Breaking News Alert Banner

WHAT IT DOES

Breaking News Alert Banner scans web pages for indicators of breaking news—keywords like "BREAKING," "JUST IN," "URGENT," "FLASH," and high-impact phrasing in headlines. When detected, the script displays a prominent, dismissible banner at the top or bottom of the page featuring the breaking news headline, a timestamp, and a clickable link to the full article. The banner includes a subtle pulsing animation and, if enabled, an audio beep to draw your attention immediately. A desktop notification is also sent via GM_notification, ensuring you never miss important updates even if you're not looking at the page. The banner is automatically dismissed after a configurable timeout, and you can dismiss it manually at any time.

WHERE IT RUNS

This script operates as a userscript within the BotGentz extension on any webpage that contains news content, including news sites, social media feeds, and aggregators. It functions on any modern browser that supports the BotGentz extension, including Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari, and Opera. The script runs entirely client-side, scanning the page's DOM without sending any information to external servers. It works across all domains and adapts to different site structures automatically.

HOW TO USE

After installation, the script automatically monitors the page for breaking news indicators. When breaking news is detected, a banner appears at the top of the page with the headline, timestamp, and a "Read more" link. Click the link to open the full article in a new tab. Click the "✕ Dismiss" button to dismiss the banner immediately, or wait for the auto-dismiss timer to expire. The banner will not reappear for the same alert unless the page is reloaded or a new breaking news event is detected. Open the panel to customize the banner position, color, auto-dismiss timeout, sensitivity level, keywords, and toggle sound and notification settings. Use the "Scan for Breaking News" button in the panel to manually trigger a scan.

THE MECHANISM THAT MAKES IT WORK

The script uses a multi-stage detection algorithm that scans headline elements (h1-h4 and common headline classes) for breaking news keywords. Each detected headline receives a score based on the number of keyword matches, with additional weighting for exclamation marks and all-caps text. The sensitivity setting adjusts the minimum number of keyword matches required to trigger an alert. When a candidate is found, the script identifies the associated article link by traversing the DOM upward to find a parent anchor or by searching for links within the headline container. The script uses a persistent alert store (GM_setValue) to remember that an alert has been triggered, preventing duplicate banners on the same page. The auto-dismiss timer uses setInterval to update a countdown display and automatically dismisses the banner when time expires. The audio alert uses the Web Audio API to generate two-tone beeps, ensuring compatibility without requiring external sound files.

THE PANEL

The script panel is built using BotGentz's BGPanel framework and provides comprehensive control over the banner's behavior. The panel opens as a floating overlay that can be dragged anywhere on your screen, with a clean dark theme matching the tool's aesthetic. It includes dropdown menus for sensitivity level (low, medium, high), banner position (top or bottom), banner color (red, amber, blue), and auto-dismiss timeout (10 seconds to 5 minutes). A text input field allows you to customize the breaking news keywords. Toggle switches enable or disable alerts, sound alerts, and desktop notifications. Action buttons allow you to scan for breaking news, dismiss the current alert, or reset all settings to defaults. The panel collapses to a small icon when not in use and expands when clicked, remaining accessible but unobtrusive. Press the Escape key at any time to close the panel.

PLEASE NOTE

This script requires the free BotGentz extension to be installed and activated in your browser. The extension is available from the official BotGentz website. The script scans for keywords in headlines and may occasionally trigger false positives on non-news content or miss breaking news that uses different phrasing. You can customize the keywords list in the panel to better match the sites you visit. The audio alert requires the Web Audio API, which is supported in all modern browsers. Desktop notifications require GM_notification permissions and may not appear if your browser or system has notification permissions disabled. The script stores alert state locally using GM_setValue to prevent duplicate notifications. No data is collected or transmitted to any third-party services.