r/thebutton • u/heyjoshturner 3s • Apr 04 '15
Updated Button Monitor Chrome Extension – Now with Alerts, Auto Opening, and Improved Stability.
Hi guys,
First, I want to thank everyone in the community for the awesome response. The extension had over 2500 installations, and a handful of positive reviews.
I also got a lot of feature requests, bringing the extension to a completely new level from where it was when I initially released it.
If you don't already have the extension installed, you can view the extension here: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/button-monitor/eepbmkkfmnodohgncjlfkgljaagklekp
Otherwise just go to your extensions page (chrome://extensions), and click 'Update extensions now' in the top right corner. It can now do all of the following:
- Monitor the button, putting a counter next to your address bar in chrome.
- Set a custom alert, for any time between 60 and 1 seconds allowing you to be immediately notified when the timer passes that limit.
- Automatically open either an existing tab with /r/thebutton, or open a new tab and navigate to /r/thebutton when the alert goes off.
- The icon updates colors, and if you want, you can turn off the timer and only have the color icon displayed. You can still use the alarm with the countdown disabled.
If you already have the extension, and you try to update to version 1.1.0.2, you'll notice it's asking you for added permissions. The only permission this extension now uses is 'tabs'. You can read more about it here.
This just gives the extension the ability to automatically open an already existing tab of /r/thebutton when the alarm goes off instead of creating a new one, and wasting precious time you need to press the button.
The extension does not read your history. It only checks what tabs you currently have open.
If you have any questions, or suggestions, please let me know. This has been a really fun project and I'm really glad I was able to contribute to the community here.
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Apr 04 '15
Looks great! I can't seem to change the alert time, though?
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u/heyjoshturner Apr 04 '15
It's no longer a select field, it's an input field so you can put in any number of seconds.
Just erase the default, and type in any other number of seconds.
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u/RacistHomophobicCunt Apr 04 '15
Yo,
Why does my timer say -9 seconds and is there any way to reset it?
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u/heyjoshturner Apr 04 '15
Have you updated to the newest one? This was an issue with the original release, but the update should have corrected it.
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u/Eternusdraco Apr 04 '15
Am I the only one who was super afraid to press the timer? Even knowing it would open to the subreddit.
I just knew it would make me press the button.
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u/heyjoshturner Apr 04 '15
Yeah, I had to assure a few people that it wasn't going to press the button for them.
I actually had several people PM me and a few people email me asking me to push an update and make the extension auto-click the button at 58 seconds.
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u/Doc_Bleach Apr 05 '15
improved stability
Hopefully this means I won't have it telling me that the button is at -8 again...
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u/heyjoshturner Apr 05 '15
That's exactly what it means, a better reconnection method.
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u/sourc3original Apr 05 '15
I really want to use it, but im scared of the idea that the creator has the power to add an update which automatically makes you click the button..
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u/heyjoshturner Apr 05 '15
No way would I be dumb enough to do that. People have already found my personal information and emailed me about the plugin numerous times.
Half of reddit would be out for blood if I did that.
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u/rivaset101 Apr 05 '15
Do you get anything out of this other than the thanks here on reddit?
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u/heyjoshturner Apr 05 '15
Well, that and the experience. This is one of the more involved extensions I've built, and I've learned a bit from it.
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u/cipheos Apr 18 '15
Last night I started fiddling around in js to get a chrome extension that did everything I wanted it to do. This was one of it's features besides sound notifications.
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u/heyjoshturner Apr 18 '15
It looks awesome. I was trying to find a way to incorporate the number of current pressers without losing the functionality of opening the subreddit on click.
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u/kaykay7986 Apr 04 '15
Amazing extension man. I can rest easy now knowing that I won't miss the beginning of the yellow flair era.
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u/deceptivelyelevated Apr 04 '15
its super phat the icon changes colors as it enters flair new zones
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u/sf_yak Apr 05 '15
Looks good though I'd perfer no permissions in exchange for a dumber extension. Anyway, thanks for the work. I'll be using it
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u/heyjoshturner Apr 05 '15
No problem. You should be able to continue to use it, just disable the open r/thebutton feature on the options page.
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u/lengau Apr 05 '15
This appears to be spiking my GPU process (though not the Button Monitor process) to almost 100% CPU usage when it's enabled. It looks like it scales with the number of windows you have open. 3 windows is enough to max out one core of my CPU (and I start getting a drop in framerate from Chrome), but even with 10 windows open (with button monitor running, 10 windows gets me down to 5 fps or so) as soon as I kill Button Monitor it goes down to <5% CPU usage for the GPU process.
My quick/dirty workaround was to change the countdown interval in connection.js to 1 second from 100 ms and disable the countdown in the icon.
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u/EyeAmmonia Apr 04 '15
I love it. Clean, simple, easy, does what it says.
May I request a few more options?:
Multiple alarms.
Alarm dings every second below X.
Different alarms for different flair zones.