I find the flashing / blinking build status balls to be somewhat distracting. To quote ESR on the related subject of blinking text:

Blinking text makes it nearly impossible to pay attention to anything else on the page. It reduces 87% of all surfers to a helpless state of fixated brain-lock, much like that of a rabbit caught in the headlights of an oncoming semi. This is not good. If you abuse the blink tag, you deserve to be shot. Clue: if you use the blink tag, you're abusing it.

I have modified the build status balls to animate using a more subtle “glow”. I have written a plugin to support this, but I thought I’d first offer it up as a modification to the trunk.

Here’s a comparison of the current versus proposed graphics:

Current
Proposed

I’ve issued a github pull request that updates raw SVGs, support scripts, and compiled gifs/pngs. The pull request eliminates the requirement for having inkscape to build the status balls. It also adjusts the balls to fix a minor horizontal misalignment.

I also have prepared modifications to the greenballs-plugin to be consistent with this change, should it be accepted.