Biobar is a search toolbar for searching bioinformatics databases including NCBI, EBI, DDBJ, Plant, Animal and Functional data collections. At the present moment, over 20 different databases can be searched from the toolbar. The toolbar can be installed on firefox, mozilla and netscape (1.6+) browsers.
In addition to its searching capabilities, biobar also provides quick links to bioinformatics tools for sequence, structural and functional tools on the internet.
(I am the author of this program so I may be biased !).
The home page can be accessed from Biobar Mozdev Project.
The official release of biobar resides here.
The latest pre-release version (1.2PR) can be also be downloaded using the links below:
Mozilla Biobar pre-release 1.2. (Save file and point browser to this file).
Firefox Biobar pre-release 1.2. (Save file and point browser to this file).
Comments
Excellent, but...
I saw biobar a while ago and installed it on the lab's Windows XP box and it worked fine. Seeing this post, I thought I'd install it on my PowerBook G4. The install is fine, however the database selection widgets in are really big and distracting. I guess this is an issue with the default Mac Firefox theme ? Also an option to close the biobar when not in use would be good (maybe this option exists but I missed it ?)
Big widgets
Hi Greg,
I had this problem while developing this toolbar. The default settings between mozilla and firefox in the way these render XUL elements are different, with the result that what works for mozilla invariably does not work for firefox. I am working on this, and hopefully by the time version 1.2 is finally released, I should have fixed it.
As Neil pointed out, you can hide the toolbar from View -> Toolbars -> Biobar. DO you think a keyboard shortcut would be useful ?
Jawahar
Doh!
I should have figured out the View->Toolbars menu option. That will teach me to hack systems I know next to nothing about at 4am in the morning :)
I suspected that the issue was due to XUL rendering differences between Mozilla and Firefox. I had a quick look at the Biobar XUL files but my knowledge of XUL is close to Zero :(
I agree that a keyboard shortcut to toggle the display of the Biobar would be ideal. Also the ability to add new search engines without hacking the XPI package would be good. Nonetheless, I really like the concept, keep up the great work and let us know when 1.2 is final.
Large widgets fixed !
Thanks for the comments. Fixing the width of the toolbar was simpler than I thought. There is a long shortcut for turning off the toolbar, which goes like Alt-V-T-J :-). But that is the default, I should get a toolbar on-off shortcut soon. As for the ability to add custom search engines is concerned, that might take the next release !
widgets
It is on the big side - I think this is a Firefox theme issue. I'm fond of Orbit Grey at the moment, though that is quite large, widget-wise. We don't all have 19" LCDs...
Firfox themes here.
You can turn off the bar from View-->Toolbars, main menu.
Great tool
I like this. I installed it - it just worked, off I went. Unlike the previous Firefox PubMed plugin, which I installed, but saw...nothing at all. Perhaps that latter one isn't for latest versions of Firefox?