Like most people, I keep a variety of bookmarks and bookmarklets on my browser’s bookmarks toolbar. But ever since sites started associating cute little icons with their URLs, I’ve developed a kind of complicated method of managing this toolbar. You see, I’m an icon kind of a gal. My eye gravitates towards the cute picture rather than the words describing it.
The problem? Most bookmarklets don’t come with an icon. So you just get the little blank piece of paper and some practically useless words (like the “toread” bookmarklet in this image).
So here’s my multi-step process. Bookmark the website associated with the bookmarklet (in the case of my urlTea bookmarklet I bookmarked urltea.com). Then click on your new bookmark so that it gathers the proper icon from the site and looks all pretty. Meanwhile, drag the bookmarklet to the toolbar. (Ok, I know you can’t do this “meanwhile,” but it sounded good.) Now view the properties of the bookmarklet, copy the javascript in the “location” box, and then paste it into the “location” box of the now-former bookmark to the site. Now you can delete the un-beautiful bookmarklet because, well, you don’t need two bookmarklets, do you?
My last step is to enclose the names of my bookmarklets in square brackets. This way I can tell at a glance which buttons do something and which are simply bookmarks.