Sorting Favorites -- old material removed from Favorites / Bookmarks

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Sorting Bookmarks or Favorites, and Sorted Menus

Ignore this section on sorting favorites, as you can now permanently sort IE Favorites, see Arrangement (sorting) of Favorites above.

Bookmarks (Netscape), and Favorites (Internet Explorer)

The information in this topic has nothing to do with Excel, but relates to sorting and printing of bookmarks.

Printing Bookmarks.  Any of your Netscape bookmark files can be printed as they are HTML files (i.e. Bookmark.htm).  Your single IE Favorites must be exported to an HTML file first using Export from the file menu of Internet Explorer -- be very careful to rename the file so you do not wipe out your real Netscape bookmarks.

Display of the URL in a Hyperlink such as from a column of bookmarks can be done with a User Defined Function such as URL function on my Build Table of Contents page which has lots of information on hyperlinks.

Bookmarks:  Netscape 3 versions provide for sorting bookmarks.  Later versions of Netscape (4 and up) and Internet Explorer do not allow permanent sorting of bookmarks alphabetically.  In order to sort files properly (folders first) a space in inserted in front of each heading (directory) and then they can be sorted with Netscape 3.7.

Ever since IE came out neither Netscape nor IE can sort the bookmarks nicely.  But if you have an old Netscape version (version 3) you can sort the bookmarks very nicely after a little preparation.  If working from IE export the favorites as described earlier.  Edit a copy of Netscape bookmark file (in case you mess things up).  Each folder (heading item) should begin with a single space so they sort ahead of individual bookmarks in the topic.  You can use a Tilde after the space for folders you want at the very top.  Using an old «Netscape 3.7« version you can sort the bookmarks.  Check out the results, and rename your old bookmarks and new bookmarks.  If they were IE5 you can delete your old favorites and Import the new bookmark file into your favorites.  Working with over 800 bookmarks is not fun in the current versions of Netscape and IE5.  update: IE6 on Win98 still did not sort favorites.  IE6 on Win2000 automatically sorts favorites and does it properly with the folders first; nevertheless, you cannot export them as a sorted bookmark file.

The bookmarks file uses dictionary list (<dl>,<dt>,><dd>) the bookmark wizard mentioned below inserts heading levels and does not have bookmark things like last time used indicators.

IE did something to mess this up quite a bit.  In the imported bookmarks some of the folders are repeated later and not sorted or mixed in with the riff-raff uncategorized bookmarks.  Solution: delete all of the IE bookmarks then reimport the sorted favorite bookmarks.  2001-04-25.  When you have 616 directories, subdirectories, and urls working with favorites is not pleasant at all, actually it is next to impossible.  In Netscape I had 1723 directories, subdirectories, and urls and had no problem managing them and sorting them with Netscape 3.0. 

Freeware version of Download CustomMenu V4.30 Freeware Release on 10/28/2000, which provided a more friendly interface to bookmark type entries.  Not bad, if using bookmarks as bookmarks is your only use of bookmarks. http://www.yellowriversw.com/download.htm.  Available versions to process IE Favorites, and Netscape Bookmarks.

Bookmark Wizard « can be downloaded from Moon Software http://www.moonsoftware.com/ which creates a web page from your IE Favorites file.  The list is sorted with individual files above the sub-directory folders.  The opposite of the way I sort them, but they are organized unlike the Favorites. 

Current state of bookmark files:  The only decent treatment of bookmarks is from the Old Netscape that sorted bookmarks permanently, were regular HTML files that you could include descriptions of the articles, and have any number of additional (separate) bookmark files.  All of the other software to organize bookmarks and substitute for bookmarks is sheer nonsense, has large overhead by comparison, and you have no idea whether they are extracting marketing information from your usage.  The nonsensical IE Favorites list is strictly a marketing tool to place their own bookmarks in with your own, is difficult to manage, cannot be read as web page with bookmarks and descriptions, and Netscape has bought into this nonsense by no longer providing the means of permanently sorting bookmarks and also are tampering with your bookmarks by injecting their advertising bookmarks just like in IE.

More information about Internet Explorer « can be found on a separate page.  Information for Sorting Favorites can be found above on this page.


This page was introduced on June 24, 2003. 

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