Bookmarks mess

Discussion of features in Mozilla Firefox
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Factor77
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Joined: July 25th, 2013, 9:45 am

Bookmarks mess

Post by Factor77 »

I think someone at Mozilla should do a complete redesign of the bookmarks. They're potentially powerful but now they're a mess. And I don't think it would be costly.

I've found complaints about the "recently bookmarked" folder, I agree it could be part of the mess but not the only problem nor the worse one. IMO it looks worse because of how the rest is organized. With a better management of the rest it would be useful with its current design, somewhat similar to the "most visited" folder that works perfect.

I don't use the Bookmarks toolbar myself, but if I did, for sure I'd want it to have the same exact contents as the menu (at least the part of the menu that has raw bookmarks and folders with them, either real or "virtual" like the "recently bookmarked"). For me the toolbar is a way to have them visible at the cost of some room. So I think both menu and toolbar should have the same contents by design.

To have this implemented with the current rules, I had to do physical copies of some bookmarks manually. This has had a funny effect on my "recently bookmarked": instead of 10 bookmarks, it has ended up with 5 but each one appears twice. The poor folder has catched the real bookmarks plus the copies I did just in case I want to use the toolbar in the future.

More ideas: Idk what the "recently tagged" folder is for so I don't have opinion about it, it's empty here. In case you use a lot of bookmarks, the "other bookmarks" folder could work well as a quick way to (manually) store ones that you are neither using just now nor want to sort in this moment nor want to delete.

Here I use bookmarks little. Most of mine have been generated by Firefox or Microsoft, so I have two folders for them. Besides there're some few added by me. I believe that MS has added its in different moments, what breaks a bit the utility of the "recently bookmarked" folder. If it got to have MY last 10 bookmarks it would be fine, but as it also blindly catched the copies I did for manual management and the bookmarks added by others like MS, it ended up as a chaos. Also none of my bookmarks happen to be "recent". Three of them are about Windows/desktop search utilities, a matter that I researched years ago. In Vista I've bookmarked the MS page that lists the current year Windows updates because, in patch Tuesdays, if you don't install manually some of them (the win32k.sys ones) before letting Windows Update do its work, WU will be extremely slow.

In short my suggests are:

- Menu and Toolbar have the same bookmarks with the same organization by design.
- Some filter for the "recently bookmarked" folder.
- Possibly some "virtual folders" should be optional.

I recall that time ago I added separators in the menu and today I've done some work with the bookmarks theirselves. This is my current arrangement:

---------------------------
Bookmarks toolbar >
Other bookmarks >
---------------------------
Recently bookmarked >
Recently tagged >
---------------------------
Mozilla Firefox >
Microsoft web sites >
---------------------------
bookmark_1
bookmark_2
bookmark_3



Inside the Bookmarks toolbar:

Most visited >
Mozilla Firefox >
Microsoft web sites >
bookmark_1
bookmark_2
bookmark_3
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dfoulkes
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Re: Bookmarks mess

Post by dfoulkes »

Hmmm... wellll.. you are making suggestions to the wrong place ... MozillaZine is not part of Mozilla... you need to start here ...
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/contact/
As you can see she's (The CAT) always alert and on the prowl for Meoware !!
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the-edmeister
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Re: Bookmarks mess

Post by the-edmeister »

Factor77 wrote:I use bookmarks little. Most of mine have been generated by Firefox or Microsoft, so I have two folders for them. Besides there're some few added by me.
So you're talking from a lack of experience with actually using the Firefox bookmarks system.


Feedback may be submitted to the Mozilla developers here:
https://input.mozilla.org/en-US/feedback
A mind is a terrible thing to waste. Mine has wandered off and I'm out looking for it.
Factor77
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Joined: July 25th, 2013, 9:45 am

Re: Bookmarks mess

Post by Factor77 »

Thanks, I'll go to Mozilla. I knew this isn't Mozilla but here are fewer filters and it's easier and I use to find advice and solutions fast, this for instance :) .

As for my lack of experience/use of the bookmarks, it's common to have a lot of resources that you use sparsely, and the newcomer or occasional user has disadvantages but also advantages over the experienced user in detecting ineficiencies, I don't want to "enjoy" or "work" the bookmarks, I want another work done, fast and simple if possible.

I have known about the toolbar existence for the menu, and it's been kind of surpise that the toolbar isn't a mirrored view of the same storage, but a different storage with different content. Why 2 storages? Why not 3 or 4? Why in different forms (a menu and a toolbar instead of two of any)? With this design, shouldn't I either look for my bookmark in two places or know previously where my bookmark is? (like A-K in the menu L-Z in the toolbar, just kidding :) ). I can't think this is by design, it looks more as if new features (quite likely the toolbar or the menu among them) had been simply thrown to the system without a global idea (keeping a single storage).
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DanRaisch
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Re: Bookmarks mess

Post by DanRaisch »

The bookmark data has only one storage location/file, whether it appears in the bookmark toolbar or the drop down menus. It's just different ways of displaying that same data for user convenience.
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dfoulkes
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Re: Bookmarks mess

Post by dfoulkes »

[quote="the-edmeister"

Feedback may be submitted to the Mozilla developers here:
https://input.mozilla.org/en-US/feedback[/quote]
Thanks Ed... I couldn't remember where that was.
As you can see she's (The CAT) always alert and on the prowl for Meoware !!
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dfoulkes
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Re: Bookmarks mess

Post by dfoulkes »

Yep... what Dan said.... plus...
I have known about the toolbar existence for the menu, and it's been kind of surpise that the toolbar isn't a mirrored view of the same storage, but a different storage with different content. Why 2 storages?
Can you imagine... a user has 1000 bookmarks in the file... and if all of those bookmarks were on the toolbar most of them would not fit in that bar... that is why the bar works differently than the main bookmarks list... I have over 800 bookmarks but I have nowhere that number up on my bar... my bar is used for day to day work where my main bookmarks listing for for all the stuff where I keep stuff that I may want to visit from time to time.
As you can see she's (The CAT) always alert and on the prowl for Meoware !!
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the-edmeister
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Re: Bookmarks mess

Post by the-edmeister »

Factor77 wrote: I have known about the toolbar existence for the menu, and it's been kind of surpise that the toolbar isn't a mirrored view of the same storage, but a different storage with different content. Why 2 storages? Why not 3 or 4?
There are 4 different locations in the UI where Bookmarks can be viewed.
1. Drop-down via the Bookmarks buttons - the "Clipboard" button which is attached to the Star button.
The Bookmarks Toolbar doesn't appear in that drop-down as of Firefox 49 when "Recent Bookmarks" was added to that drop-down. IMO, a silly change which doesn't affect my use of Firefox; the Bookmarks Toolbar is the biggest waste of content space; never used it.
2. Menu Bar Bookmarks drop-down menu. Can be opened via Alt then B when the Menu Bar is hidden; the default now.
Bookmarks Toolbar folder does appear there.
3. Bookmarks Sidebar - {Ctrl + B} to open it.
Bookmarks Toolbar folder does appear there.
4. Library window - Show All Bookmarks {Ctrl + Shift + B}
Bookmarks Toolbar folder does appear there.

The content of the Bookmarks Toolbar folder shouldn't vary when viewed from any of the 3 "menus", but it is possible that a user may have more than one bookmarks folder that is named "Bookmarks Toolbar". Than can happen when the user imports a bookmarks.html file from a different Firefox installation. But only one can be set as the "official" Bookmarks Toolbar folder that appears on the "Toolbar"; the icon of the "official" BTB folder has a different folder icon that all the other folders in bookmarks.

BTW, how many of the 5 ways to save a new bookmark are you aware of? There are features that Mozilla hasn't even documented; features that "we" have discovered thru actually using the bookmarks feature in Firefox and have shared that knowledge with other users here,

Suggestions for new or changed features are always welcomed by Mozilla, but it would help to know how something actually works before formulating an opinion and deciding that you have a better way of doing something.

.
A mind is a terrible thing to waste. Mine has wandered off and I'm out looking for it.
Factor77
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Joined: July 25th, 2013, 9:45 am

Re: Bookmarks mess

Post by Factor77 »

I cannot see all those routes likely because my OS's are ancient (Vista and XP). But I catch it, the toolbar is intended as a special folder. By nature it's practical for fewer top level items than the menu, anyway.

The 3 bookmarks of my initial post (in other installs I've got more but never "many") are related and in the toolbar they scream for a folder, although in the menu the're better as top-level unless you've got "many" more, this cannot be automated of course, let it alone if you have dozens or hundreds and want the toolbar as a "cache" <- idea here :mrgreen: , caches can be automated.

I think the "recently bookmarked" folder can have a use for new items that come from outside, not for inner copies imo. You can remove it from the menu anyway, I mean the section that shows the contents, right-clicking in the faded "recently bookmarked" line -> remove/hide (cannot recall and I've got a non-English version).
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dfoulkes
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Re: Bookmarks mess

Post by dfoulkes »

Just to give you a pic. of my bookmarks toolbar... I of course display it... but I also use a number of bookmark-bar related extension to change various areas of it so that it makes sense to me...

I use a Favicon changer so that I can recognize things better ...
I use an extension to compress (make more room) the items on that bar...
I use an extension to provide places (bookmarks) tool-tips....

I rarely need to go into the whole bookmarks listing ... I have all that I need up there on that bar... in folders and indiv. bookmarks...in fact, I have some folders inside of some folders.
Image
As you can see she's (The CAT) always alert and on the prowl for Meoware !!
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