Using Bookmarklets

Bookmarklets - sometimes known as "favelets" - are extra functions that enable the browser to do things that would normally be very complicated or time consuming.

For instance: 

• the date checker bookmarklet tells you when I last updated this page. 

• the archive bookmarklet shows you how a page looked in the past.

• the whois bookmarklet shows you who owns a domain name

• the zoom bookmarklet lets you zoom into the images on a website

There are even bookmarklets that kill those pesky floating adverts and other unwanted features of a website.

You can set these bookmarklets up as handy clickable buttons on your browser, and use them on most webpages you come across while surfing the Net. 

First you need to set up the "links bar" area where they will be displayed.

Setting up your links bar

If you have Internet Explorer, bookmarklets can be accessed via your "links bar". This is an area near the top of your browser where "favourite" web links and bookmarklets are displayed as buttons.

To display the links bar:

• Go to the "View Menu", then choose "toolbars". Make sure "links" is ticked.

• At the same time, make sure "lock the toolbars" is unticked. Clicking will tick or untick these options.

The word "links" will now be displayed on the right hand side of the address bar.

You can "click and drag" the links bar into place by positioning the mouse over the word "links", holding down the left mouse button and pulling it down below the address bar. 

You may notice that Internet Explorer comes with buttons like "Free Hotmail" and "Customize links". Unwanted buttons can be removed by "right clicking" on top of them and choosing "delete". You can change the name of any links by using "rename" from the same menu.

Now that you have established your links bar, lets put some of these bookmarklets on them.

Installing Bookmarklets

Most researchers store links to useful sites in their "favourites". Sometimes researchers will go a step further and organise their favourites into different sub-folders. 

One of the sub-folders that comes with Internet Explorer is called "links" and its contents are displayed on the "links bar".  

We should therefore save any bookmarklets we wish to use into the links folder of our favourites.

We do this by "right clicking" on the bookmarklet link (you can find these on this page). Then choose "add to favourites" from the menu that comes up.

As Bookmarklets are written in a computer language called "Javascript" the browsers sees them as "unconventional" and displays this warning:

Ordinarily we should take such warnings seriously, but none of the Bookmarklets on this site pose a security risk, so its quite safe to click on "Yes".

You should then select the "links" folder to save the Bookmarklet into (click on "create in" if you don't see the list of folders.

The Bookmarklet should now appear as a button on your links bar. 

Sometimes we can install so many Bookmarklets and links, that we run out of space on the links bar. If this happens, we can still access them by clicking on the >> angle brackets at the end of the links bar.

We can also have a problem with link titles being too long for [ractical use on a button. If this occurs, just right click on top of the button and choose rename. Pick something shorter, but concise enough to describe the link.

You can now start choosing and installing Bookmarklets from this page.

Good luck!