Create a FF sidebar from a folder of bookmarks?

August 2, 2011 4:05 PM

How can I create FF sidebars that contain only the bookmarks in chosen folders? I'd like to 1. be able to choose one of my folders of bookmarks and create a custom sidebar from it that only shows the bookmarks in that chosen folder 2. have Firefox remember these custom sidebars 3. be able to choose any one of these sidebars as my "current" sidebar at any time 4. be able to create individual buttons to do #3 for each sidebar, and be able to put these buttons on my main toolbar somewhere (like the "blue book with the white star" button on my toolbar that brings up the built-in FF Bookmarks sidebar). Is there a way to do this? (a little more info inside) Thanks

btw, I should say I've seen the Flat Bookmarks extension, and it will show the contents of a folder of bookmarks as a sidebar (#1 above), but there's no way to save the sidebars (#2 above), so every time you want to see a folder's bookmarks as a sidebar you have to scroll to the folder and create the sidebar. In other words, if you navigate to another folder the sidebar is gone and has to be recreated if you want it again.

posted by atm to Computers & Internet (2 answers total)

Export bookmarks as HTML. Edit HTML file to only include bookmarks in ABCFolder. Save HTML file as abcfolder.html. Rinse, lather and repeat as many times as necessary.

Open browser. Open abcfolder.html, wherever you saved it. Bookmark the folder, assigned to the Bookmarks Toolbar. Repeat as necessary.

From the bookmarks menu, Show All Bookmarks. Navigate to the Bookmarks Toolbar and your new abcfolder.html bookmark. (Depending on your FF version...) click "more" or "advanced" and click the box marked "Open in Sidebar."

#1 - Custom sidebar is created. It's not dynamic - e.g. if you add a new bookmark to your "First Thing in the AM" folder, you have to update the corresponding html file.
#2 - Firefox remembers them.
#3 - Choose any one (at a time).
#4 - Well, not exactly. The options for the Main Toolbar are finite (right-click and select Customize - there's not much there) - which is why I suggested adding the links to the Bookmarks Toolbar, because that can be displayed across the top of the browser.
posted by panmunjom at 6:01 AM on August 3, 2011

Response by poster: I tried your suggestion. Basically I'd be putting a web page into he sidebar. Except the webpage is a page of links (to my bookmarks) and is stored locally.

I see why you suggested it, but it's lot what I'm hoping for. I'm golng to hold out and hope someone can tell me how to get my folders to display in the sidebar. Thanks just the same.
posted by atm at 7:50 AM on August 8, 2011