Signal Boost: SignalBoost✔ bookmarklet

[melannen]

astolat posted: SignalBoost bookmarklet

Okay, here is the little bookmarklet -- it's pretty limited, but it serves my own laziness, so I share it FWIW and if anyone has the time and wants to upgrade it, go for it and drop me a comment and I'll (ha ha) signal boost any new versions!

astolat shared a javascript bookmarklet that automates the (existing custom of) DW-style signalboost/linksharing! It looks like the above part of this post. I think it will be very useful for people who use Dreamwidth differently from me.

And the first comment on it was somebody hoping people would check for access lock when using it, and, well, my coding fingers were itchy (they get itchy about every six months, which is not actually often enough to build skill, sadly), and astolat gave permission to modify, so here's a modified version that automatically warns you if you're about to link to a locked DW post. (I think it would probably also work on locked LJ posts but I haven't accepted LJ TOS, so I can't test that.)

(Now I know how to make javascript bookmarklets! I hope I don't go mad with power.)

All you do is log in to DW, go to the page you want to signal boost, highlight any text you want to quote, and then click on the bookmarklet. If it's access-locked, you'll get a pop-up warning you and asking you if you want to continue. On any other webpage, it will automatically redirect to the DW posting window.

To set it up, make a new bookmark, and copy-paste the following as the URL:

javascript:void%20function(){function%20post(){var%20t=%22https://www.dreamwidth.org/update.bml%3Fevent=%22,n=window.location.href,o=e(),r=n.substr(0,n.indexOf(%22.%22));r=r.substr(r.lastIndexOf(%22/%22)+1);var%20c=document.title;c=c.substr(c.lastIndexOf(%22%20|%20%22)+3);var%20i=%22%3Cp%3E%22;i=i+'%3Cuser%20name=%22'+r+'%22%3E%20posted:%20',i=i+'%3Cstrong%3E%3Ca%20href=%22'+n+'%22%3E'+c+%22%3C/a%3E%3C/strong%3E%22,i=i,o.length%3E0%26%26(i=i+%22\n%3Cblockquote%3E%20%22+o+%22%3C/blockquote%3E%22),i+=%22%3C/p%3E%22;var%20d=%22Signal%20Boost:%20%22+c;t=t+encodeURIComponent(i)+%22%26subject=%22+encodeURIComponent(d),window.location=t}function%20e(){var%20e=%22%22;return%20window.getSelection%3Fe=window.getSelection().toString():document.selection%26%26%22Control%22!=document.selection.type%26%26(e=document.selection.createRange().text),e}var%20isMobileVersion=document.getElementsByClassName(%22access-filter%22);if(0==isMobileVersion.length)post();else{var%20check=confirm(%22Post%20is%20access-locked.%20Continue%3F%22);1==check%26%26post()}}();

(If I get around to it, I may figure out how to make it open in a new tab, too. If so I'll update this post.)

Comments

[runpunkrun]

Thanks for sharing this!

[trobadora]

Oh, that's even better, yay! Thank you. :)

[isis]

I think it will be very useful for people who use Dreamwidth differently from me.

Heh, that was my reaction, too.

[melannen]

I understand it is possible in theory to link to something without blathering about it for at least three paragraphs, but I have yet to achieve that blissful state myself. :D

[ruric]

Thanks - I am not sure that I will use it (but I am keeping a link to this post and astolat's but I do appreciate the extra level of warning! I usually manually link to posts which I find means I do check to see the post's status :) but having a bookmarklet that warns is great.

[sam_gardener]

I hardly ever post but could not resist the title: Signal Boost: Signal Boost: SignalBoost✔ bookmarklet :)

[melannen]

I was about to say "maybe the way the subject line nests will motivate people to go back to the OP and boost from there" but... this is fandom, it's going to motivate people to try to get as long a chain as they can, isn't it.

[sam_gardener]

I can't deny that was my immediate impulse.

[thenewbuzwuzz]

Great, thanks!

[mrkinch]

Very cool, but every post I've tested it on, none of which have been locked, has gotten the 'locked' popup. Is it me somehow?

[melannen]

Hmm, I just tested again, and it's only doing it for locked posts for me? If it happens for other people, they should comment.

Do you view entry pages in a custom style? It's checking for a certain html class to see if the post is locked, and that works on all the site styles, but it's possible a custom style could mess with that, maybe? (I am not a styles expert.)

[mrkinch]

Not a custom style and I disconnected from my vpn. Maybe it's some other security thing. I'll poke around. Thanks!

[melannen]

Does it do it for non-DW webpages, like a random wiki page or something?

[mrkinch]

It does not. Huh.

[melannen]

Huh. So it's not just plain failing, it's throwing false positives for only DW pages.

Try this one, it's testing for a different (and possibly more? Or less? accurate) classname:

javascript:void%20function(){function%20post(){var%20t=%22https://www.dreamwidth.org/update.bml%3Fevent=%22,n=window.location.href,o=e(),r=n.substr(0,n.indexOf(%22.%22));r=r.substr(r.lastIndexOf(%22/%22)+1);var%20c=document.title;c=c.substr(c.lastIndexOf(%22%20|%20%22)+3);var%20i=%22%3Cp%3E%22;i=i+'%3Cuser%20name=%22'+r+'%22%3E%20posted:%20',i=i+'%3Cstrong%3E%3Ca%20href=%22'+n+'%22%3E'+c+%22%3C/a%3E%3C/strong%3E%22,i=i,o.length%3E0%26%26(i=i+%22\n%3Cblockquote%3E%20%22+o+%22%3C/blockquote%3E%22),i+=%22%3C/p%3E%22;var%20d=%22Signal%20Boost:%20%22+c;t=t+encodeURIComponent(i)+%22%26subject=%22+encodeURIComponent(d),window.location=t}function%20e(){var%20e=%22%22;return%20window.getSelection%3Fe=window.getSelection().toString():document.selection%26%26%22Control%22!=document.selection.type%26%26(e=document.selection.createRange().text),e}var%20isMobileVersion=document.getElementsByClassName(%22security-protected%22);if(0==isMobileVersion.length)post();else{var%20check=confirm(%22Post%20is%20access-locked.%20Continue%3F%22);1==check%26%26post()}}();

...if that doesn't work, we may need somebody who actually knows what they're doing.

[mrkinch]

No better. Unless you hear from someone else it's probably some weird setting or security app I may or may not even remember. Thanks for your efforts. I'll keep a look out for developments.

[melannen]

huh. I have absolutely no idea why a security thing or browser setting or anything would make a difference, especially only on DW posts, because literally all it is doing is an if-else statement going "hey, is there a bit in the html that says it's a locked post? groovy." I could see a security thing blocking the pop-up, but not forcing it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Sorry!

[msilverstar]

Thank you so much for this! This version works for me (Firefox 50something), the others did not copy the selected text.

[rosefox]

I got 1105 errors when trying to use it on posts in my (ancient) custom style, but for format=light it works just fine for me.

[melannen]

Does the version I posted a couple of comments up in this thread give the error, too? (I'm trying to find out if one is better than the other.)

....although that appears to be a 'write to database' type error? This should not be writing to a database...

[rosefox]

Yes, that baffled me too!

The one you posted upthread works great. Thank you for all your work on this!

[musyc]

Oooh, interesting. I'll have to test this out. Bookmark created as "linkything" because it amuses me. XD

[finch]

Oh thank you for this!

[snickfic]

Ooh, this is extremely nifty. Also, the "check for locked post" feature will save me from accidentally linking to my filtered reading list all the time, lol.

[princessofgeeks]

OK, I'm sorry to be so clueless, but what is this for? When would I use it? Is this something to help out Tumblr users?

[melannen]

It's to help out people who do a lot of posting links to other posts.

So - sort of for Tumblr users, if they want to do that, but in a way that won't annoy DW people? But there are plenty of people who have been linkblogging on DW for a long time, and this just makes it really easy.

[princessofgeeks]

I have no trouble posting links, so is this for the people who don't know the HTML to do that?

I appreciate your explaining so much.

I guess I don't know what a bookmarklet is, basically. Thanks again.

[melannen]

That, or just to make it a lot faster.

It takes the text you highlighted and copy-pastes it into a preformatted DW post that links to the page using your highlighted text and automatically crediting the author and so on, so all you have to do is press "post", and you have a link post. (You can add more to it if you want.)

A bookmarklet is basically a thing that abuses the ability to put javascript in a URL to let you execute a tiny javascript program by clicking the bookmark - in this case, it executes a program that copies the link info to a posting window, but it can do most things that javascript can do.

I doubt I'll ever use this one because I don't do a lot of just linking to other posts, but if that was a major part of how you blog, this will speed it up a lot and take out all the annoying fiddly bits.

[princessofgeeks]

This is super helpful; thank you so much for explaining! I feel so much less confused now.

[felinejumper]

Yay! Amazing! Thank you!

[cupidsbow]

Very cool.

[marginaliana]

Excellent!

One thing that I'd love to see in a future iteration would be how to handle this if you want to boost multiple posts into the same post. Testing it in my case ended up with opening two DW post pages and having to copy/paste one into the other. Then again, that isn't really the aim of this, I suppose. It's more about the quick reblog-esque thing. Hmmm.

[melannen]

I think that might be beyond the scope of a bookmarklet - It has almost no long-term memory; I don't think it has any ability to know what you have open in any tabs other than the current one, or to "save" information between uses. (Well, you could maybe have one that puts tickyboxes on your reading list to reblog several entries from the same page of the reading list? But that would be of limited usefulness.)

/I say, pretending I actually know things about bookmarklets

You might have to jump all the way to a browser extension for that, and browser extensions are definitely beyond my scope!

[silveradept]

I suppose it would still work if someone took the corresponding thing that appeared on the Post page and then copied it into a text file, they'd be able to eventually amass a post composed of other people's excerpts? It's an extra step and an additional program, but maybe that's the simple solution?

[kore]

Thank you, I really appreciate your concern for privacy here!

[sixbeforelunch]

Awesome, thank you!

[copracat]

Thank you.

[arduinna]

Oh, awesome, thanks!

[goodbyebird]

Awesome!

[silveradept]

That's a neat thing for grabbing exactly the excerpt you want for a post!

[brithistorian]

This is awesome! I've made the bookmarklet and I'm planning to start using it ASAP!