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Read It Later 0.99 Released

Sort By Quality with PostRank

Read It Later is a great tool for saving things to read later, but now it’s great for helping you actually READ those pages too!  By sorting your list by PostRank (from AideRss), you can quickly find what’s worth a read and start with your best content first.

Google Reader Integration

If you use Google Reader to manage your RSS feeds, you’ll now find the familiar Read It Later checkmark right next to the Google Reader star.  You can now save directly to your reading list from Google Reader!

Customize Read It Later

Now you can take full advantage of all the features of Read It Later without the UI bloat.  Almost all of Read It Later’s components can be hidden and/or customized to your liking.  You can use all of the provided elements or even run Read It Later from a single 10x10 icon in the location bar. New Appearance Options:
  • Choose between two list views (Normal and Condensed)
  • Open Read It Later in the sidebar
  • Select how many items to show per page
  • Use a scrollable list instead of a paged reading list
  • Enable/Disable Read It Later context menus and additional toolbar buttons

Updated Online Access

Read It Later isn’t just for Firefox anymore.  You can manage your list online at readitlaterlist.com and use the provided bookmarklets to maintain Read It Later’s core functionality regardless of the browser you have.  So if you have Firefox at home, Internet Explorer at work and an Iphone in between, you won’t have any problem keeping your list up to date.

Privacy Controls

It’s your data.  It’s that simple.  You can now delete individual items from Read It Later’s online storage or even wipe your entire account.  And of course if you don’t want any of your list saved online you can still disable the online access and Read It Later will only save locally. Additionally, you may now password protect your RSS feed to ensure privacy while still taking advantage of the online features.

Improved Existing Features

Syncing

A new syncing system has been implemented to provide stability and ensure your list stays up to date no matter how many computers you have.  Updated sync options and setup gives you easier control over your sync setup.

Offline Mode

You can now have Read It Later automatically save an offline copy of every page you add to your list.  And the new Offline Cache Manager will allow you to control/view what has been saved.

Additional Updates

  • Firefox 3.1b compatibility
  • Full Ubuntu support
  • Option to control how ‘click-to-save’ checkmarks appear
  • Option to hide the plaintext password inside the sync settings
  • Ability to select a Read It Later folder in the Bookmarks Toolbar
  • Improved foriegn characters support
  • Read It Later button can be ctrl/shift/middle clicked with the same behavior standard Firefox links
  • Option to close the current tab when saving a page

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Read It Later Wins Mozilla’s Extend Firefox Competition


On August 2nd 2007, just over a year ago, I walked through a little tutorial on how to make a Firefox Extension.  It was that night I started working on an idea of mine, Read It Later.

I ‘released’ Read It Later a few days later on the 6th.  I say ‘released’ because all I did was send it to a few friends and put an entry for it on my website, which was getting about 6 hits a day.

I had never expected Read It Later to reach even 1/4 of what it has.  It was created to help me keep track of articles that I wanted to read but couldn’t while I was at work.  However, during fall of last year, Lifehacker, MakeUseOf, and DownloadSquad picked up on the add-on.

Since then Read It Later’s user base as been growing strong.

But during this past year, I’ve learned one very important thing about application development: listen to your users.  Luckily, my users talk a LOT.  I mean there are over 700 comments on the Read It Later project page.  There are so many it’s almost unmanageable (working on a new solution for this, look out in Sept).  You guys have provided some amazing feedback and suggestions and without it, Read It Later would be nothing.

The first version of Read It Later was two (obscenely large) buttons with limited functionality and control.  Over the past year I worked hard with users to make it better.  Because of all of the user feedback and suggestions, I was able to release Read It Later for Firefox 3, which was a huge improvement from the original version.   I’m honored today that Mozilla Labs has awarded Read It Later as a Best Updated Add-on in the Extend Firefox 3 Competition.

So this is thanks to all of you who have emailed me, left comments, submitted translations, answered questions, beta tested, and worked with me one on one resolving bugs.  Read It Later couldn’t have done it without you!

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Another Batch of Read It Later Updates!

Make a Suggestion!

As you can see (by the users listed below who made each implemented suggestion), I take user suggestions very seriously. If you have an idea on how to improve Read It Later (big or small), please let me know!

The Big Ones:

Online Access - Manage your list online, in any browser or mobile device.  In Safari, Internet Explorer, or an iPhone.  Click the ‘Access Anywhere’ link at the top of your reading list for more. Search - The tag dropdown has been replaced with a search-as-you-type field.  It will search through the titles, urls, and tags of the items in your Reading List. Suggested By: Zeke, Praveen Auto-Syncing - For those of you who forgot to sync your reading list before heading home after work, now you won’t have to.  If you are using sync, Read It Later will automatically sync your list in the background after starting up and every few hours afterwards. Suggested By: bds, James, Rob, How to Geek

More Options to Customize Read It Later:

Improved Options screen - The options dialog got a revamp and brings better organization to your preferences. Unread Items Counter - View the number of items in your reading list. Suggested By: the non hacker, rayphua Auto Mark as Read - You can now set Read It Later to mark pages as read after opening them. Suggested By: Wayne, the non hacker, Sergio Santos Auto Tags - Set custom tags to be added to every page you save. Suggested By: Raydancer, Ken Click to Save Button - An optional button can be added to your status bar to activate Click to Save Mode without a keyboard shortcut. Suggested By: Wayne, Todd Custom Keyboard Shortcuts - You can now customize your keyboard shortcuts to any combo you like, not just ALT. Suggested By: Mike Harris

The Small Stuff:

Read Offline Improvements - When you are offline, items that have not been saved for offline viewing will appear dimmed out. Suggested By: Praveen Empty Titles - Pages without titles will be replaced with their url. Suggested By: Dan Gale Rosen More Languages - With help of the translation team (made up entirely of Read It Later users), Read It Later is continuing to be localized in more and more languages.  Want to help?

Where to Get This Version (0.9810)

Get Read It Later!

What’s Next?

Read It Later will officially be striped of it’s Beta suffix after one more big set of updates.  I’m very excited for what I’ve got planned in the coming update, it will take Read It Later full circle.

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Layer XUL Elements/Images/Backgrounds in Firefox 3 Extensions Using Stack

While working on the Read It Later Firefox Extension, I wanted a way to layer multiple background images on a toolbar button so I could create a nice looking notification indicator like on the iPhone. (Note I opt-ed later to use a simpler look, but this method might still be helpful for other applications). In order to make this work you’ll need to familarize yourself with XBL and XUL Stacks.  XBL allows you to essentially reconfigure how an XUL element works/looks. In this case, we’ll use XBL to replace a normal ToolbarButton into a Stack Element. So first you’ll need your toolbarbutton added to your XUL overlay:

<toolbarbutton id=”tButton” type=”menu-button” />
Next we need to create the XBL Binding (complete the tutorial linked about XBL if you don’t know what XBL is): 
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<bindings xmlns="http://www.mozilla.org/xbl"
 xmlns:xbl="http://www.mozilla.org/xbl"
 xmlns:xul="http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul">

<binding id="toolbarbutton"
 display="xul:menu"
 extends="chrome://global/content/bindings/button.xml#menu-button-base">

<resources>
  <stylesheet src="chrome://global/skin/toolbarbutton.css" />
</resources>

<content>
  <xul:toolbarbutton
   class="buttonstack"
   anonid="button"
   flex="1"
   allowevents="true"
   xbl:inherits="disabled,crop,image,label,accesskey,command,align,
   dir,pack,orient,toolbarmode,buttonstyle,status,notifyNumber" />
  </content>
</binding>

<binding id="buttonstack">
  <content>
    <children>
      <xul:stack
       align="center"
       pack="center"
       xbl:inherits="allowevents">

      <xul:image src="chrome://urextension/skin/buttonimage.png" />

      <xul:image src="chrome://urextension/skin/number_circle.png" />

      <xul:label value="" xbl:inherits="value=notifyNumber,allowevents" />

      </xul:stack>
    </children>
  </content>
</binding>

</bindings>
What we have here is 3 layers.  The first is the main button icon (for example with the iphone button it’d be the rounded blue envelope button.  The second is the image that’s behind the number (for example the red circle on the iphone button). And the last layer is the actual number you are using to show the notication of (in the iPhone’s case, it’s 3). You will need to apply left/top attributes to the second and third layers to position the numbered circle where you’d like it.  Follow the Stack tutorial (linked above) for more information about positioning the elements inside of a stack. To change the number in the notification, simply change the attribute ‘notifyNumber’ on your toolbar button.
document.getElementById(‘tButton’).setAttribute(‘notifyNumber’, 3);
If you look at the XBL code, make note of where ‘notifyNumber’ is inherited.  This is how XBL knows to send the attribute down the chain.  You can make the attribute anything or add other attributes as well. Finally, you need to apply the bindings to your toolbar button. In your stylesheet add the following lines: 
#tButton {
-moz-binding: url("chrome://urextension/content/yourxblfile.xml#toolbarbutton");
}
.buttonstack {
-moz-binding: url("chrome://urextension/content/yourxblfile.xml#buttonstack");
}

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Replace Standard Menupop in XUL

I came across a time I needed to open a different element then a standard popup menu when clicking the dropdown selector on a toolbar button. I wanted to open a panel instead. To open a different element and hide the popup you can do something similar to this:

<toolbarbutton type=”menu-button”> <menupopup onpopupshowing=”OpenOtherFunction();event.stopPropagation();return false;” /> </toolbarbutton>
Update: You can do this much more efficiently using XBL Bindings.  I highly recommend reading up on them. Where I learned it: While working on the Read It Later Firefox Extension
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Read It Later for Firefox 3 Released!

The new version of Read It Later with Firefox 3 support is now available! Read It Later has been completely revamped and hosts a whole new bundle of features including built-in RSS feeds, syncing, offline reading, tagging, multi-language support and more. You can read all about the new features and get a fresh copy on Read It Later’s project page. Here is the original demo updated to show the new improvements.

Most Importantly: Thank YOU!

The newest version of Read It Later is all thanks to you.  The feedback I’ve received has been nothing short of phenomenal.  Almost of the new features have come directly from the comments and emails I’ve received from the community.  It would not be what it is without you, so keep it up!

Special Thanks to Those Who Helped Beta Test and Translate

The new version of Read It Later has support for multiple languages (with some more I haven’t added into the install yet).  The translations were done generously by Read It Later users from around the globe.  What can I say, Read It Later users are simply awesome. Thanks to the translators:
Thanks to the Beta Testers:

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How To Disable ‘will not be installed because it does not provide secure updates’ Warning in Firefox 3

By default, Firefox 3 prevents users from installing any extensions that do not offer a secure connection for automatic updates.  This prevents users from being victims of hijacked update URLs. But for developers or people installing extensions they know they can trust, it is a pain. Luckily it is easily disabled by:

  1. Enter ‘about:config’ into address bar, hit go
  2. Right click somewhere in the list of keys below.  Select New->Boolean
  3. Enter ‘  extensions.checkUpdateSecurity ’ as the name
  4. Select false as the value
  5. Reattempt installation of your plugin.
Ran into this problem when installing Extension Developer’s Extension while working on Read It Later. Found the solution at MozillaZine (via Google)
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Read It Later’s Future

I wanted to brief everyone on what my plans are for the Read It Later extension as it’s now been two months since the last update. I’ve been ignoring you while I was working on Tail Report. Tail Report is happily cranking away so now it’s time for Read It Later again. The next update (0.9) will only be for Firefox 3. The bookmarking service built into Firefox has been completely revamped between FF 2 and 3. It’s great because they finally have a solid bookmark API that will make the Read It Later extension much more stable. Before I literally had to pour through thousands of lines of the Firefox source code to figure out how to make it do the simplest tasks. But this also means that Read It Later will have to be rebuilt to work on Firefox 3. This gives me the opportunity to make some decisions about which features will carry over, which won’t, and what new features will be added.

So I’m asking you dudes and dudines for two things:

1. Suggestions - If you have any suggestions on features you wish it had, now is the time to voice them. If you see a suggestion from someone in the comments and you like it, second it. 2. What You Like Now - In addition to telling me what you want, tell me what you like about it the way it is now. I want to know what features people are using.

One more thing:

I also wanted to gauge how you feel about the current method of storing/retrieving your list. Are you happy with the way it is working now? Do you prefer having the list stored locally on your computer or would you like a way to access it online? I originally tried to keep things simple without requiring you to sign up for another service but perhaps you are interested in having your list hosted with an RSS feed.

Timeline

The timeline for this new release hasn’t been decided upon yet. I’m still waiting to see how things are shaping up with the official release of Firefox 3 out of Beta. But I promise you this update is coming and hopefully soon.
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Get Rid of Those Dotted Lines Around Links in Firefox

I just always assumed that these were a fact of life with Firefox. They are meant to give an idea to the user where their focus is if they are using the keyboard to get around the page. But when you use text-indent to do image swaps for navigation elements the dotted lines shoot off into infinity on the left side of your screen. Found an easy solution from Nathan Smith via Google: 

a:active {

 outline: none;

}
Check out his article for more information on how best to remove Firefox dotted links.

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Read It Later: Major Release

Well I wasn’t planning on doing this until January, but did so many people requested updates. So I’ll get to it, here’s what’s new in version 0.80:

Hotkey to Add Links (R + click)

Instead of having to right click a link, and then select ‘Read This Link Later’ from the context menu, you can now simply hold down the R-key and click the link. Doing so will add the linked page to your list.

Offline Support - Read Your List Offline (experimental)

Now you can read the pages you’ve saved for later on the plane, train, or anywhere without an internet connection. To do so, select ‘Prepare List for Offline Viewing’ before disconnecting from the internet. This will save all of the pages you have on your list to your computer, and once you switch to ‘Work Offline’, the extension will grab those instead. I’ve started playing with methods for making this work. The one that is implemented in this release is far from perfect but seems to work for now. Please let me know how this works for you.

Full Recode

I recoded the plugin and it should be much more stable then previous releases. I’m hoping this will clear up a lot of the bugs that a random sample of users seemed to be receiving.

New Post-Mark-As-Read Option: Close Tab

There is a new option you can set for what action the extension takes after marking an item as read. Setting it to ‘After marking as read, close current tab’ will mean when you mark a page as read, it’ll close the tab you have the page open in. This speeds up browsing for users who open their Reading List into tabs.

Download

You can download this new version (0.80) on the Read It Later Project Page.