Cross-browser bookmark/add to favorites JavaScript

Question

Is there any cross-browser bookmark/add to favorites using JavaScript.

Searched for some list but none is working. Can you please suggest any?

To be honest: if a user needs a button to bookmark the site chances are he/she does not know how bookmarks work. Users who normally use bookmarks know that you can press CTRL+D, drag the little site icon on the bookmark bar, use the menu etc etc.. I find that putting a "bookmark us!" button seems a bit *retro*, so to say. Just make a good website with contents that pushes the user to bookmark it and you won't need any button. (Just my 2¢ on this type of situations, then it's you who have to decide what buttons to put on your website!) — nico, Jun 12 '10 at 06:41
I am not putting a button in my website ! I am creating a wordpress plugin. Users who install it get a button to bookmark the current page like the "sociable" plugin — Aakash Chakravarthy, Jun 12 '10 at 10:00
I'm thinking no. Bookmarks/favorites should be under the control of the user, imagine if any site you visited could insert itself into your bookmarks with just some javascript. — bwarner, Jun 11 '10 at 17:18
I am not asking for automatic bookmarking. A button when clicked should bookmark the current page. I saw many scripts but none were cross browser support — Aakash Chakravarthy, Jun 11 '10 at 17:21
OK, so you're asking for something that prompts the user whether they want to add your site to bookmarks. That's a bit different... — bwarner, Jun 11 '10 at 17:27
Cmon, the OP is clearly NOT asking about automatic bookmarking. — Phil, Nov 21 '17 at 14:10

score 56 · Accepted Answer · edited Sep 27 '20 at 00:16

56

jQuery Version

JavaScript (modified from a script I found on someone's site - I just can't find the site again, so I can't give the person credit):

$(document).ready(function() {
  $("#bookmarkme").click(function() {
    if (window.sidebar) { // Mozilla Firefox Bookmark
      window.sidebar.addPanel(location.href,document.title,"");
    } else if(window.external) { // IE Favorite
      window.external.AddFavorite(location.href,document.title); }
    else if(window.opera && window.print) { // Opera Hotlist
      this.title=document.title;
      return true;
    }
  });
});

HTML:

<a id="bookmarkme" href="#" rel="sidebar" title="bookmark this page">Bookmark This Page</a>

IE will show an error if you don't run it off a server (it doesn't allow JavaScript bookmarks via JavaScript when viewing it as a file://...).

edited Sep 27 '20 at 00:16

jg6

318
2
12

answered Jun 11 '10 at 17:26

Gert Grenander

16,866
6
40
43

2

I wouldn't consider this 'working' - see http://stackoverflow.com/questions/992844/add-to-browser-favourites-bookmarks-from-javascript-but-for-all-browsers-mine-do/993206#993206 for details – Christoph Jun 11 '10 at 19:00
actually, the FF situation has somewhat improved since my answer because of UI changes, ie the user can now remove the option to open the link in the sidebar when adding the bookmark – Christoph Jun 11 '10 at 19:04
sorry not working for me . I get "Error on page" in IE – Aakash Chakravarthy Jun 12 '10 at 05:20
2

Doesn't this require an external js library as well? – Necrolyte2 Jun 20 '13 at 22:05
it requires jQuery Library for the $-Functions. I would ``.bookmarkme`` use instead of ``#bookmarkme`` – Benjamin Sep 20 '14 at 10:30
Mozilla sidebar has been removed. So the top 2 browsers won't work – Evan Langlois Sep 21 '15 at 06:19
Error in Chrome,Uncaught TypeError: window.external.AddFavorite is not a function – york May 04 '16 at 11:05
*"If you need a more complete script, you can always buy one from this page"* -- I almost spit my coffee on the screen reading this in 2016. Holy god. – John Weisz Nov 25 '16 at 20:58
4

This answer seems to be obsolete, any update would be welcome. – sinsedrix Dec 01 '17 at 10:53

score 13 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 27 '20 at 18:31

function bookmark(title, url) {
  if (window.sidebar) { 
    // Firefox
    window.sidebar.addPanel(title, url, '');
  } 
  else if (window.opera && window.print) 
  { 
    // Opera
    var elem = document.createElement('a');
    elem.setAttribute('href', url);
    elem.setAttribute('title', title);
    elem.setAttribute('rel', 'sidebar');
    elem.click(); //this.title=document.title;
  } 
  else if (document.all) 
  { 
    // ie
    window.external.AddFavorite(url, title);
  }
}

I used this & works great in IE, FF, Netscape. Chrome, Opera and safari do not support it!

score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 11 '10 at 19:51

How about using a drop-in solution like ShareThis or AddThis? They have similar functionality, so it's quite possible they already solved the problem.

AddThis's code has a huge if/else browser version fork for saving favorites, though, with most branches ending in prompting the user to manually add the favorite themselves, so I am thinking that no such pure JavaScript implementation exists.

Otherwise, if you only need to support IE and Firefox, you have IE's window.externalAddFavorite( ) and Mozilla's window.sidebar.addPanel( ).

Cross-browser bookmark/add to favorites JavaScript

3 Answers3

Linked

Related