Designing the Toolbar Button Icons
LiveClick 0.4.0.0 Beta 2 is now available for download and with it comes a slightly-revised look for the LiveClick toolbar button. This is by no means the final design, but the button is getting closer to the functionality I originally envisioned.
It should surprise no one that I like multi-functional interfaces. That’s why LiveClick was created so many years ago. The new toolbar button, introduced in LiveClick 0.4.0.0, already serves several purposes. Click the button directly and LiveClick will search for new Live Bookmark items; click the dropdown and you can select a common task, like suspending automatic checks or marking all Live Bookmarks as read.
But I always intended the icon itself to be just as multipurpose. When LiveClick is checking for new items—either automatically or from a manual request—the icon changes from its normal appearance 
to an activity indicator (throbber): 
. This gives you a visual cue that LiveClick is working in the background. Before LiveClick 0.4.0.0, there was no way to know why Firefox was reacting slowly or locking up. Now you’ll see when Live Bookmarks are updating and you can stop or suspend the checks, if necessary.
If you used 0.4.0.0 Beta 1, you’ll notice I changed the animation of the throbber. The previous animation used the button’s normal appearance as one of its four frames, which was a poor design choice. If Firefox locked up during a Live Bookmarks update and the animation froze on that particular frame, you wouldn’t know for sure if LiveClick was working in the background. The current animation avoids this. For what it’s worth, I call the new animation “Siren”; the previous one was called “Sonar.”
Additionally, the icon now reflects the status of automatic checking. If turned on, the button appears as normal. If suspended, the icon takes on a new look: 
. Now you can easily see if Live Bookmarks are set to update automatically or if you’ve forgotten to turn automatic checking back on. A future version of LiveClick may also use the icon to indicate that new items are available.
The actual images are subject to change. If you’re good with graphics design and you think you can give the icon a better look, let me know! I welcome any suggestions for improvements.
You can add the new toolbar button by clicking View > Toolbars > Customize… (or Firefox > Customize > Toolbar Layout…) and dragging the LiveClick icon to any spot on your navigation or bookmarks toolbar. I suspect some users of LiveClick 0.4.0.0 didn’t even know there was a new toolbar button. Should LiveClick automatically add the button to your navigation toolbar upon installing?
Update: the LiveClick toolbar icons and throbber are currently 
Posted on Aug 24 2010 at 11:54 AM
Next entry: Debugging LiveClick 0.4.0.0
Previous entry: Open Beta: LiveClick 0.4.0.0
I figured out the behavior that led to that problem, but honestly can’t explain it. Some Live Bookmarks are given expiration times way in the future (14 days, usually). The native service apparently knew to check those regularly; LiveClick’s new checker waited for them to expire as scheduled. I have no idea why Firefox does that, but to get around it, LiveClick Beta 2 now looks for unlikely expiration times and recalculates them.
I appreciate your thoughts and your help. Thanks a lot!
Posted by protejohnny on 08/25 at 12:17 PM
I don’t if I did sth wrong but it doesnt seem to turn my new feeds orange, nor does it fade out the read ones in Firefox 4 Beta 4. Did I do sth wrong?
Posted by WD.DN on 09/04 at 08:41 AM
Hey the new icon is great, but doesn’t display in the more recent firefox 4 betas. I’m using 4.0b4, and this is what it looks like:
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/2844601/Screen shot 2010-09-07 at 15.51.58.jpg
Just so you know for the next update. Oh, and will there be any chance of a setting to update feeds at different intervals?
Posted by was on 09/07 at 08:56 AM
Was, is that Mac or just your theme? On the regular FF4b4 the button looks fine.
Posted by cyruz on 09/07 at 11:24 AM
It’s the default mac theme. But actually with the newest mac beta (FF4b6) the button displays properly again, so no change required.
Posted by Was on 09/07 at 11:28 AM
minor feature request. could you implement something like stay-open menu’s option to automatically close a menu after a middle-click a certain number of milliseconds after the mouse moves off it? seems like a logical time-saving development of LC’s livemark menu options.
Posted by Was on 09/12 at 12:57 PM
My feeds with new items also aren’t turning orange, and the feeds with all read items aren’t turning grey (both options are selected). I’m also not getting the fave icon as the feed icon. It shows up on individual items, just not on the list of my live bookmarks.
LiveClick 0.4.0.0 Beta 2, Firefox/3.6.10
Posted by eccentrica on 09/20 at 10:04 AM
I do get the orange items, however one dynamic bookmark inside a folder in the bookmarks bar didn’t turn gray (faded out) even though all 6 (of 6 total) items inside had been clicked on manually. The menu had ‘Mark all items as read’ available even though all items in it were read. Clicking it solved the problem though visually nothing happened. Apart from that, everything’s working as it should.
0.4.0.0b2, Firefox 4.0b6
Posted by cyruz on 09/20 at 10:48 AM
I like the icon changes. Pretty smart. I’ll be sure to drop you another comment if I can come up with possible design improvements.
Thanks for the second beta. I’ll test it thoroughly. Do you have any idea why the automatic check often didn’t work with the previous beta? It only worked once the Check was initiated manually.
Keep up the good work!
Posted by cyruz on 08/24 at 01:07 PM