This is definitely something I've been considering, but I first wanted to see if it's even worth investing more time into it.
It would be pretty easy to allow users to create their own shortcuts and tools. A shortcut is just a url that contains special keywords, like %url%, %text%, %domain%, and a corresponding text "Search Google %text%" (%text% gets converted to a textbox). The hard part, in my opinion, is explaining this, and providing an interface for the user to make it.
Javascript snippets is a whole other world. I wanted the toolbar to be able to use any GreaseMonkey script, but there are some things I can't make the toolbar do, since it's just javascript on a document (like cross domain POST). There are a large variety of GreaseMonkey scripts that would work on it, though, and I was thinking about allowing them to be easily integrated into the toolbar.
It was fun hacking together a few HN tools, like "sort by hotness" which I use all the time now. It looks at the stories of the frontpage and sorts them by how much activity (points + comments) they've received per unit time. To find it, search "HN" in Quick Find. So, I agree, there's potential for opening it up as a platform much like GreaseMonkey.
The HN tools are neat. I would use some of them. That's similar what I had in mind. I shouldn't have to type HN though - it should have showed up automatically based on the page I am on. It doesn't find tools for news.ycomb... but you probably already know that.
I played around with Greasemonkey scripts a few years back but then abandoned them. I just looked into it again and spent 4 minutes trying to figure out how to use them on Chrome and then abandoned the search. I guess it supports it but it failed the 2 minute test for me. I even went to userscripts.org and then got even more lost. In my opinion, if you make that experience easier with your tool and show the top 5 scripts for the current URL then that would be a huge win. You could do top 5 based on how often they are clicked on.
In "Quick Find" there's a button that says "Find shortcuts related to news.ycombinator.com". When I click it, it does show HN tools. You're right though, there should be some sort of indication that there are tools available for the page you're viewing. Even better would be "most common tools/shortcuts used on this page" ... that might make you want to check the toolbar at each interesting page you view.
It would be pretty easy to allow users to create their own shortcuts and tools. A shortcut is just a url that contains special keywords, like %url%, %text%, %domain%, and a corresponding text "Search Google %text%" (%text% gets converted to a textbox). The hard part, in my opinion, is explaining this, and providing an interface for the user to make it.
Javascript snippets is a whole other world. I wanted the toolbar to be able to use any GreaseMonkey script, but there are some things I can't make the toolbar do, since it's just javascript on a document (like cross domain POST). There are a large variety of GreaseMonkey scripts that would work on it, though, and I was thinking about allowing them to be easily integrated into the toolbar.
It was fun hacking together a few HN tools, like "sort by hotness" which I use all the time now. It looks at the stories of the frontpage and sorts them by how much activity (points + comments) they've received per unit time. To find it, search "HN" in Quick Find. So, I agree, there's potential for opening it up as a platform much like GreaseMonkey.