mems / bookmarklets-context-menu

This extension is available for Firefox (via AMO)

Why use Bookmarklets context menu

Current browsers' implementations of bookmarklets are broken: bookmarklet are executed as author's script, but should be executed as user's scripts (with higher pivileges).

To circumvent this restrictions, the extension Bookmarklets context menu create a context menu with all bookmarklets available from user's bookmarks and executed it on demand as content script. This allow access to a secured isolated environement, with higher privileges than author's scripts (allow to copy to clipboard without require user intialized event, cross domain fetch).

If the page block the context menu, you can use the browser action of context menu:

Why current browsers' implementations of bookmarklets are broken?

consider users over authors over implementors over specifiers over theoretical purity.

— HTML Design Principles

With current implementation, bookmarklet usage is restricted because bookmarklets are not executed as privileged scripts, but as author's script. That means bookmarklet are subject to security measures like CSP and CORS which make it difficulte to use or impossible in some cases.

This no more the cas with Chrome and Firefox (see bug 1267027, Intent to implement, bug 1406278, bug 1478037), but CSP still applied on subressources

See also Wiki pages

Limitations of this extension

This doesn't fix broken implementations. It's just an alternative.

• work well on Firefox Desktop, untested on Chrome and any other browser that support WebExtension API
• Edge don't support bookmarks WebExtension API
• options UI looks ugly, see 1275287 - Implement chrome_style in options V2 API.
• CSP still applied to subresources (like scripts, styles, medias, etc.). That means with a super strict CSP default-src 'none', you can't use any additional scripts, styles nor medias.

Permissions required by the extension

The following permissions are used by the extension:

• bookmarks: read the bookmark tree to get all bookmarklets
• contextMenus: create context menus based on bookmarklets founded in bookmarks
• activeTab: execute bookmarklet script in the active tab
• clipboardWrite and clipboardRead: allow to use document.execCommand('cut'/'copy'/'paste') in bookmarklets
• storage: store some preferences like "flat context menu"
• <all_urls>: allow bookmarklets to perform fetch() or XMLHttpRequest without crossdomain limitations

How to write a bookmarklet

It's not recommended to use external resources. External resources are affected by CSP.

If the result of the bookmarklet is other than undefined (void 0), it will be used as HTML source of a new document opened in the same tab: javascript:"<span style='text-decoration:underline'>Underlined text</span>"

An example of a bookmarklet that copy the document's title (document.title):

javascript:(s=>{let%20d=document,l=e=>{d.removeEventListener("copy",l);e.preventDefault();e.clipboardData.setData("text/plain",s);};if(d.activeElement.tagName=="IFRAME"){let%20s=d.createElement("span");s.tabIndex=-1;s.style.position="fixed";d.body.appendChild(s);s.focus();s.remove()}d.addEventListener("copy",l);d.execCommand("copy");a.focus()})(document.title)

An example of a bookmarklet that copy the page as Markdown link:

javascript:{let%20e=document,t=e.URL,a=[e.title].concat(Array.from(e.querySelectorAll("h1,h2")),t).reduce((e,t)=>e||t.textContent&&t.textContent.trim().replace(/\s+/g,"%20")||t.trim(),""),n=(e,t,a="&%23x",n=";")=>e.replace(t,e=>a+e.charCodeAt(0).toString(16).padStart(2,"0")+n),r=n(t,/[()"]/g,"%25",""),l=e.contentType.startsWith("image/"),[,i="Untitled"]=/\/([^/.]+$|[^/]+(?=\.[^.]*$))/g.exec(new%20URL(t).pathname)||[];i+="."+e.contentType.split("/")[1].split("+")[0];let%20c=o=>{let%20p=o.clipboardData,d=p.setData.bind(p);e.removeEventListener("copy",c),o.preventDefault(),p.clearData(),d("text/x-moz-url",t),d("text/uri-list",t),d("text/html",l?`<img%20src="${r}"%20alt="${n(i,/["&<>]/g)}">`:`<a%20href="${r}">${n(a,/[&<>]/g)}</a>`),d("text/plain",l||a!==t?(l?"!":"")+"["+(l?i:a).replace(/[\\<>\[\]]/g,"\\$&")+"]("+r+")":r)};if(["IFRAME","FRAME"].includes(e.activeElement.tagName)){let%20t=e.createElement("span");t.tabIndex=-1,t.setAttribute("aria-hidden","true"),t.style.position="fixed",e.documentElement.appendChild(t),t.focus(),t.remove()}e.addEventListener("copy",c),e.execCommand("copy")}void(0)

If you get the following error Bookmarklet error: SecurityError: The operation is insecure., that means you use document.write(potentiallyUnsafeHTML), when you should use wrappedJSObject.document.write(potentiallyUnsafeHTML) instead. It's related to content script (privilegied) context vs page context.

Note: It's impossible for the extension to catch asynchronous errors (in listener, setTimeout, etc.) even with a global error handler. You must use a try...catch block in your asynchronous functions. Alternatively you can use the add-ons debug mode about:debugging

If you need document.execCommand(), be sure there is no element in / iframe focused:

// execCommand will not been executed if a frame or an iframe is focused
if(["IFRAME","FRAME"].includes(document.activeElement.tagName)){
	let focusable = document.createElement("span");
	focusable.tabIndex = -1;// focusable
	focusable.setAttribute("aria-hidden", "true");// will not be announced by AT
	focusable.style.position = "fixed";
	document.documentElement.appendChild(focusable);// don't use doc.body because in case of frame the body is the frameset and execCommand will not work
	focusable.focus();// force focus, but will not scroll into view, because it have fixed position
	focusable.remove();// remove focus, without force to scroll into view to an other element
}
let listener = event => {
	document.removeEventListener("copy", listener);// one time listener
	// Do whaterver you want. Exemple: in copy event, use event.clipboardData
};
document.addEventListener("copy", listener);
document.execCommand("copy");// will dispatch copy event

See also:

• Bookmarkleter
• Bookmarklet - Wikipedia
• Create Bookmarklets - The Right Way