Each of HotStrip Professional's parameters is explained below, with reference to the clickable example code in the left frame: you can click a parameter from the example code to jump to its explanation, or simply read this page from top to toe. As you read, click the blue references to other parameters to jump to them.

Most of HotStrip Pro's parameters have a default setting which is mentioned below. If the default setting is the option you'd like to use in your own implementation, you can leave that parameter out of your HTML code.

The 'Archive' attribute & 'CabBase' parameter
JAR (Java ARchive) and CAB (cabinet) files are archives containing Java class files in compressed form, making them easier to handle and quicker to download. Most modern browsers are able to read one or other of these formats, and the Archive attribute and CabBase parameter tell the browser the name of the archive file to open. The .JAR, .CAB and .CLASS files must all be in the same directory, and the CODEBASE= attribute is used in the normal way, if required, specifying the absolute or relative location of this directory. Older browsers that are unable to read either the JAR or the CAB file will instead read the loose CLASS files.

Applet Width & Height
When setting up the applet width, bear in mind that visitors to your site may be using a lower monitor resolution than you are. This applet could be tough to use if you put it in a narrow top or bottom frame and then some proportion of that frame gets swallowed up with a scrollbar. Because HotStrip Professional supports scrolling (and switches it on automatically when it's needed), simply make the applet as wide as you dare and let users scroll entries back and forth.

You may want to adjust your height setting to take the possibility of an unexpected scrollbar into account. If your HotStrip Pro frame should be accessible to Netscape users, make sure you check your frameset in that browser: it requires more space than Internet Explorer and doesn't support IE's TOPMARGIN/LEFTMARGIN body attributes.

A height of around 50 is generally pretty good if you set the TypeMessage parameter to "yes". If you set it to "no", you can get away with as little as 25, depending on the size of your DisplayFont and whether your menu entries contain multiple lines.

Copyright
This parameter must be included or the applet will not run, whether registered or unregistered. To prevent mistakes we recommend that you copy/paste it into your code from the Getting Started page: it is case-sensitive, single-spaced throughout and should appear on a single line. If there's a problem with this parameter, you'll see a status-bar message that reads "Copyright parameter missing or incorrect" which should lead you to the problem.

Name
This optional parameter is used to specify a unique name for an instance of an applet on a site when the Spytracking or Satellites features are used, explained in greater detail in Using Spytracking. If you're not using Spytracking or Satellites with HotStrip Professional, you can ignore this parameter.

Satellites
A simple yes or no parameter that determines whether or not this applet should send mouse-move information to the Cool Focus satellites system. If you are using Satellites, include this parameter with a value of 'yes'. If you're not, either set the value to 'no', or leave out this parameter. Setting this parameter to 'yes' when no Satellite is being used will have the effect of making the applet respond to the mouse extremely sluggishly.

BgColor
Hex triplet for the applet's background color. This will form the background to your menu entries. You'd normally choose the same color as that of your page's body-background. The default color for this parameter is 000000 (black).

TextColor
The color of the menu entry text when unfocussed (the mouse isn't over it). The default is 606060 (dark gray).

LightColor
The color of a menu entry when lit (focussed). The default is F0F0FF (a sort of satin white).

LockColor
The color of a menu entry when locked (clicked). The default is C00000 (mid red). If you choose a value for the HighlightedEntry parameter other than zero, the entry you choose will be shown in this color as soon as the applet starts.

LineColor
The color of the double lines that roll with the mouse. Both will always be the same color, and the default color is CC00FF (purple-ish). For the lines to be visible, the Lines parameter must not be set to 'No'.

TypeColor
The color of the font used to display the rolling message in the applet area (if you set the value of the TypeMessage parameter to 'yes'). The default is 00FF00 (lime). If you choose to have the message displayed in the status-bar instead, by setting TypeMessage to 'no', there's no need to remove this parameter - it'll just be ignored.

DisplayFont
A comma-delimited string giving the name, style and size of the font you want to use for the menu entries. The default settings are Dialog, in bold, at size 12, which would be written as Dialog,bold,12. Two important things to note: first, there must be no spaces in this entry; second, the three items must appear in the order name,style,size. Note that the style part of this setting can be plain, bold, italic or bolditalic, and these are not case-sensitive.

TypeFont
Another comma-delimited string that works in the same way as the DisplayFont above, giving the name, style and size of the font to be used for the scrolling message (provided the TypeMessage parameter is set to 'yes'). The default font is Helvetica,plain,9.

Spacing
A fixed pixel gap to be placed after each entry on the menu. When the mouse enters one of these spaces, no entry will be lit (though any selected entry will remain selected) and no message will be displayed. Clicking in one of these blank areas will do nothing. The default spacing is 20. A setting of "0" is quite legitimate, and will place the entries immediately one after the other. Note that there are small fixed indents at either end of the applet.

If any of your menu entries consists of more than one line, note that the spacing between entries is judged by the distance between the top line of each entry rather thanh the distance between the longest line.

Arrows
A simple, non-case-sensitive yes or no to whether the arrowheads should be displayed. The default setting is yes.

Lines
Another non-case-sensitive yes or no to choose whether the rolling lines should be displayed. The default setting is yes. Although you could make the lines 'invisible' by setting LineColor to match the BgColor, this is using unnecessary processing power since their position is still being calculated.

LineWidth
This parameter only takes effect if the rolling lines are displayed (ie. Lines is set to 'yes'), and lets you choose the width of the lines. The default value is 60 and any positive value is accepted. If the value is 0 or less, the lines will be switched off.
NOTE: Due to the way this value is interpreted, it's best (although not vital) to enter an even number for this value.

Sound
Specifies whether or not you'd like the applet to play sounds in response to mouse movement and clicks. A value of yes turns the sound option on, a value of no turns it off. Neither is case-sensitive. The default value is no, which means that you can also leave the Sound parameter out if you don't want to use sounds. The inclusion of this yes/no option allows you to use sounds on one instance of the applet without having to use it on all if you have several HotStrips on a page. With this parameter set to 'yes', you'll need to specify which sounds to use, via the two following parameters.

OverSound
Specifies the path (if necessary) and name of the Sun/NeXT format (.au) audio file to be played when the mouse passes over a menu entry. The location of the file is treated exactly as a URL: you might enter only a filename (if the file is in the current directory), a relative location (such as ../sounds/daftsound.au) or an absolute location (such as http://www.server.com/folder/subfolder/daftsound.au). See the note about Using Sounds, below.

ClickSound
Specifies the path (if necessary) and name of the audio file to be played when a menu entry is clicked. The same details apply to this parameter as apply to OverSound, of course. See the note about Using Sounds, below.

NOTE - Using Sounds: HotStrip Professional is forgiving in its sound-support. If you set the Sound parameter to 'yes', and then forget to include one or both of the parameters above (or forget to upload the audio files!), HotStrip Pro will continue quite happily (but silently). This means that if you choose to sound for only one of the two actions, you can simply remove the other parameter.

DefaultTarget
When using any menu applet you need to be able to choose different frame names for each link. This normally means that for every entry on the menu you need a URL and a Target parameter. However you'll want most of these links to open in one particular frame, meaning that almost all of those Target parameters would be identical. The DefaultTarget parameter gives you a way to leave out all those identical Target parameters. Simply enter the name of the frame or window into which most (or all) of the links should open; this frame-name will then be used by default for any link that doesn't have its own Target parameter.

This parameter's own default value is _top, so if you leave this parameter out, any URL that doesn't have a corresponding Target parameter will use _top.

HighlightedEntry
The usual way of using HotStrip Pro is to place it in a small frame at the top or bottom of your screen to open pages into the remaining large frame. As your index.htm (or whatever) creates these two frames and places HotStrip Pro in one, you can use this parameter to select an entry that should be highlighted initially to indicate which document is open in that large frame. The value for this parameter is a number from 0 to infinity. If you set it to a number corresponding with one of your entries, that entry will start selected; setting it to either 0 or to a number higher than the number of entries on your menu ensures that no entry will be highlighted on startup. The default value for this parameter is 0, meaning that no entry is initially highlighted.

If the entry you select to be initially highlighted would require the menu to be scrolled to make it visible, HotStrip will handle that scrolling itself to bring the selected entry into view on startup.

If you use Spytracking, it's simplest to leave this parameter out or set its value to 0. This way, the page that opens in the main frame will set the correct entry as highlighted on the menu.

Location
You have two options here - top or bottom - according to where you're intending to put the applet. Choose top if it'll be placed in the top frame of your browser window, and choose bottom if it's going to be in the bottom frame. All the hard work is done for you - the arrowheads will point upwards if you select bottom, and everything will be aligned with the top of the applet, and vice versa if you select top. The default setting for this parameter is bottom. The value isn't case-sensitive.

UnlockOnExit
Two choices again, yes or no, and once again they're not case sensitive. The default is no. In the normal use of the applet, you'll probably want the menu entry that was clicked to remain colored with LockColor until another entry is clicked, whether the mouse moves out of the applet or not, indicating which page the visitor to your site is currently looking at. But on occasions, you might prefer that the LockColor is switched off when the mouse leaves the applet - particularly if you're using two HotStrips at the top and bottom of your window. In that case, set this value to yes, and the applet will 'forget' which entry was clicked as soon as the mouse leaves the applet, and won't remember when the mouse re-enters.

UseHandCursor
A yes or no parameter that determines whether or not a typical 'web-style' hand cursor is used when the mouse moves over an entry on the menu. The default value is yes, so you need include this parameter only if you want to set it to 'no' and stick to the default pointer. This feature is applied only when an applet is running in a Java 1.1-compatible browser (Internet Explorer 4x or higher, Netscape Navigator 4.07 or higher). In other browsers, this parameter is ignored and the default pointer will be used.

TypeMessage
Another yes or no option, not case sensitive. The default is yes, meaning that the Message you enter will be displayed in the applet area, rolling along with the mouse, and painted in TypeColor. Select no for this parameter, and the messages will instead be displayed in the status-bar. Selecting no means that a HotStrip can fit into a much narrower frame, but your messages won't be as noticeable (unless you put your HotStrip in the bottom frame where the eye will probably notice the movement).

ShowBorder
Yet another yes or no parameter. When set to 'yes', a 3D border will be drawn around the menu using your chosen BgColor. The default value is 'no'.

ScrollButtonColor
If the total width of the text entries or images on your menu is wider than the applet, HotStrip Pro will add scroll buttons to either end of the applet. This parameter lets you choose the color those buttons should be. The default value is to match your chosen BgColor.

ScrollArrowColor
Similar to the parameter above, this lets you choose the color of the arrows on the scroll buttons when the mouse isn't over them. By default, these will match your TextColor.

ScrollArrowLight
Sets the color of a highlighted scroll arrow (the mouse is over it or pressing the button). The default value is to match your chosen LightColor.

ScrollSpeed
A choice of 3 settings for how fast the entries on the menu should scroll when one of the scroll buttons is clicked. The possibler values are slow, medium and fast, and none is case-sensitive. The default is medium. When a scroll button is clicked, the applet will continue scrolling in that direction until you either release the button or the final entry is reached. You might opt for 'fast' if your menu contains a great many entries, otherwise the default setting should suit most uses.

FlatScrollButtons
A yes or no parameter with a default of 'yes'. In default mode, buttons are flat (non-3D) until the mouse moves onto a button. When set to 'no', the buttons will always have a 3D appearance.

UseImages
HotStrip Professional allows you to place images on the menu instead of text. This parameter lets you specify that that's what you want to do, by taking a yes or no value. The default is no. If you do want to use images on the menu, include this parameter with a 'yes' value and enter the URLs of the images you want to use in the Entry parameters.

UseImageHighlighter
This parameter has no effect unless UseImages is set to 'yes'. Because HotStrip Pro lets you display mouse-reative images, you may prefer not to have any other distracting reactivity going on. Ordinarily, HotStrip Professional draws a rectangular box around the image under the mouse using your chosen LightColor. If you'd prefer that this didn't happen, include this parameter with a value of no. If you do want images highlighted on mouse-over, either leave out this parameter or include it with a value of yes.

UseImageSelecter
Like the parameter above, this has no effect unless UseImages is set to 'yes'. Once again, there's a choice of yes or no, with a default of 'yes'. With the default setting, a rectangle will be draw around the selected image using your chosen LockColor. If you don't want this to happen, include this parameter with a value of no.

Entry1, Entry2, . . . Entryn
This set of numbered parameters is used to specify the clickable text you want to display on the menu, or, if UseImages is set to 'yes', the URLs of the images you want to display.

DISPLAYING TEXT
Each text entry can be as long or as short as you like, but bear in mind that the length of the text determines the width of the clickable area for that entry. You can widen this area by adding hard spaces after an entry (instances of  ) giving a bigger 'target' to click on. Remember that increasing the Spacing parameter just increases the width of the non-responsive space between entries.

To prevent entries becoming prohibitively long, you can wrap them onto up to three lines. To do this, simply type the pipe symbol (|) wherever you want a line break to appear. For example:

DISPLAYING IMAGES
With UseImages set to 'yes', these parameters are used to specify the absolute or relative URLs of the images to be displayed. Your images should be identical in width and height. If you use GIF images with transparency, the transparent index will be replaced by your BgColor. For more about creating and using images in HotStrip Professional, go to Using Images.

URL1, URL2, . . . URLn
The absolute or relative URL that each menu entry should link to when clicked. In fact, HotStrip can open up to four separate URLs when an entry is clicked. Therefore, along with the usual numerical addition that matches the URL parameter to its corresponding Entry number, the letters a, b, c and d are tagged onto the end. In the example parameters to the left, you can see that Entry1 links to three URLs, each of which opens in its own Target frame. There are two points to bear in mind about this. First, the URLs will be fetched one at a time (although they should appear almost simultaneous) in the abcd order. This leads to the second point: if one of those URLs will load a page over the top of the applet, the applet must stop running. Therefore, if you're trying to load 4 pages, using all four URL parameters, and your URL2b parameter is the one that loads over the applet, the URL2c and URL2d links won't work - the applet stops running before it can process the requests!

As an aid to testing, you can prefix your URLs with a dollar sign ($). You can then click the applet without error messages appearing or being linked elsewhere.

Target1, Target2, . . . Targetn
Allows you to specify a frame- or window-name into which each of the URL links should be opened. Once again, the number after 'Target' corresponds with an Entry number, and the a,b,c,d additions correspond with the URL parameters. If a URL parameter exists and has no corresponding Target parameter, the target used will be the DefaultTarget.

Remember that frame names are case-sensitive. If you're trying to make something open in a frame and your browser persists in opening a new window for it instead, check that the case and spelling of the name match in the Target parameter and in your HTML <frameset> tag.

Message1, Message2, . . . Messagen
A message to display in the browser's status-bar or in the applet area itself (depending on your setting of the TypeMessage parameter) when the mouse passes over the correspondingly-numbered Entry. If you don't include this parameter for a particular Entry, the message will default to the words Link to followed by the corresponding URL, showing where that entry links to. If you'd prefer that nothing appears in the status-bar at all, include the parameter with nothing between the double-quotes (for example, <param name=Message6 value="">).

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