Frequently Asked Questions

Here are some frequently asked questions about the Creatives Are Community Toolbar.

How do I stay up to date with new versions of the Creatives Are Community Toolbar?

That’s easy–it’s automatic. Minor updates (aka “dot releases”) are made automatically, live, as you use the Toolbar. There’s no need to re-install it, and you don’t have to restart your browser every time there’s an update.

Major new versions will be announced on the Creatives Are Community Blog, so check back every once in a while. You can also subscribe to Creatives Are Community Blog RSS feed or mailing list and get announcements delivered to you (I send fewer than 1 announcement per month on average).

Can I remove some of the buttons and/or menus I don’t use?

Absolutely! The Creatives Are Community Toolbar is customizable to your individual needs and interests. If you don’t use QuarkXPress, for instance, hide the QuarkXPress menu. Not a fan sharing links via StumbleUpon? Hide it’s button. You can even hide the menu labels, leaving just icons. You’ll find easy instructions for customizing the Toolbar to suit your needs on the Customizing Your Toolbar page.

How often is menu content refreshed?

It depends on the menu and the content. Some, like the application menus–Photoshop, InDesign & InCopy, Illustrator, PDF & Acrobat, and QuarkXPress–update every hour with the latest tutorials, news, reviews, and articles. The headlines on the Resources, Freelancing, Inspiration, and Typography menus also update hourly, as do the job and RFQ listings in the lower section of the Jobs menu. The Talk Live submenus of the Community menu, however, update their content every 15 minutes or more frequently so that you can find and join in design discussion in real-time.

Why do some Website link menu items have icons while others don’t?

The Creatives Are Community Toolbar displays favicons for third-party Websites such as those included on the Typography > Typography Websites menu and several other menus. Although I’ve done my best to find favicons for every site listed on those menus, I wasn’t able to find favicons for them all. Some Websites don’t have favicons at all, while others put them in non-standard places that I haven’t yet found. By default the Creatives Are Community Toolbar looks for favicon.ico in the root of the Websites’s domain–e.g. http://domain.com/favicon.ico. Some sites have put their favicon.ico files in subdirectories (for example: http://domain.com/images/favicon.ico), which I’ve found and used in many current menu items.

You can help fill in favicons for menu items that don’t have them.

The easiest way is to contact the publisher of a particular site and ask her to please add a favicon.ico in the root of her site’s domain. Doing so will instantly update the Creatives Are Community Toolbar to show that favicon as the Toolbar is already looking for favicon.ico at that location.

Alternatively, if you know the correct URL to a particular site’s favicon.ico, please use the Submit a Resource form. Include the site’s name, the correct menu location on the Creatives Are Community Toolbar, and the full (absolute) URL to the site’s favicon.ico. I’ll then update the toolbar menu item to reflect that change as soon as I can.

Can I install the Creatives Are Community Toolbar in Safari?

Unfortunately Safari, the fastest, sleekest browser on Mac and Windows, doesn’t do toolbars–ours or anyone’s. Hopefully one day Apple will get around to building toolbar support into Safari.

Can I install the Creatives Are Community Toolbar in Opera?

Unfortunately the Opera browser, while pretty darn cool in many ways, doesn’t allow the installation of toolbars. Hopefully it will some day.

In what Mozilla products can I use the Creatives Are Community Toolbar?

The Creatives Are Community Toolbar can be installed into any Mozilla-based browser greater than version 1.0.1 (2009 began with everything in version 3.0x). That includes Firefox 1.0.1, 2.x, and 3.x and later; Camino 1.0.1 and later, and Flock 1 or later.

Which versions of Internet Explorer are supported by the Creatives Are Community Toolbar?

Officially the Toolbar supports Internet Explorer 6, 7, and 8 and later. I’ve successfully installed and tested it in IE 4.0, 5.0, and 5.5, though the Toolbar isn’t officially supported in those versions.