If you're familiar with my work, then you'll know I'm an avid user of bookmarklets.
They can be little snippets of code, or more complex applications such as the Microformats or the Speech Bubble bookmarklets that entirely hijack the web page for a new function.
Here I'll share my experience writing bookmarklets and offer some tips for development.
How many times have you looked at a photo on the Internet and wanted to add your own commentary with a speech bubble?
Now you can, to any picture on the Internet - and you can share it with friends, or even start your own competition if you like.
Using HTML entities is the right way to ensure all the characters on your page are validated. However, often finding the right entity code requires scanning through 250 rows of characters.
If you're familiar with the del.icio.us tag search box, then you'll know it will grow with the length of the content you enter.
This is particularly useful for search boxes or tagging entry boxes, though the only downfall (I think) of del.icio.us's entry box is that it can grow to become wider than the entire page width.
Following many requests, I have upgraded the jQuery spy code to support multiple items returned from the AJAX response and custom timestamp functions - so that requests can be completely tailored.
Inspired by John Hicks microformats Safari mock, it was quickly apparent that this (or a version of this) functionality was possible through a bookmarklet.
The jQuery spy has now been superseded by the upgraded jQuery spy. Please see the upgraded jQuery spy article for details.
Yes, that's right kids, you know you love that Digg spy effect. The real time news, as it rolls in, and how cool does it look? It looks pretty cool, that's how.
Continue reading How to create a Digg-like spy with no work at all
This article offers an alternative to the laborious task of coding up which <li> or <a> navigation tags need the 'selected' class (or however you concoct the solution).
