Mar 1, 2010 View Comments
How to make a Javascript Bookmarklet
There’s a niffy trick in browsers that you you execute Javascript code in the url location bar. (This is how a lot of security holes are created too!)
Try typing the below into your browser url bar:
javascript:alert('look how cool this is')
Cool, it runs javascript!
You may have noticed a lot of websites take advantage of this to enhance a service. Instapaper’s “Read Later” saves the current page and Pastefire’s “Pastefire this” saves the selected text.
To make your own, just write javascript inside a link tag as a one liner. Then just ask users to click and drag the link to the bookmark toolbar.
Here’s an example for my Next Sprocket site which will start you on a new open source task with the title and description partially filled out:
Sprocket it!
<a href="javascript:(function(){location.href='http://nextsprocket.com/tasks/new?task[title]='+encodeURIComponent(document.title)+'&task[description]=More details at '+encodeURIComponent(window.location.href)})()">Sprocket it!</a>