FBar is a small PHP script sold on ThemeForest that places a fixed bar across the top of a live site, letting visitors jump between alternate theme demos without leaving the page. It is aimed at designers and developers who publish WordPress themes, Joomla templates or static HTML templates and want a single installation to showcase several variations. The product sits in the marketplace’s miscellaneous category, costs $7, and is authored by a vendor trading under the FBar name.
Because it is a standalone PHP package rather than a WordPress plugin in the strict sense, FBar can be dropped in front of almost any templating system, which is the main reason it still attracts attention despite its age. The vendor does not disclose a sales figure, so no meaningful popularity signal can be drawn from the listing.
What FBar Actually Does and Which Capabilities Matter
The core behaviour is straightforward: a horizontal bar is injected at the top of the page, and each entry in that bar points to a different demo installation. Clicking an entry swaps the visitor into the alternate theme without a full browser navigation away from the demo environment. This is the pattern used by template shops that want a buyer to compare, say, a light and a dark variant of the same layout in a couple of clicks.
Several capabilities sit around that core function and are worth separating out, because they serve different jobs.
Responsive preview controls
The bar ships with a set of small device icons that resize the demo viewport on the fly. In practice this means a prospective buyer can check how a template behaves at tablet and phone widths without opening developer tools or resizing a desktop window. For a theme shop, that removes a common support question and shortens the evaluation loop.
Unlimited demo slots
There is no stated cap on how many theme demos can be registered in the switcher. A vendor with a large catalogue can therefore run one bar across the whole portfolio rather than maintaining a separate landing page per template. The limitation is that each demo still has to exist as a reachable URL somewhere.
Branding and identity controls
Custom logos and favicons can be uploaded, so the bar does not have to look like a generic third-party widget. Styling is handled through a style.css file, and version 1.3 of the script added a background colour option for the bar itself. Anyone comfortable with CSS can restyle it substantially; anyone who is not will be limited to the options the vendor exposes.
Social sharing and purchase actions
Share buttons for Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus are built in, along with a purchase button and an iframe-removal button. The purchase button gives a direct route from a live demo to the checkout page, which is the commercially useful part. The removal button exists to break out of any framing wrapper a demo environment might impose.
Dismissal and redirect behaviour
Visitors can close the bar, and the changelog records fixes to the close-button redirect logic across versions 1.1.1 and 1.1.2. A scroll effect was corrected in version 1.2. These are maintenance details rather than headline features, but they indicate the script was actively patched during its first year.
Where FBar Fits and Where It Does Not
The natural fit is a template author with more than one product to show. A WordPress theme developer running four or five demo sites can install FBar once and give visitors a persistent way to move between them. The same applies to a Joomla or HTML template seller, since the script is not tied to a CMS.
Agencies pitching design directions to a client also have a use case: build two or three static mockups, put FBar in front of them, and let the client toggle between options during a review meeting. It is cheaper than building a bespoke comparison interface for a single presentation.
Where FBar is the wrong choice is on a production site with a single theme. A demo bar on a live commercial site adds a persistent UI element that serves no visitor purpose, and the redirect and close logic exists precisely because that bar is otherwise intrusive. Anyone who only needs to display screenshots of theme variations should use a static gallery or a lightbox instead; the script’s value comes from switching between genuinely live installations.
It is also a poor fit for teams that need ongoing, documented support. The listing states that a support forum is “coming soon” and directs buyers to a profile contact form in the meantime, which is a thin arrangement for anything mission-critical.
Strengths and Limitations of FBar Miscellaneous
Assessed as a piece of FBar miscellaneous tooling rather than as a full application, the script has a clear, narrow profile.
Strengths
- Framework-agnostic: it works in front of WordPress, Joomla or plain HTML templates, so a vendor with a mixed catalogue needs only one copy.
- Low price point at $7, which is below the threshold where most buyers would expect a trial.
- Responsive preview icons are genuinely useful during template evaluation and save buyers a manual resize step.
- Styling is exposed through a CSS file, giving anyone with front-end skills full control over appearance.
- Documentation is described as detailed, and the vendor claims the bar can be configured without programming knowledge.
- Version 1.4, released in April 2025, added support for current PHP versions, so the codebase has not been abandoned outright.
Limitations
- Google Plus share buttons are still listed as a feature. That network shut down for consumers in 2019, so one of the three advertised social options is effectively dead and would need removing or replacing.
- The most recent release before 1.4 dates to December 2013. A gap of more than a decade between functional updates means the code has not tracked changes in browser behaviour, CSS standards or PHP deprecations in any systematic way.
- Support is a contact form rather than a ticketing system, and the promised forum does not exist yet.
- Customisation beyond colours and logo assets requires editing CSS directly; there is no visual builder or admin panel described.
- No sales count is published, so there is no way to judge how many sites currently run the script or how well it holds up across varied hosting environments.
- The listing does not state which PHP versions are supported, only that the latest is.
How FBar Compares With the Wider Category
Demo switchers and theme preview bars are a small niche. The alternatives fall into three groups: purpose-built commercial scripts sold on the same marketplaces, free JavaScript libraries that a developer wires up manually, and the built-in multi-demo tooling that some premium theme frameworks now ship with.
Against the free-library route, FBar’s advantage is packaging. A developer could assemble equivalent behaviour with a few dozen lines of JavaScript and CSS, but would then own the responsive preview logic, the close and redirect handling and the styling. At $7, the script is priced as a convenience purchase rather than a technical necessity, and that is the honest way to evaluate it.
Against framework-embedded switchers, FBar’s advantage is portability. Theme frameworks that bundle a demo switcher only help if every demo runs on that framework. FBar sits in front of anything, which matters for vendors selling across WordPress, Joomla and static HTML.
The category-wide weakness is maintenance. Any script that injects a bar into a live page has to keep pace with browser rendering, and the changelog here shows a long dormancy. Buyers comparing options should weigh that against the low price rather than assuming the 2025 update signals a renewed release cadence.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does FBar work with WordPress?
Yes, but not as a conventional plugin. FBar is a standalone PHP script that is placed in front of the site rather than installed through the WordPress plugin screen. That is what allows the same package to serve Joomla and static HTML templates. The vendor’s documentation covers the setup, and no coding is claimed to be necessary.
Can FBar show more than one theme demo at a time?
The script supports an unlimited number of demo entries in the switcher bar. Each entry needs its own reachable demo URL, so the practical ceiling is how many live demos the vendor maintains rather than any limit in the code. Visitors move between them by clicking the bar.
Is the responsive preview feature a real device emulator?
No. The device icons resize the demo viewport within the browser, which approximates how a layout behaves at smaller widths. It is a quick visual check, not an emulation of specific hardware, touch input or mobile browser quirks. For final testing, a real device or a dedicated emulator is still required.
Is FBar still maintained?
The changelog shows a long gap between December 2013 and April 2025, when version 1.4 added support for current PHP versions. That single recent release suggests the script has not been abandoned, but it does not indicate an active development schedule. Buyers should treat it as a stable, low-cost utility rather than a product with a roadmap.
Verdict on FBar Miscellaneous
FBar is worth buying for template authors who maintain several live demos and want a cheap, framework-independent way to let visitors move between them. The responsive preview icons and the direct purchase button are the features that earn their place, and $7 is a low-risk outlay for that convenience. It is not a good purchase for anyone running a single-theme production site, nor for teams that need responsive support channels, since the promised forum does not yet exist. The dead Google Plus integration and the decade-long gap in the changelog are real drawbacks that buyers should factor in rather than overlook. Treated as a small utility with a narrow job, FBar miscellaneous does that job adequately; treated as a maintained platform, it does not hold up.
