Creating Internet Explorer Toolbar like Address bar

[Doctor Trout]

Hey guys,

I've recently been trying to design an internet explorer toolbar.

My original intention wasn't to code it at all, but to use Toolbar Studio (don't know if any of you have heard of it or used it - probably not). However, I don't think I'm going to be able to use Toolbar Studio, and I'm going to have to code it by hand instead.

Anyway, I'll tell you what my plan is/was:

I wanted to make a toolbar that would replace the Internet Explorer Address bar - but with added features. I've included a picture of how I want it to work (the picture is slightly touched up with paint, because it doesn't actually work like this at the moment).

Link to picture: http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y142/Dr_Trout/toolbar-1.jpg

Essentially, I primarily want it to work as an address bar - when you click "go" or press "enter" it loads the page you've typed in the address bar. However, when you click on the drop down menu (as pictured) a list of search engines appears, and if you click one of them, the term entered in the address bar will be searched for. Essentially, it is combining the features in IE7 or the Google Toolbar into one search bar, so you only need one text bar, rather than two. Ideally, I'd also like to add a "customize..." button, so that other search engines can be added, but I think that's a bit out of my league (although if anyone wants to help me...).

I reckon I'm probably going to have to start again from scratch. However, there are a few aspects of the toolbar that I have no idea how to create.

i) How to create a search box that acts like the address bar - ie will display the URL of the currently open page.

ii) How to create a search box that shrinks and stretches to fit the alloted space (my current one is a fixed width)

The other thing is, I suppose I'm going to have to rewrite the code from scratch now. I know HTML and a bit of javascript, but coding is a bit new to me (although I'm willing to try).

So, that leaves me to ask a couple more questions:

1) I suppose it's not possible to edit the dll file that Toolbar Studio made to manually make these adjustments.

2) Would it be possible to copy the code from the actual internet explorer address bar from somewhere in Windows, and add to that? (you see - I really don't know much about this).

3) What coding language would be the best to make this work? I've been looking at things like this: http://www.vbaccelerator.com/home/vb/Code/...bar/article.asp and I'm thinking visual basic.

I hope I haven't asked too many questions here. Please just chip in and point me in the right direction if anyone has any ideas on this.

Edited August 10, 2006 by Doctor Trout