Gimmebar bookmarklet on an iPad

Hello, my name is Richard Tape and I’m a gimmebar-oholic. Ever since I lucked into a beta invite, I’ve used gimmebar as a private inspiration den – one which helped me design this site as well as plan others that are in the pipework. At the time of writing, I think it’s still in beta, but you should head on over and put your e-mail address in the wee box to be added to their testers list.

Part of my daily routine is going through my RSS feed at night, invariably on my new toy – the iPad I was given for my 30th birthday earlier in the year. Sadly, the bookmarklet link in the gimmebar settings page needs you to ‘drag it’ to your bookmarks bar – not doable on an iPad.

I tweeted about it and the fine gimmebar folk replied saying that they were on it – great news. But I’m impatient. Very impatient. So, I set about seeing if I could get a working solution. Turns out, it was actually very easy. Which is excellent. As I’m simple. Very simple.

Enough babbling, tell me how to do it!

OK, OK, sorry. Basic process is as follows:

1. Open Safari on your iPad and visit http://gimmebar.com/ and log in
2. Visit http://pastebin.com/AE5iz4aX and copy everything in the ‘Raw paste data’ box (press and hold, select all, copy) - this is simply the javascript from the gimmebar.com bookmarklet
3. Now, visit a site – any site, doesn’t matter for now
4. Click the icon to the right of the bookmark icon (looks like a square with an arrow pointing to the right coming out of it)
5. Click “Add Bookmark”
6. Give it a name – I chose “Add to Gimmebar”
7. Press ‘Save’ (don’t worry about the URL for now)
8. Click the Bookmark icon
9. Press Edit
10. Click the new bookmark you just created “Add to Gimmebar”
11. For the URL paste in that code you copied earlier
12. Press ‘Save’

Sounds like a lot of work but it actually only takes 2 minutes. Tops. And only then if you’re drinking an old fashioned at the same time.

Then, every time you stumble across a site you want to save to your gimmebar, you can now simply click the Bookmark icon, then press your new super duper bookmark and the ever-trusty gimmebar appears at the bottom of your screen.

Bazinga! (That’s what the cool kids say, right?)

Here’s the code, for the url, just for completeness:

1

javascript:%28function%28%29%20%7Bvar%20a%3D%27setAttribute%27%3Bvar%20d%3Ddocument%3Bfunction%20o%28%29%20%7Bvar%20s2%3Bif%20%28this.readyState%20%3D%3D%3D%204%29%20%7Bs2%3Dd.createElement%28%27script%27%29%3Bs2%5Ba%5D%28%27type%27%2C%27text%2Fjavascript%27%29%3Bs2.appendChild%28d.createTextNode%28this.responseText%29%29%3Bd.body.appendChild%28s2%29%3B%7D%7Dvar%20s%3Dd.createElement%28%27script%27%29%3Bs%5Ba%5D%28%27type%27%2C%27text%2Fjavascript%27%29%3Bs%5Ba%5D%28%27src%27%2C%27https%3A%2F%2Fgimmebar.com%2Fbookmarklet%2F2%27%29%3Bd.body.appendChild%28s%29%3Bvar%20x%3Dnew%20XMLHttpRequest%28%29%3Bx.onreadystatechange%3Do%3Bx.open%28%27GET%27%2C%20%27https%3A%2F%2Fgimmebar.com%2Fbookmarklet%2Fstub%27%2C%20true%29%3Bx.send%28%27%27%29%3B%7D%29%28%29%3B