Greasemonkey Script for Submitting Pages to Ping.fm

Today I put together yet another Greasemonkey script.  This script will allow you to quickly submit URLs to Ping.fm.  You’ll first need to supply your Ping.fm application key to the script.  Just right click on the little monkey and go to User Script Commands, and select Set Ping.fm App Key.  When prompted, provide your key.  Please note that the app key is stored in your Firefox browser settings.  Do not use this on a public computer, because it would be easy for someone to obtain your app key from the browser.

Each time you want to submit the current web page to your default services on Ping.fm, go to the User Script Command menu again and select Submit current page to Ping.fm.  You’ll then be prompted to edit/enter a description for the page.  It will automatically load in the page title.  If you are fine with it, click OK.  Otherwise, edit the description and then click OK.  Once the URL is submitted, you’ll get a dialog stating whether it was successfully submitted or if an error was encountered.

I’ll be submitting the app to Ping.fm for approval so that anyone can use it.  Hopefully it won’t take long for them to approve.  If you get an error that says Your API key is limited to your own Ping.fm application key while your application is in development or awaiting approval, that means my script hasn’t yet been approved.  If you’re feeling anxious and you really want to try it, visit the Ping.fm developers page and submit a bogus app so that you can get your own API key.  Then just edit my script and replace my API key (ac40b3a1d64c826f496346c03ac8af18) with your own.

If developing Firefox add-ons wasn’t such a pain (for me), I’d write it as an add-on.  I find it much quicker and easier to just whip up tools like this with Greasemonkey.  If you’re a Firefox add-on developer and you’d like to convert my script into an add-on, please contact me.  I’d be glad to promote the add-on for you here.

Install the Script

Update: The good folks at Ping.fm have approved my API key for public use, so you shouldn’t have any problems using it.  They also informed me of the Ping This! bookmarklet/hyperlink for posting pages to Ping.fm.  It does almost the same thing as my script.  However, my script does not require a confirmation and will submit the page in a single step.