Bookmark this and/or drag it into your bookmark toolbar:

WP Toolbar

What it is

A JavaScript bookmarklet for WordPress site administrators and designers.

What it does:

Using jQuery, it appends the default WordPress admin menu to whatever page you’re currently on and styles it with CSS, fixing it to the top right corner. Assuming you’re on a site that’s running WordPress (and it’s installed in the domain’s root), you now have instant access to the entire administrative back end (sans any pages from custom plugins, etc) from the front end.

To remove the the toolbar menu, just re-click the bookmarklet, ad infinitum.

What it doesn’t do

It does not give you access to anything you wouldn’t already have. If you use it on this site, for example, you’ll still have to log in. Also, if the site doesn’t run on WP, you’ll get a whole mess of 404s.

Made using the menu from the most recent WordPress release, 2.8. Tested with FireFox and Safari on Mac. Not tested with IE or Windows. Feedback appreciated.

Updates

GreaseMonkey script (3/3/10)

Hendrik from Germany has made a GreaseMonkey script that automatically loads my WP toolbar when on a specific site. Pretty cool.
http://www.kulturbolschewismus.de/2010/03/03/wordpress-admin-toolbar/
(or translated into English)

Support for folder’d WP and some CSS/JS fixes (3/19/10)

By popular request, I have now added support for WordPress installations not in the root folder. Here’s the bookmarklet for that:

FOLDERNAME WP Toolbar

After you’ve dragged it into your bookmarks toolbar, replace the two instances of FOLDERNAME with the name of your folder. Old bookmarklets without this new variable will continue to work.

I’ve also fixed some minor CSS positioning things and made it check for jQuery before loading it… so it should look nicer and be faster!

Safari Extension (6/19/10)

Dan Schointuch of Semimagic ported my bookmarklet into a native Safari extension. Pretty cool. Read his blog post or get the source on GitHub.

Firefox Add-On (11/20/10)

There’s now a full-fledged Firefox Add-on made by Baris Derin. Thanks, Baris!