Trackbacks as bookmarks
I regularily use several different computers, and moving bookmarks between these is sort of a hassle. Or rather, it was sort of a hassle, now I'm using Movable Type to organize my bookmarks. Inspired by this entry on A Whole Lotta Nothing, I created two small bookmarklets that will send a Category TrackBack to my blog.
How?
The first thing you need to do, is to create a category where you wish to store your bookmark and enable category trackbacks for that category. Movable type will give you a trackback URL to use, that may look similar to this: http://www.example.com/cgi-bin/mt-tb.cgi/131. If you wish to password protect category trackbacks, please do that at this stage. I've personally opted to .
The next thing you need to do is to download the bookmarklets, either in zip format or as a Javascript file. Install either or both of them according to the instructions in the file.
The last thing we need to do is to make Movable Type display your results somewhere. The Movable Type documentation has all the relevant stuff. Here in this blog, you will find my last twenty bookmarks under the "On Roll" header in the sidebar. My template for doing this is real simple:
<ul>
<MTPings category="Bookmarks" lastn="20">
<li><a href="<$MTPingURL$>"><$MTPingTitle$></a></li>
</MTPings>
</ul>That's it, really. Enjoy, and feel free to ask if anything's unclear or doesn't work.
Update: The bookmarklet does not work with Microsoft Internet Explorer. Use a Mozilla browser or Opera.
Update: The bookmarklets have been updated. They are now compatible with MSIE, and are available here.
Comments
Comment from VIncent on 2003-05-22 17:52
Ok, I’m retarded. I created the category, and put the trackback URL in the code.. but what do I do with it now? There’s no instructions on installing it in the file. I tried opening it in a browser, and rightclicking it from my webserver and I just get an error. I was expecting some sort of “Add this bookmarklet” link like in the MT bookmarklet menu. This will be very very cool to use on my new nolagay site revamp. :)
Comment from Vincent on 2003-05-22 18:04
Also, the zip file is empty.
Comment from Arve on 2003-05-22 18:08
I presume you downloaded either the zip file, or the javascript file?
In that file there are two lines starting with javascript:, you should use your browser’s “Add bookmark” function and add use one of these lines as the bookmark address - having substituted the {Your TrackBack URL here} with the actual trackback URL for your category.
Comment from Arve on 2003-05-22 18:16
And oh, I just discovered that the bookmarklet won’t work with MSIE.
Comment from VIncent on 2003-05-26 04:01
After a few tries I got this to work. But I keep getting this:
This XML file does not appear to have any style information associated with it. The document tree is shown below.
<response>
<error>0</error>
</response>
Comment from Arve on 2003-05-26 09:56
This is the perfectly standard response to indicate that a TrackBack has been successfully received.
This is covered in the TrackBack specification.
Comment from john on 2003-05-28 06:26
Very nice, thank you for this. Took me 2 minutes to install and an hour to figure out how to make it place better with the SimpleComments plugin, which was insisting on including these category pings in my Recent Thoughts section, which I did not want it to do. Ended up adding a hidden input variable on the bookmarklet for the ping excerpt and then within my template built a conditional to not show any trackback pings with that excerpt in my Recent Thoughts section. Not ideal but it’s better than what it was doing which was duplicating my links entered via the bookmarklet.
Again, thank you.
Comment from Egil on 2003-05-31 11:27
Thank’s for this greate blog!
I try to get this “TrackBacks as bookmarks” to work out, but I get an error-message:
Not Found
The requested URL /egil/{http://www.skalltje.net/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1} was not found on this server.
I assume that the URL /egil/ is not correct?
Comment from Arve on 2003-05-31 13:02
The value of the tburl should be an absolute URL, starting with http.
or if you selected to use a password to protect pinging that category
Comment from drew on 2003-06-06 16:43
totally awesome! i finally have a real use for trackbacks. set up within minutes and added it to my site…
thanks!!
Comment from Vin on 2003-08-01 16:05
This MTPings thingy doesnt work with the Individual/Monthy archive pages, where as it works with category pages. They simply do not show up the list in those pages.
Any clue and fix to this wd be greatly appreciated.
Comment from Vin on 2003-08-01 16:07
Sorry it was basically
Indi/Category archives: doesn’t show up.
Monthly archives : shows up.
Let me know
Comment from Arve on 2003-08-01 16:19
This is a consequence of how MT works. Any trackback tag within a category archive or individual entry gets the context of that category or entry.
Myself, I’ve solved this by only having the bookmarks on the main index page, which works fine for my needs. If you still want them on the whole site, you could take a look at the GlobalListings plugin
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