Tech: Help for Outlook Express IE6

Subject: Help for Outlook Express IE6
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Dec 04 - 02:09 PM

My question pertains to the "Favorites" in Internet Explorer. When the list grows large, as it has in my case, accessing it becomes extremely tedious. I know that If I do some housekeeping and combine folders it will help but it is still a lengthy list. Is there any software available to enhance accessibilty? It is so much faster to scan and add, then it is to query the list.

Thanks
pyewacket

Subject: RE: Help for Outlook Express IE6
From: wysiwyg
Date: 20 Dec 04 - 02:17 PM

I'm in Windows XP.

Frankly, these web addy's change so often, sometimes it's easier just to Google to whatever organization I'm looking for. I use History more than Favorites, these days, too.

But to organize the stuff in Favorites-- I'd suggest:

1. Use more folders, with less stuff in each one.

2. I use the menu down the side of the page, from the button in the toolbar, instead of the menu that drops down from the menu bar on the top of the screen. It clicks open each folder more quickly than when I use the drop-down menu from the top.

3. I use Windows Explorer's file manager function to edit the contents of the folders periodically, getting rid of stuff I never use.

4. I forget how, but I know there was a way in Windows ME to copy all that stuff. You could keep a backup copy in a document folder and only go in there when you need something obscure.

~Susan

Subject: RE: Help for Outlook Express IE6
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 20 Dec 04 - 02:26 PM

In IE, if you click "File" in the top bar, and then select "Import and Export" you can put a copy of all your Favorites anywhere you want. The exported file is a .htm, so when you double-click it in Win Explorer it should open in your browser, and will look like a document with a whole bunch of "blue clickies." Just click the link there to go to whatever it's linked to.

Whatever folders you had set up when you made the export will look like indented paragraphs in an outline.

All you have to do is remember where you put it when you did the export.

John

Subject: RE: Help for Outlook Express IE6
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 20 Dec 04 - 02:38 PM

I'll pretend I was jus' teasin' to see if you'd figure it out when I neglected to mention:

The "export" default name is "bookmarks." If you open it once in IE, you can click "Add to Favorites" and put a link to your exported file in the IE Favorites, so you can just click to it. Just remember not to move the exported file, or you'll break the link.

John

Subject: RE: Help for Outlook Express IE6
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Dec 04 - 07:20 AM

Many thanks for your responses!
John that worked out beautifully.
A Merry Xmas to all!
pyewacket

Subject: RE: Help for Outlook Express IE6
From: pyewacket
Date: 21 Dec 04 - 07:23 AM

Oooops! Guess that I had lost my cookie!
pyewacket

Subject: RE: Help for Outlook Express IE6
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Dec 04 - 01:11 PM

Outlook Express is the email program. Why are bookmarks being moved around for email? Was this just a typo in the subject name?

If you decide to use a program like Firefox it will automatically import all of your Internet Explorer cookies and favorites when you install it.

SRS

Subject: RE: Help for Outlook Express IE6
From: pyewacket
Date: 21 Dec 04 - 08:01 PM

Dear SRS:
You are correct. The intro says Outlook Express but the question says Internet Explorer6!
pyewacket

Subject: RE: Help for Outlook Express IE6
From: Pauline L
Date: 21 Dec 04 - 08:08 PM

I once had the unfortunate experience of losing some of my Favotites on IE. I asked one of my IT friends to troubleshoot for me. He said that it was because I had way too many folders with only a few items in each one. He told me to use fewer folders and then make subfolders, subsubfolders, etc. He said that he could figure this out not because he used IE but because he's an IT professional and he thought about it as if he were writing the software. I have followed his advice and I have not lost any of my Favorites. It is a bit of a nuisance, though, to go first to a folder, then a subfolder, then a subsubfolder. I have so many favorites in subsubfolders under "Music." :-)

Subject: RE: Help for Outlook Express IE6
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 21 Dec 04 - 08:28 PM

SRS -

I read the reference to OE as a typo. The problem isn't getting the favorites/bookmarks into the program, it's making them orderly enough so you can find the one you want once they're there.

Pulling them down on the IE Favorites menu doesn't give much of a display, and if you use folders it's sometimes hard to tell where you are. The display boxes are also a little cramped, so lots of times the page names are truncated.

If you use the IE export favorites, you get a file, default name Bookmarks.htm, that opens as a full page, usually with the shortcuts displayed with full length names, and in an "outline" format. Since the file is a perfectly legitimate "web page," you can put a bookmark to it in the dropdown in your browser favorites, and once it opens, you can "click" direct to whatever web pages you've linked. An additional advantage of having your shortcuts/bookmarks in a "readable" html file is you can use "search on page" to find the one's you've really lost. You can't really "search" the bookmarks in the dropdowns.

I don't actually use the method much, although I do occasionally pull up the "exported" file when I find I've "lost" a link. It's usually just because I've forgotten how I classified the site when I decided which folder to put it in.

Although IE is the only browser I have much experience with, I'd think that most browsers would have a way to export your bookmarks. The method would work just fine with any browser IF the export is in html format.

It might be worth noting that you can "insert hyperlinks" into most Windows Office programs, and if you "target" them correctly, clicking the link in say a Word document (or an Outlook or OE email) can of course open a website for you. If you put "Bookmarks" (on the Insert menu) in a Word Document, a bookmark can be a target for a hyperlink within the document as well. Quite often used in .pdf documents, but can be useful in a straight Word doc.

John

Subject: RE: Help for Outlook Express IE6
From: mack/misophist
Date: 22 Dec 04 - 02:24 AM

One good reason for using the Opera browser is that the bookmarks come ready made in a directory tree. Saves a lot of trouble and is configurable.

Subject: RE: Help for Outlook Express IE6
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 22 Dec 04 - 05:02 AM

Maybe I miss your point, mack, but I haven't seen any browser that doesn't let you "tree" your bookmarks. The original question was what to do when the "tree" gets so big you can't find the leaves on it.

A recent export to html of my bookmarks shows them all spread out like a web page, with full and readable names for all the sites that are linked, and Ctl-F lets you search quickly. Saved as .txt, or printed, I get a little over 18 pages, which isn't really all that large. That is a little cumbersome though when you try to navigate in the little browser "Favorites" window, but easy to see as a "page." I don't have any problem with the links I use fairly often, but when you forget which branch of the tree you put something on, spreading them out so they're readable - and searchable - pretty much solves the problem.

I'd expect that you'd get a similar output (.htm) exporting bookmarks from almost any browser. Try it with Opera, and let us know if you like it.

John

Subject: RE: Help for Outlook Express IE6
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 22 Dec 04 - 08:27 AM

Switch to Firefox or Opera. Their handling of this is far better than IE's clumsy Organise Favourites.

John, when you Bookmark/Manage bookmarks on both of these browsers, you get a window (in Opera it is a new tab) with a tree list rather like you would expect with Windows Explorer. They also provide a search field to make finding things easier.

Other plusses these have that IE doesn't have are tabbed browsing. Much neater opening a new page in another tab in the same Window than having multiple windows on the desktop.

The management of downloads is superior. They provide a list of all your downloads and allow you to manage them (open or delete) from there.

I won't mention security ;-)

IE is really falling behind.

Jon

Subject: RE: Help for Outlook Express IE6
From: mack/misophist
Date: 22 Dec 04 - 11:32 AM

The major reasons for using IExplorer are: Most web sites are optimized for Explorer, it was already installed, Flash and Java work automatically. On the other hand, 99.44% of the world's hackers are out to get you. Go toCERT and use edit->find to see how often Explorer has been in trouble.

Subject: RE: Help for Outlook Express IE6
From: Barbara Shaw
Date: 04 Sep 06 - 07:46 PM

Help!! I just lost about 30 new emails. I viewed them briefly on my Yahoo web-based email browser using IE, and there was a peculiar thing: all my favorites were missing, although it let me sign onto the mail screen. So I deleted a bunch of junk and then downloaded the remaining messages using Outlook Express. When I went to look at them, all of my other folders were empty, and the 30 messages were there. I closed everything down, opened everything up again, and my favorites were back on IE and my old folders had old mail in OE, but the new 30 were GONE.

What could have happened? I've been searching through temp files, checked to see if there were other "identities" (no) and did everything I can think of, but the new mail is gone!

Subject: RE: Help for Outlook Express IE6
From: Barbara Shaw
Date: 05 Sep 06 - 04:29 PM

Anyone?

Subject: RE: Help for Outlook Express IE6
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 05 Sep 06 - 09:14 PM

It sounds as if you were using the machine as another user.