Active Toolbar - Resources
What is an Active Toolbar?
An Active Toolbar contains button links that run tiny JavaScript (aka ECMAScript or JScript) scripts. These scripts can do various things. The most useful scripts retrieve highlighted text, or the current URL, from your browser and pass that on to another web site such as a search engine.
Netscape Navigator allows you to designate one folder in your bookmarks to be the Personal Toolbar Folder. You simply place these special JavaScript hyperlinks in the Personal Toolbar Folder of your bookmarks file. You add them to the bookmarks in the normal way: either by dragging the hyperlink to the toolbar, right clicking on the hyperlink and selecting "Add Bookmark for Link", or manually adding the hyperlink in the bookmark editor.
Internet Explorer allows you drag these JavaScript hyperlinks to the "Links" toolbar from the browser window or Favorites menu.
Why is this useful?
It allows you to quickly and easily search for terms, keywords, and short phrases within any web resource! You are no longer bound by the hyperlinks that the author has provided. Every scrap of text within a document instantly becomes the hyperlink of your choice!
How do I use it?
It depends on the script that the button runs. Those scripts which retrieve text from the browser have two modes: there is highlighted text or there is no highlighted text.
Highlighted Text
When highlighted text is found the script passes that text to some other site, such as a search engine.
No Highlighted Text
When no text selection is found a dialog box may appear prompting you for a word or phrase.
Alternatively, the script could pass the current URL to some other web site. The latter behavior would be useful for something such as Babelfish where you may supply a URL or short phrase for translation into another language. If no text is selected within the document then Babelfish would translate the entire document.
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Select Text
Choose Link
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Where can I find Scripts?
The best place to get these types of scripts is Bookmarklets.com. Bookmarklets has a page to help you generate your own custom scripts! There are also many "stock" scripts available.
Examples
I have provided below excerpts from my Netscape bookmarks file.
- Note
- These examples may only work with Netscape Navigator 4.x! Please see Bookmarklets.com for browser independant scripts.
Personal Toolbar Folder
Search
- Search The Web
- Google
- Search Google for the selected text
News
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- CNN Search
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- Wired Search
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- ABC News Search
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- CNET News
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Images
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- Icon Bank
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- WebSeek Video
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- Photo.NET
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- AV Photo Finder
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- Sunsite Image Finder
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- Lycos Pictures
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- YAHOO Pictures
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- Google Linux
- Search Google Linux for the selected text
- Google MacOS
- Search Google MacOS for the selected text
- Google US Gov
- Search Google US Gov for the selected text
- Google Scout
- Scout Google for similar sites.
- Yahoo
- QRZ
- Lookup in the QRZ Callsign database
Words
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- Dictionary
- Thesaurus
- Encyclopaedia
- Lookup in Encyclopaedia Britannica
Relative
- Rhyming Words
- Similar Meaning
- Similar Spelling
- Similar Pronounciation
- Similar Sound
- Same Consonants
- Related Meaning
- In Phrases
- In Pictures
- Defined
Multilingual
- Multilingual lookup
- English (Allwords)
- Allwords English lookup
- Spanish (Allwords)
- Spanish Allwords lookup
- German (Allwords)
- German Allwords lookup
- French (Allwords)
- French Allwords lookup
- Italian (Allwords)
- Italian Allwords lookup
- Dutch (Allwords)
- Dutch Allwords lookup
- Thesaurus, Roget's
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- Phrase Finder
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- Dictionary, English
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- Thesaurus, English
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- Cliche Finder
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- Webster's (UCSD)
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- Acronym/Abbreviation
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- American Literature
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- Technical Encyclopedia
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- Quran
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- KJV Bible
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Translate
- Translate Documents or Text
- Spanish to English
- German to English
- French to English
- Italian to English
- Portugese to English
- Russian to English
- English to Spanish
- English to German
- English to French
- Translate using Babelfish
- English to Italian
- English to Portugese
Convert
- Conversion Calculations
Temp
- F to C
- C to F
Length
- Length
- Inch to Millimeter
- Millimeter to Inch
- Inch to Centimeter
- Centimeter to Inch
- Yard to Meter
- Meter to Yard
- Mile to Kilometer
- Kilometer to Mile
Volume
- Ounce to Milliliter
- Milliliter to Ounce
- Pint to Liter
- Liter to Pint
- Quart to Liter
- Liter to Quart
- Gallon to Liter
- Liter to Gallon
Weight
- Ounce to Gram
- Gram to Ounce
- Pound to Kilogram
- Kilogram to Pound
- US Ton to Metric Ton
- Metric Ton to US Ton
Area
- Square Feet to Meters
- Square Meters to Feet
- Square Miles to Kilometers
- Square Kilometers to Miles
- Square Acres to Hectares
- Square Hectares to Acres
Parts
- Parts Lookup
- NTE Semiconductor
- NTE Semiconductor Cross
- NTE Relay
- NTE Relay Cross
- NTE Flyback
- NTE Flyback Transformer Cross
Help
- Bookmarklets Help
- Help with Bookmarklets
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- Search Tools
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- Turn This Page into a Bookmarklet
- Makes the current search URL a bookmarklet
- About Bookmarklets
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[ SWISH ]
[ Simple Search ]
[ Trunk Calc ]