Leigh Brasington's Throbber Page for
Internet Explorer 5.5 & 6.0

Microsoft's Internet Explorer uses BMP strips as Throbbers - but vertical strips rather than the horizontal strips used in the old Netscape versions (Microsoft, of course, done nothing the easy way!). The best source of information on I.E. Throbbers I've found is at VirtualPlastic.net.

Because I.E. Throbbers are so small and such a hassle, I have only a couple to offer. They are only the small sized ones (26 pixels wide) - since that's all I need because I dragged my location bar to the menu line. Installation Instructions and Info on Creating IE Throbbers are below and just summarize the material from VirtualPlastic.net. To make them spin slower, I would need to duplicate each frame (1,1,2,2,etc) - that would halve their rotation speed.

Internet Explorer Throbber Installation

To install a Throbber in Internet Explorer, you have to edit the registry (Microsoft, of course, done nothing the easy way!). If you aren't comfortable doing that, ferget it! But if you are comfortable messing with the registry, first create a folder (like C:\Throb) to hold your throbber BMPs and copy the BMPS to it. Then run RegEdit and navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbar. You now need to create 4 new String Values in the right-hand pane:
  1. BigBitmap
  2. SmallBitmap
  3. BrandBitmap
  4. SmBrandBitmap
To create these, right-click in the right-hand pane, click New and String Value. Enter each of the 4 names above in 4 new String Values. Now for each of the new String values, right-click it and select Modify; change the values to look like this:
  1. BigBitmap   C:\Throb\ie.bmp
  2. SmallBitmap   C:\Throb\ie.bmp
  3. BrandBitmap   C:\Throb\iethrob.bmp
  4. SmBrandBitmap   C:\Throb\iethrob.bmp
where ie.bmp is the name of the 26 pixel wide still BMP and iethrob.bmp is the name of the 26 pixel wide BMP strip. Example:
  1. BigBitmap   C:\Throb\lotus.bmp
  2. SmallBitmap   C:\Throb\lotus.bmp
  3. BrandBitmap   C:\Throb\spiral26.bmp
  4. SmBrandBitmap   C:\Throb\spiral26.bmp

Note that if you want the still BMP to be the first frame of the iethrob.bmp DO NOT create the BigBitmap and SmallBitmap keys! If you have both 26 and 38 pixel wide BMPs, do the obvious thing with Big and Small.

Restart Internet Explorer and throb away.

Creating Internet Explorer Throbbers

Internet Explorer Throbbers are vertical BMP strips that have a width of 26 pixels (the small Throbber) or 38 (the big version). The height must be an even number times the width. Rumor has it that it has to be at least 12 times the width (not sure), so let's say it has to be something like 26x312 or 38x456. Now you have 12 squares which are the different frames of your animation. For a smooth animation, repeat every frame once. The first (upper) frame is shown when IE isn't busy or you're not connected and BigBitmap/SmallBitmap are not defined in the Registry (see above).

Internet Explorer also supports having a different non-busy image than the 1st one of the Throbber strip. BigBitmap/SmallBitmap need to be defined in the Registry (see above) to point to this BMP. This BMP should be the same size as each frame of the BMP strip (26x26 or 38x38). It seems to use the same color palette as the BMP strip, so make sure they are compatible or increase the color depth of both to 16-bit or greater.

The upper left pixel of the bitmaps determine the background color I.E. uses to fill in the area of the Throbber panel that is not filled with the image. I suspect you can create Throbbers that are wider than 26 or 38 pixels but whose frames are 26 or 38 pixels high - but I haven't tried that. This can be important if you convert a low color animated GIF to a BMP strip.

You can fairly easily convert an animated GIF to a BMP strip using the free BitStrip program. Of course you still have to fool with resizing the strip to 26 or 38 pixels wide (Microsoft, of course, done nothing the easy way!). The shareware program Paint Shop Pro is an excellent choice of image editor to manipulate these BMPs. Good Luck!

BitStrip converts animated GIFs to BMP strips
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Leigh Brasington / / Revised 04 Nov 05