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Bookmarklet enhancements

February 26, 2007 · 34 Comments

A gentleman named Will Klancnik was kind enough to write us with some terrific feedback on the Tumblr bookmarklet. Among other things, he suggested that the code could be shorter, and pushed us to explore copying selected text into the bookmarklet.

We love feedback like this, since it’s often just the perfect thing to spark development. It’s really easy to build neat things when we know we’re building them for our users.

A few hours later, here’s what we have to show:

  • Selecting text and clicking the bookmarklet now creates a quote.
  • The bookmarklet window is bigger, for easier text entry.
  • Posting Flickr images from the bookmarklet now properly credits the user. (Thanks to everyone who reported this)
  • Clicking the bookmarklet when the current URL is an image (like “http://davidville.com/images/logo.gif”) creates a new photo post.
  • The bookmarklet should now behave better in IE 6.
  • The bookmarklet should now be totally cross-browser compliant.

To see the changes, delete your Tumblr bookmarklet from your Bookmarks menu, and add it again from the Tumblr Publisher page.

If you have any more feedback, anything you’d like to see added, or anything you think could be easier, please write us at support@davidville.com.

Categories: Tumblr

34 responses so far ↓

  • dep // February 26, 2007 at 5:43 pm

    Is there an easier way to publish images? Like highlighting an image on the page and clicking the toolbar icon? Just like adding a quote…

    Here’s a nice little tip that I came up with and have been using… It’s a Firefox tip.

    i found it handy to go to the tumblr page where you have the icons for posting a video/picture/quote, etc…. then, i created a folder on my bookmarks toolbar called “Tumblr” — Inside that, I created a bookmark for each one.. Photo, quote, discussion, etc… and then set each one to “open in the sidebar.” so when I see a picture or whatever i want to post, i can post it without losing the webpage i’m on.

  • David // February 26, 2007 at 5:53 pm

    Hey dep,

    It turns out there was a bug in the way of posting images from the bookmarklet. It’s been fixed, so you can now right-click “View Image” in Firefox, then click the Tumblr bookmarklet to suck the photo into you tumblelog.

    Hope this helps!

  • Mike // February 26, 2007 at 9:31 pm

    Is there a way to post youtube videos directly through the bookmarklet?

  • David // February 26, 2007 at 9:35 pm

    Absolutely Mike. Just click the bookmarklet while you’re on a YouTube video page to quickly embed it on your tumblelog.

  • Mike // February 26, 2007 at 10:34 pm

    Thanks,
    You’re my hero, David.

  • dep // February 27, 2007 at 9:17 am

    awesome. thank you!!

  • Anthony // February 27, 2007 at 2:36 pm

    Yeah, this rocks.

  • David // February 27, 2007 at 4:05 pm

    So awesome to hear your feedback guys. We wanted to add:

    Download Squad was kind enough to describe our bookmarklet as “eerily intelligent”. If there’s absolutely anything you think we could add to the bookmarklet to make it smarter, please drop a comment.

    Thank you!

  • naum // February 28, 2007 at 12:44 pm

    http://azspot.net/post/11291

    I love this tumblelog deal, but here’s a short list of feature requests:

    1. Ability to resize bookmarklet window.
    2. And along with resizable windows, expandable textarea controls to fill that space.
    3. Instead of WYSIYG HTML editing, which is overkill for the little snippets posted on a tumblog would like to have the option of using Markdown (or some similar Wiki-style syntax)
    4. Code/preformatted blocks.
    5. Ability to switch users (like blogger.com) on the fly. A web of tumblelogs!
    6. Additional templates and/or more documentation on the {TemplateVariables}. For instance, is there a variable for http://azspot.net/post/11291 like there is for date variables, i.e., {ShortMonth}.
    7. Audio posts.

  • Adam // February 28, 2007 at 2:53 pm

    I just posted on my blog about this great service. I love how easy and quick it is.

    A couple of things I noticed when experimenting with the bookmarklet though:

    - if you’re on a flickr or youtube page, the bookmarklet will always detect it and force a media-type posting, EVEN IF you have text selected with the intent of making a quote post.

    - the same thing is true for common blog sites. It seems that blogspot.com makes the bookmarklet automatically choose to post a “Link”, even with text selected.

    Also, how about adding permalinks into default page themes?

  • Michael Raichelson // February 28, 2007 at 3:58 pm

    I’ll gladly second adding a way to put permalinks into templates. I’m using a lightly modified template for my Tumblr and I’d like to be able to add permalinks to regular posts at least.

    For my partial laundry list:

    * If tumblr’s pinging technorati should there be a simplified way of adding technorati tags to a post?

    * If you post a link to a media file (an image, an mp3, a video) can they be added to the RSS feed as an enclosure to sort of auto-generate a podcast/videoblog/etc. type of feed?

    * I’m sure it falls into the “template code coming later” stuff, but is there a flag to identify if a page is a listing page or a single post display page? So people can implement a 3rd-party/JS comment system on regular posts, etc.

    Some of that sounds pushy to me, which it isn’t meant to be. I’m loving Tumblr so far. :)

  • naum // February 28, 2007 at 4:38 pm

    Actually, my post answered one of my questions… …when I posted it, I entered {Permalink} in the regular post textarea and it translated to http://azspot.net address… …cool…

    I love tumblr too, but thought I’d just toss in a few tumbleweeds of desired upgrades. The two biggies being resizable window the JS bookmarklet generates (like blogger.com does it, with expanding textarea box to match) and ability to use Markdown (or some simple “Wiki”-like syntax in lieu of HTML).

  • Matt // February 28, 2007 at 4:50 pm

    I would love to be able to post by phone. I can’t wait for that.

    Also, what about an flash mp3 player, so we can post mp3s?
    and maybe a code template, like the quote template, with syntax highlighting. Just a thought.

    I love tumblr btw!

  • Library clips :: Tumblr : no frills micro blogging :: March :: 2007 // March 1, 2007 at 2:03 am

    [...] (body and Source/URL), conversation (box), and video (URL/file and caption)…there is also a bookmarklet to post about the page you are [...]

  • cboone // March 2, 2007 at 3:34 pm

    Tumblr’s fantastic. Many thanks.

    Unfortunately, I’m not having any luck using the bookmarklet to post a photo, using either Safari or Camino. I double checked to make sure I’m using the newest version of bookmarklet, but to no avail.

    Any thoughts?

  • Baba // March 2, 2007 at 9:47 pm

    I would like to see highlited text on pages like flickr or youtube to be added to the caption/description text.

    Also another thing that would be nice is a way to change the post type on the fly. When highlighting text on a web page I would most often like see it in blockquote on a regular post rather than as a quote but possibly not all of the time.

  • Nate // March 6, 2007 at 1:00 pm

    Hello. New tumblr-er, with similar question to Dep’s (Feb 26 comment). David’s reply is to “right click ‘view image’ in Firefox”, then use the bookmarklet. Is there a way to accomplish the same things with Firefox for Mac?

  • Tumblr - Personal River of News « Kiyo’s Blog // March 24, 2007 at 12:55 pm

    [...] small concern is that it copied a Flickr’s photo when I posted one using the bookmarklet. I think it’s best to implement the MetaWeblog so that I can use Flickr’s “blog [...]

  • Gerasimos // August 7, 2007 at 7:19 pm

    Nice

  • BigD // September 12, 2007 at 7:44 pm

    Hi - Loving Tumblr!

    Loving it so much, that I’ve set up a couple Tumblrs, based on subject.

    Is there a way to have a bookmarklet per Tumblr instance? I’d like to be able to click different buttons based on where I’d like to post the current page.

    Right now, the bookmarklet seems to post to the Tumblr I created most recently.

    Thanks!
    D

  • Leigh // December 15, 2007 at 10:23 am

    The link you have for the new bookmarklet gives an error page - sent a message to the error page support and to the email you give in your post, but haven’t heard back.

    I have a new computer and want my tumblr bookmarklet back! Help me….please :)

  • Leigh // December 15, 2007 at 5:05 pm

    Oh another Tumblr gave me the info - for anyone else its on the admin bar/accounts/extras

    :)

  • Mohammad Behdad // January 29, 2008 at 11:47 pm

    Thanks. A suggestion: When editing a post, we should be able to change its type (for example, a quote to a text, or a photo to a link).

  • Esau // February 19, 2008 at 2:15 am

    tags… Tags! TAGS!

  • JR // March 26, 2008 at 2:17 pm

    I second the tags request.

  • Victory or Valhalla // March 28, 2008 at 2:04 pm

    The bookmarklet should have:

    1) Tags… or something like the “show advanced options” link in the “create post” page.

    2) The ability to auto-detect (embed) tags the same way it detects images now. This way you could choose which video you want to post if a page or blog has more than one embedded video.

    Thanks!

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    [...] (which are still great for longer, text-and-links posts). The real time-saver is Tumblr’s bookmarklet, which makes capturing and preparing a new post a one-click affair. Here’s more on keeping up [...]

  • Top 10 Tools to Get Blogging Done [Lifehacker Top 10] // May 7, 2008 at 11:53 am

    [...] (which are still great for longer, text-and-links posts). The real time-saver is Tumblr’s bookmarklet, which makes capturing and preparing a new post a one-click affair. Here’s more on keeping up [...]

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    [...] (which are still great for longer, text-and-links posts). The real time-saver is Tumblr’s bookmarklet, which makes capturing and preparing a new post a one-click affair. Here’s more on keeping up [...]

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    [...] (which are still great for longer, text-and-links posts). The real time-saver is Tumblr’s bookmarklet, which makes capturing and preparing a new post a one-click affair. Here’s more on keeping up [...]

  • Extra Reading Material » Top 10 Tools for Blogger to Get Blogging Done // May 10, 2008 at 9:20 pm

    [...] (which are still great for longer, text-and-links posts). The real time-saver is Tumblr’s bookmarklet, which makes capturing and preparing a new post a one-click affair. Here’s more on keeping up [...]

  • Top 10 Tools to Get Blogging Done : : Online Marketing, Web Development, SEO and Photography // May 14, 2008 at 9:47 am

    [...] (which are still great for longer, text-and-links posts). The real time-saver is Tumblr’s bookmarklet, which makes capturing and preparing a new post a one-click affair. Here’s more on keeping up [...]

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    [...] (which are still great for longer, text-and-links posts). The real time-saver is Tumblr’s bookmarklet, which makes capturing and preparing a new post a one-click affair. Here’s more on keeping up [...]

  • Shawn // November 17, 2008 at 11:20 am

    It still doesn’t work

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