Web Slices

Web Slices was introduced by Microsoft in Internet Explorer 8. News, stock quotes, sports scores, exchange rates or any portion of a page that updates regularly is a reasonable candidate to become a Web Slice.

Users add a Web Slice to their Favorites Bar and it allows users to connect to content within a webpage on a website. At the time of writing Web Slices only works on Internet Explorer 8 Beta and Firefox 3. You would have to add non-standard code to your webpage for users to access it.

If you've correctly implemented a Web Slice in your webpage, a special icon will appear when hovering the element in Internet Explorer 8. This means that the user must use his mouse to hunt for these elements or find it through the feed button on the command button. Once the element is found, the user clicks on the icon. A pop-up dialog will prompt the user if he wants to add this Web Slice to the IE Favorite Bar.

iFrames

iFrames also allows users to connect to content directly within a webpage on your website. The <iframe> tag is supported in all major browsers.

Add an iFrame Slice to your webpage

Adding an iFrame Slice to your webpage is easy to do. The iFrame code is as follows:

<a title="Drag and drop this link to create an iFrame slice in your browser" href="hello.htm"><img border="0" src="Images/budsmall.gif" ></a><br>
<iframe name="I1" src="hello.htm" width="450" height="220" border="1" frameborder="1" scrolling="yes" >
<p>Your browser does not support iframes.</p>
</iframe>

The iframe ("hello.htm") should display in your webpage as follows:

An example iFrame Slice
<p>Your browser does not support iframes.</p>

The icon contains the link to the page ("hello.htm") and can be dragged and dropped on the user's browser or on a Bud feed folder to create the link.

The end user simply drags the icon and drop it on the Favorites panel to add the iFrame Slice to Internet Explorer. This is much simpler than adding a Web Slice to Internet Explorer 8!

If the user has Bud, the icon can be dropped on a RSS Feed folder and the refresh time can be set. If you are developing iFrames Slices just for Bud, we recommend that the width of the feed page (in this case, hello.htm) be a maximum of 320 pixels which is the default display width of Bud.

With Bud you can have multiple feed pages (RSS Feeds, html feeds and iFrame Slices) visible docked in Bud on the right hand side of the desktop. You can also un-dock the folders and place it anywhere on the desktop.

The bottom line:

iFrame Slices are easier to create,
are easier for users to add in their browsers and
are supported on more browsers than Web Slices.

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