    Most of the new tags are related to the weather, because I wanted to make it easy for people to get specific parts of the forecast so they could customize their weather report as much as they liked.

    I will list them alphabetically, with a description of each and cautionary notes next to them.

    <calendar/>

    If you want a good looking calendar on your desktop, this is the tag to use. You can click on each day and set a note for it. If you don't want the note there anymore, just click on it, delete the text, and click ok. You can even navigate months with the « and » symbols and put notes months in advance. There are a lot of changes you can do to the styles. They have their own section in the editme.css. There is a working example on the right side of this description. You can only have 1 calendar per desktop. If you aren't going to use it, be sure to edit desktop.htm and take out the calendar(); line.
    <clock/>

    This tag gives you a neato clock you can use. Again, there are a few styles you can change, which have their own section in editme.css. There is an example above. You can only have 1 clock per desktop. If you aren't going to use it, be sure to edit desktop.htm and take out the clock(); line.
    <cmdbox/>

    This gives you an input box and a button. Input commands just like in the Windows->Run dialog box and then click "Go!". If you want to change the look of it, look for the cmdbox and cmdbox_button classes in the editme.css file.
    <desktop refresh="optional (must be a number)">Required Text</desktop>

    The desktop element is the root of the XML file, kind of like the <HTML> tag. It is required, and you can only have 1 of them. Everything must go in this tag.

    The refresh attribute is used to automagically refresh the page after a certain number of minutes has gone by. This is useful to refresh the weather if you use it. If you want to refresh every hour, put 60.
    <dot width="optional" height="optional" color="optional"/>

    The dot element is used if you want a line. You can use any of the css related units of measurement in width and height, and either HEX colors, or certain textual colors for the color attribute. If you don't give a color that works, the line will be displayed as transparent. So having a dot element with color="black" will give a line with a black color, where color="clear", color="transparent", or color="supersumo_is_king" will give you a clear line. The thick black lines in this readme are dot elements.
    <edit>Text</edit>

    Opens up editme.xml and editme.css in notepad. The text displayed inside the element will be used for the link. You can actually use an image or something else if you want.
    <folder path="required (but can be empty)">Text</folder>

    This element opens up the folder specified in the path attribute. The text displayed inside the element will be used for the link. Again, you can use an image or something else if you want. If you have a blank path, then My Computer will open. Make sure to use forward slashes (/) instead of backslashes (\) in the path.
    <menu name="required"><title>Required</title>Text</menu>

    Menu Title • My Computer
    The menu is mainly used to store groups of links. The first element inside the menu MUST be &lt;title&gt;Title Here&lt;/title&gt; or the menu won't be displayed. Menu display status is saved, so when you reboot, the menus you minimized will be minimized, and the maximized menus will be maximized. The arrow image used as the toggle is images/maximize.gif if you want to edit it. If you do, you might want to tweak the css styles for .min_max_image to get it aligned correctly.
    <notepad name="required" type="optional" class="optional"/>

    Displays a textbox where you can write notes to yourself. Whenever you type, the notepad is saved, so it will show up if you reboot. There is a working example to the right. Make sure to give it a name as you can now have multiple notepads.

    Update: You can now change the styles of each individual notepad, by using the 'class' attribute. An example, if I wanted a notepad with a height of 500, I would create a notepad with a class="whatever". Then, I would edit editme.css and add "textarea.whatever { height: 500px; }". This new style will inherit the properties from the original textarea.

    Update2: You can now have a single line text box. Just put the "type" attribute to "single". The default type is a multiline text box.
    Example: <notepad name="example" type="single"/>.

    <program path="required (but can be empty)" switches="optional"> Text </program>

    Similar to <folder>, but this element opens up a program. If the path is empty, it will open up your desktop folder (which was an unexpected surprise). If you need to use switches with the program, put them in the switches="". For example, if you want to connect to a certain TFC server with steam, you could do something like this: <program path="D:/games/steam/Steam.exe" switches="-applaunch 20 +serverpassword PASSWORD +connect SERVER.IP.HERE:27015">My Favorite Server</program>.
    <recycle_bin">Text</recycle_bin>

    Opens up your recycle bin. The text inside will be used as the link. Again, the text can really be anything, like an image.
    <recycle_bin_empty>Text</recycle_bin_empty>

    Compliments <recycle_bin> by providing a way to empty your recycle bin, just like on a regular desktop. It will prompt you if you really want to delete, so don't worry about that. Again, the inside text will be the link, and it can be an image or whatever.
    <refresh>Text</refresh>

    This element is used so you can have a link to refresh your desktop to view any changes you made instead of clicking on your desktop and hitting F5.
    <section width="optional" left="optional" right="optional" top="optional" bottom="optional">Text</section>

    Gives you an absolutely placed box to put stuff in. This is the generic container to place similar items together and place them on your desktop. Left, Right, Top, and Bottom are the positioning attributes. If I have a left="10" and a top="10, the section will be displayed 10 pixels from the left, and 10 pixels from the top.
    <space/>

    Whitespace in XML is sometimes stupid, so I added the space element to take care of it. If sometimes you type in a space and it doesn't show up, just replace it with <space/> and it should show up.
    <title>Text Only</title>

    Used as the first element in a menu. This is the text that will be displayed to the left of the minimize/maximize image. This one actually need to be text and nothing else.
    <toggle name="required">Text</toggle>

    Gives you a way to display/hide something on your desktop. A <togglethis> element with the same name is required to work, which is what will be toggled.
    <togglethis name="required">Text</togglethis>

    A container with anything in it that can be hidden or displayed with a <toggle> element. The visibility status is saved, just like the <menu> element.
    <wallpaper/>

    Displays controls that allow you to change your wallpaper.
    <weather location="required">Text</weather>

    This is a container for weather related elements. The location can either be a Zip Code, or the Canadian Zip Code (I forget what they are called), and it is required. Unfortunatly, Canadian's only get the current (w_today_) weather. If you aren't connected to the internet, it will display a "Disconnected" message. All elements that start with "w_" are used inside this container. The elements with "w_#_" are for the number of days in advance.
    <w_today_name/>
    <w_today_location/>
    <w_today_visibility/>
    <w_today_temp/>
    <w_today_humidity/>
    <w_today_wind/>
    <w_today_barometer/>
    <w_today_dewpoint/>
    <w_today_heatindex/>
    <w_today_windchill/>
    <w_today_sunrise/>
    <w_today_sunset/>
    <w_today_moonphase/>
    		Today's Name
    Location of Forecast
    Current Visibility
    Current Tempurature
    Current Humidity
    Current Wind
    Current Barometric Pressure
    Current Dewpoint
    Current Heatindex
    Current Windchill
    Today's Sunrise
    Today's Sunset
    Today's Moonphase
    <w_tonight_conditions/>
    <w_tonight_high/>
    <w_tonight_low/>
    		Tonight's Conditions
    Tonight's High
    Tonight's Low
    <w_tomorrow_name/>
    <w_tomorrow_conditions/>
    <w_tomorrow_high/>
    <w_tomorrow_low/>
    		Tomorrow's Name
    Tomorrow's Conditions
    Tomorrow's High
    Tomorrow's Low
    <w_2_name/>
    <w_2_conditions/>
    <w_2_high/>
    <w_2_low/>
    		Today +2 Name
    Today +2 Conditions
    Today +2 High
    Today +2 Low
    <w_3_name/>
    <w_3_conditions/>
    <w_3_high/>
    <w_3_low/>
    		Today +3 Name
    Today +3 Conditions
    Today +3 High
    Today +3 Low
    <w_4_name/>
    <w_4_conditions/>
    <w_4_high/>
    <w_4_low/>
    		Today +4 Name
    Today +4 Conditions
    Today +4 High
    Today +4 Low
    - Changes In Each Version -
    Version 2.5

    • Added the "cmd_box" element. This is used just like the regular Windows->Run command dialog box.
    • Totally redid the way wallpapers are managed. Added support for multiple wallpapers in a single dialog box for easy changing between favorites. I'm still working on this though, since an element I am using can't be styled with CSS. I will change it to something else.
    • The "togglethis" elements now remember their visibility.
    - Credits & Thanks -
    Many thanks to all the people that created the original TSDesk, which is what my script is based off. You can find it at    TSDesk.

    Thanks to Jeff VanBoxtel ofChibinet.comand Ben Higgins, who helped me out when I got stuck. Jeff wrote the empty_recycle_bin.exe, which is a big part. Ben says he helped me, (which he probably did), I just forgot what it was on.

    Thanks to fUble_baSs from The Catacombs Forums for all the help in getting people set up and writing some awesome tutorials. Who ever said Canada doesn't contribute anything? :)

    Thanks to Absolut_Lush from The Catacombs Forums for messing around with it and adding in some neat features that will be packaged in with later versions. Keep up the good work!

    I encourage you to edit this, because I'm sure other people can make some really neat things to add. If you come up with something cool, PLEASE give me an email atsupersumoz@yahoo.com! I might add it to my own desktop and/or add it to another package of this script.

    If you like TFC custom stuff and maps, check out my site! http://supersumo.hopto.org. :)

    The changes I made to the original TsDesk are copyright 2004 by me (Dan Gleason). Please don't take credit for the work I put into this. I don't mine, and in fact encourage, you do edit this, but don't take credit for stuff you didn't do. Thanks.