Blocking skype toolbar effects on website pages
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- Natalie D.
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I use skype all the time, it has saved me i don't know how many hundreds (maybe thousands) of euros on making international calls, BUT... purely by accident, i recently came across something very annoying: I was testing the front end of a non-Joomla site I had designed (it needed a custom CMS) on a friend's computer and kept seeing all these weird flag and dial icons showing up every time a phone number appeared on the site pages. After some research i found out that these icons were showing up because my friend had installed the skype toolbar on his computer. (I hadn't seen this on mine, because i didnt have the skype toobar installed.)
The skype toolbar recognizes phone numbers and skype names that appear on a website so that you can place a skype call with a single click, but it has the annoying side effect that it automatically inserts all these weird icons around the numbers -- injecting them into the display of the website pages regardless of whether this might be desired or intended. In relation to financial or other websites, it could come across to site visitors as a phishing attempt, raising security concerns, etc. But in the case of the particular website i was building (not a financial site), the skype toolbar completely screwed up the design layout because the spacing of the columns changed. It took me ages to find a fix, but finally did come across one. You have to insert the following code into the html header:
<meta name="SKYPE_TOOLBAR" content="SKYPE_TOOLBAR_PARSER_COMPATIBLE" />
For non-Joomla sites, I now regularly insert the above as well as the following into the html header in order to block MS smarttags and automatic image toolbars:
<meta http-equiv="imagetoolbar" content="no" /> <meta name="MSSmartTagsPreventParsing" content="TRUE" />
So my question... I don't always have access to as full a testing environment as I would like... I'm wondering whether people have encountered issues with the skype toolbar on Joomla sites or whether the way Joomla sites are setup somehow already block it. Same question with respect to MS smarttags...
If the skype toolbar does in fact interfere with the display of Joomla pages, might someone with better knowledge of Joomla suggest how the code to disable the skype toolbar might be inserted into the relevant Joomla files (and which ones those might be)?
Thanks in advance for your thoughts on it...
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- GollumX
- Elite Rocketeer
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Try adding the 'meta name' ones in frontend.php around line 200
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$mainframe->appendMetaTag( 'description', $mosConfig_MetaDesc );
$mainframe->appendMetaTag( 'keywords', $mosConfig_MetaKeys );
$mainframe->addMetaTag( 'Generator', $_VERSION->PRODUCT . ' - ' . $_VERSION->COPYRIGHT);
$mainframe->addMetaTag( 'robots', 'index, follow' );
$mainframe->addMetaTag( 'SKYPE_TOOLBAR', 'SKYPE_TOOLBAR_PARSER_COMPATIBLE');
$mainframe->addMetaTag( 'MSSmartTagsPreventParsing', 'TRUE');
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Not sure about this one:Maybe just put it in the top of your template index.php file below the line that specifies which charset to use.<meta http-equiv="imagetoolbar" content="no" />
EDIT: that would be siteroot/includes/frontend.php - Last Edit: 17 years 11 months ago by GollumX.
- Say no to Internet Explorer 6.
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- Natalie D.
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- Posts: 75
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Thanks so much GollumX!!!
FYI, I was just able to test on a machine that had the Skype Toolbar installed and the toolbar DOES in fact affect the display of Joomla pages. I'll add your code above and then see if I can test on this machine again to make sure it works, but it seems like it should. Love skype, but this particular functionality strikes me as rather obnoxious.
Will report back to confirm solution.
Thanks again -
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- GollumX
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Glad to help, but don't thank me yet ... lets see if it works first. I'll certainly implement this in all my sites too if it does work.. lot's o folks in this part of the world use skype... our normal international call rates are ridiculous!
- Say no to Internet Explorer 6.
twitter.com/mark_up
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- Daniel Chapman
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I think 'obscene' is the word you are looking for Gx.
But thanks for this Natalie, this is a useful piece of info to have. -
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- Natalie D.
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- Posts: 75
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Bad news... the fix to block the skype toolbar did not take. I have no idea why. On the PC I tested it on, the skype toolbar was installed with IE 6. Unfortunately, it's a little difficult for me to regularly test on this friend's machine and I can't install the toolbar on my own computer because I'm using a Mac... :/
Thoughts anyone? Anyone out there with a PC willing to install the skype toolbar and then test for solutions? Here's a link to download if you're willing/interested: www.skype.com/intl/en/download/skypewebtoolbar/ie.html
Thanks for your thoughts...
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- Ryan Rogers
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- Skype click to call sure does effect page layouts.
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