Post to Twitter without API & OAuth integration

I often find myself battling with OAuth and the Twitter API when I have a requirement to post to twitter from an external site or web app. So using basic jQuery I have found a simple to use solution which also avoids all of the usual user steps needed when authenticating with Twitter.

<textarea id="tweetstatus" rows="4" cols="50">
Write something...
</textarea>
<a href="" class="tweet">Tweet</a>

<script type="text/javascript">
$("a.tweet").live("click", function() {
        var tweetStatus = $('textarea#tweetstatus').val();
        var encodedTweet = htmlEscape(encodeURI(tweetStatus)+ "");
        var shareURL = "&url=http://www.example.com"
        var fullURL = 'http://twitter.com/share?text=' + encodedTweet + shareURL;

        $(this).attr("href", fullURL)

        function htmlEscape(str) {
                return String(str)
                        .replace(/#/g, '%23')
        }
        return true;
})
</script>

This simple methods simply updated the href of the share button with the contents of the textarea and then posts to Twitter using the twitter.com/…URL.

There are 4 variable to consider: tweetStatus = The value of the textarea encodedTweet = The URL encoded ‘tweetStatus’ (an additioanl function ‘htmlEscape’ is required to encode #HashTags) shareURL = Any link you wish to share in addition to your status update fullURL = The fully encoded URL

This give the user a simple, real time experience of updating there Twitter status without the hastle of verifying new apps.

Please comment if you have any better alternatives or improvements.