Freeware Friday: Technorati Magical Sheep Bookmarklet for Firefox

Making Technorati tags irritating? Drag this to your bookmarks.

Though I’m fairly technically savvy I’ve been a rotten script student. Oh, one time I had programming down pretty cold. These days, as a confirmed end-user, I learn as much as I have to to get by.

One thing is Technorati tags. Simple looking enough, but even though I can hand-code HTML, I have to understand what I’m coding. And typing all those greater-thans, less-thans, and remember the rel attribute contribute to errors almost every time.

Not long ago I stumbled on the Magical Sheep Bookmarklet (for Firefox only–IE hates long favelets), and was quite amazed. This is a string of javascript that acts like a link. Dropping it on your bookmarks bar creates a one-step, grab-it-and-go way of generating a line of Technorati tags (including multi-word tags) that make it as easy as typing a few words, then copying and pasting.

Once installed as a bookmark, the bookmarklet is activated just like clicking the link. When this happens, a sheet with an entry box unfurls. Just type your line of terms, separated by commas, and click “OK”. The sheet disappears to be quickly replace by another with CSS-agreeable code, with the code in the box already highlighted for copying/cutting; one does so, then dismisses the sheet.

For instance, for this, if I type the terms “Magical Sheep, bookmarklet, Technorati Tags, HTML” into the bookmarklet, I get returned the following:


<span class="technoratitag">Technorati Tags:
<a href="http://www.technorati.com/tags/
Magical+Sheep" rel="tag">
Magical Sheep</a>,
<a href="http://www.technorati.com/tags/
bookmarklet" rel="tag">
bookmarklet</a>,
<a href="http://www.technorati.com/tags/
Technorati+Tags" rel="tag">
Technorati Tags</a>,
<a href="http://www.technorati.com/tags/
HTML" rel="tag">
HTML</a>
</span>


It even comes complete with a class spec, for quick’n'easy CSS styling.

I find this useful because someone else does the coding, it’s CSS compliant, and all I do is cut and paste–and when your blog is Blogger, you have to do some of this yourself.

Get it and get tagging. It’s available here, at the “A Consuming Experience” blog, which has a lot of tutorial wisdom. Find the link that reads “Technorati Magical Sheep Bookmarklet—Baaaaaaa!“, drag it to your Firefox toolbar, and save yourself a step.