How To Make a Bookmarklet For Your Web Application

Browser buttons (bookmarklets) are shortcuts that act like a simple browser plugin. Their advantages include:

• Fast installation: Just add a link to your bookmarks
• Convenient: Use features while on your current page
• Easy to write: Bookmarklets are just like making a webpage; there’s no need to write a whole browser plugin
• Cross-browser: The same bookmarklet can work in IE, Firefox, Opera and Safari.

Here’s a few bookmarklets I use regularly:

• Delicious buttons: Tag a webpage (useful for browsers that don’t have the delicious toolbar, like Opera and Firefox 3)
• Google translate: Translate the current page in one click
• InstaCalc Bookmarklet: Open a real-time calculator on any site

Anyone got any cool ideas for a bookmarklet they want me to build?