Little RSS-style buttons

[ktinkel]

I ran across a discussion entitled Steal These Buttons on the Antipixel web log (sort of paradoxical as his buttons are png/gif — i.e., pixels) and thought it might interest others here.

The blogger’s buttons are free for the taking (and he offers the Photoshop files as well so you can roll your own).

But the comments include or link to several other small-button offerings, many of them HTML/CSS.

There are also critiques of some of the other buttons used on web sites, including the W3C validation HTML and CSS buttons.

Anyway, for what it’s worth.

[iamback]

Originally Posted by ktinkel

I ran across a discussion entitled Steal These Buttons on the Antipixel web log (sort of paradoxical as his buttons are png/gif — i.e., pixels) and thought it might interest others here.

I have a whole collection of this stuff, mostly bookmarks. There's even sites that will generate them for you ... if only I could remember where I stashed away those bookmarks ;( - one is pretty good, I'll post it when I find it.

Currently my modem is having fits and I have to restart it every few minutes or so.. so it may be a while. I think it's having a heat stroke.

[ktinkel]

Originally Posted by iamback

I have a whole collection of this stuff, mostly bookmarks. There's even sites that will generate them for you ... if only I could remember where I stashed away those bookmarlks ;( - one is pretty good, Ill post it when I find it.

Currently my modem is having fits and I have to restart it every few minutes or so.. so it may be a while. I think it's having a heat stroke.

The URLs would be handy.

Sorry about your modem. Is it hot there today? (It is below 60 °F here today, and breezy — my kind of weather, especially precious as it is not going to last!).

[iamback]

Originally Posted by ktinkel

The URLs would be handy.

Sorry about your modem. Is it hot there today? (It is below 60 °F here today, and breezy — my kind of weather, especially precious as it is not going to last!).

It was up to 30C here, slightly cooling now. (And a heat wave predicted for this week, which means 5+ days at or over 30C, which I like.) Could be the heat is crippling the modem but it's aging, too. I have a "floorware" new modem but am not looking forward to installing it now.

I googled around to find the button generator site back we (Wikka team) played with a while ago - and found it! It's described here: 80×15 Brilliant Button Maker - all proper open source and all; the actual application is here: Brilliant Button Maker by LucaZappa.com and it really is brilliant! You can even incorporate images, great for putting in a logo. We saw others, but this one was really the best we tried. Very flexible, and addictive.

More to create:

• Button Maker by Adam Kalsey: nice simple interface, no image upload though
• Button Maker Online (beta): another button maker, supports different sizes, and has a nice color picker - but no image upload (I just found this one)
• Silkscreen: the best font to use to create your own micro buttons, free for personal and corporate use
• W3C buttons without images: nice, but they do have some drawbacks - not all browsers can porperly handle these
• CSS Technique: Inline Buttons (2.0): another approach to the same idea

More to steal:

• Raging Platypus: blog post; the actual stealable buttons are on the home page
• Steal These Buttons, Too
• Joe Grossberg: Steal These Buttons Too
• Steal these Buttons: A huge, categorized collection (menu on the left - or use the search)

So that's my collection of bookmarks for now. Enough?
I have some "stolen" buttons, too, of course - just used some on my new (bilingual) "personal page", in fact.

[Edit: attached a sample button I created with that brilliant button maker - we haven't decided whether to use one like this though.]

[ktinkel]

Originally Posted by iamback

So that's my collection of bookmarks for now. Enough?

Oh, probably. For now.

I like this button format because it is so compact and — while visible and obviously button-like — so unobtrusive.

But when we first started seeing those, they were mostly for off-site links, RSS, that sort of thing. Now I see them everywhere, and I wonder if that is useful (or intended, if there is an intender anywhere).

::

[iamback]

Originally Posted by ktinkel

I like this button format because it is so compact and — while visible and obviously button-like — so unobtrusive.

That's why I like them, too.

Originally Posted by ktinkel

But when we first started seeing those, they were mostly for off-site links, RSS, that sort of thing. Now I see them everywhere, and I wonder if that is useful (or intended, if there is an intender anywhere).

I'm sure the user is an "intender" - and the "steal these buttons" idea certainly was intended to spread, which it did, quite successfully. Only partly because they pack-and-stack so nicely, I think: they're kind of fun, it's exciting to see how much variety (or consistency) there can be in such a small format, and how small something can be and still immediately recognizable.

On my travel blog I have some of these buttons, too, as well as some other link buttons. I intend to go to using the small size only, and just float them so they'll "pack" automatically in a sidebar box. That's another thing you can't do reliably with the "old format" buttons since their actual size tends to vary quite a bit (which in its turn was caused by a lot of ad-filtering software filtering exclusively on size...). I don't know whether ad filters filter on the new 80x15 size now - but for many blogs (which is where this started and where you find most of them) that would be counter-productive as they're part of how the blogosphere is interconnected: most of these aren't ads!

I think this format is here to stay for quite a while. It's practically become a de facto standard by now.

(Grrrr. My modem seems to be dying... just when I really can't afford to be without a connection.)

[iamback]

Originally Posted by ktinkel

Anyway, for what it’s worth.

BTW, why is this in Print Design and Layout and not Web Design and Layout?

[ktinkel]

Originally Posted by iamback

BTW, why is this in Print Design and Layout and not Web Design and Layout?

Brain burp. All better now.

[iamback]

Originally Posted by ktinkel

Brain burp.

You don't have a heat stroke, do you? <duck/>