Day 18: Bookmarks
Originally posted on Monday, June 06, 2005
Say hello to our old friend, bookmarks. What would we do without bookmarks? How would we organize all those sites we’ve found? Of course, if we aren’t careful, our bookmarks can be almost as daunting as manually flipping through each page of the Internet. But Opera gives us two ways of organizing our bookmarks, and becomes even more beloved in our hearts.
Opera8 has improved bookmark management, making it easier to sort them into sub-folders as you save them. Like before, Opera offers several features to make retrieving and finding bookmarks later easier and faster.
First things first: to bookmark a page, press ctrl (or 
on Mac) + t and you will see a panel like this:
![[Opera's add bookmark window]](http://operalover.tntluoma.com/images/opera-add-bookmark-390x373.png)
- Name
-
Name is usually taken from the <title> of a webpage (the part you see in the bar at the top of the page/tab. You can rename it if you prefer.
If you bookmark several pages from a site that puts the domain name first, such as: Example.com - Page Name Here you might want to edit it to put the domain name at the end like this: Page Name Here (Example.com). This can make it easier to find the page you are looking for if you remember the title. On the other hand, you might prefer to have the domain name first so you can sort bookmarks by name and have them grouped together. Choose whatever works best for you (but remember the Quick find feature that we’ll talk about later.
- Nickname
-
This is an important field, especially if you plan to visit the page frequently. For example, I use “8” as a nickname for http://operalover.tntluoma.com/8/. Nicknames can be typed in the addressbar (where you see the URL) or when you press F2. But what if you need something even faster? Try shift + F2 and you will see this:
![[Opera's shift + f2 window]](http://operalover.tntluoma.com/images/opera-bookmarks-shift-f2-390x165.png)
Then you can type in the nickname and Opera (being quite clever) will look at all your bookmarks and will look for the first match as you type. For example, if you have bookmarks saved with nicknames ddoe, and myopera and webmail, then as soon as you type “d” it will match only one bookmark nickname and will start loading that one. If you create another bookmark named “daring” for DaringFireball, you will have to type “dd” for “ddoe” or “da” for “daring”
- Address
- This is the URL (or URI) for the page. You shouldn’t need to edit this in normal usage.
- Description
- This field is automatically filled in with the text from the meta description (if any exists). You can add/edit this field as you want. It is a good idea to add some keywords if you want to be able to search for them later.
- Create in
- This is the folder where you want the bookmark saved. (If it says “bookmarks” then it will be made in the top level.) Use the “New folder...” button to create a new folder.
- Show on personal bar
- Previous versions of Opera had a folder where you had to store items if you wanted them to appear on the Personal Bar. Now you have store them anywhere you want and just check the box if you want them to appear on the Personal Bar. Some people prefer the old method, because they found it easier to keep them all in one folder (and they were used to other browsers which behaved that way), but this gives more flexibility.
- Show in panel
- This will bookmark the page as usual but also add it as a Panel (see Day 14).
“That’s too much work! I just want to make a bookmark, why is it so difficult?” Well, if you just want to make a bookmark, press
ctrl (or on Mac) + t and then press enter to say “Ok” to the panel.
But... a word of warning. Taking a little time at when you make a bookmark, a few seconds, to write yourself some notes in the Bookmarks field and save it to a specific folder (Why did you bookmark this page? Is it something you want to read later? Refer back to? Is it part of a project you are working on?) will save you a lot of time later on.
Bookmarks panel
Press ctrl + 2 (all platforms, even Mac) to open the Bookmarks panel.
From there you can click on the Add button to add a new bookmark (the same as opening the Bookmarks panel). Click on the arrow next to “Add” to choose “New Bookmark” or “New Folder” or “New Separator” (a horizontal line to give some visual separation). More interesting, I think, are the options available under “View”
View Options
Click the View Options button to see the following options: (you do not have to click precisely on the down arrow to get the dropdown to appear)
- Full view
- This shows all of the bookmarks and folder in one long list.
- Split view
- This will split the panel into a top and bottom section. The top will contain the higher level folders. The bottom will contain individual bookmarks within that folder
- Single folder
- Show one folder at a time.
Experiment with these to see which one you find best. Personally I like the Split view.
Sort order
You can sort the bookmarks in 7 different ways. The options are Sort By:
- my order
- For you control freaks and free thinkers, this allows you to drag bookmarks into whatever order you prefer.
- name
- As above, the “name” of a site is generally from the <title> unless you have edited it when you saved the bookmark.
- nick
- If you have entered nicknames for bookmarks, these will be sorted (alphabetically) at the top of your bookmarks
- address
- Sort by URL. A good way to group sites together by what website they belong to.
- description
- Sort by the first word of the description field, if any.
- created
- Sort by date that the bookmark was first created
- visited
- Sort by when the bookmark was last visited
Sort ascending/descending will change the top/bottom sort order (i.e. normally “A” would be at the top, for example).
Again, this is largely a personal preference. I use sort by name. However, I admit that I am not particularly organized, even with as easy as Opera makes it and with all the choices they give. Why? Easy: Quick Find.
Quick Find
Opera’s quick find allows you to instantly search for matching text in any of the bookmark fields above. This is how I “organize” my bookmarks (that is, I’m lazy), I type in what I am looking for. Opera shows matches as soon as I start to type (the more you type, the more specific the search gets). If you have used Opera Mail then you are already familiar with this fast, efficient search method.
Between nicknames and quick find, my bookmarks can be a mess and still be easy to use. Those of you who are actually organized enough to make folders and such will find it even easier.
More Bookmarks Management
![[Opera's Bookmark Management window]](http://operalover.tntluoma.com/images/opera-manage-bookmarks-626x170.png)
If you want to do even more management of the Bookmarks, go to the menu option for Bookmarks and click “Manage Bookmarks” which will open an extended window showing Name, Nickname, and Address of the bookmarks and the folders over on the left-hand side. This is the best way to do mass-(re)organization of your bookmarks when the mood strikes you.
Keyboard tips for Bookmarks Panel
As I said above, ctrl + 2 will open the Bookmarks panel. Press F7 to bring the cursor into the list (if the cursor appears in the Quick Find box, you can start typing or press tab to jump down to the list. shift + tab will move the cursor from the Bookmarks list back to the Quick find field.
Comments
On June 06, 2005 at 05:41 AM, pEeDy wrote:
I personally don't use the Bookmark menu, for one simple reason. I prefer to use a Personal Bar for my favourite websites, which I have located at the right of my screen and is about 200px wide. However, when I add a bookmark to this bar, it gets in Bookmarks also! But the option 'Show in Personal Bar' is chosen. So when I dó add a bookmark of that site, for another page, I have 2 bookmarks in my Bookmark list and only 1 on my Personal Bar.
A point of improvement for Opera ASA: I once tried to organise my favourites on the Personal Bar into Folders. However, I use the middle click option (open in new window on the background) very, very often. But when I want to open a link from a folder out of the Personal Bar, I can't middle click it, since it is a menu option at that time! I fixed this by removing the mark at 'Reuse current page' at Advanced Preferences, so every window will open in a new page, but it's not the solution I desired.
On June 06, 2005 at 09:59 AM, Martin wrote:
To add a new Website to the personal bar you can also drag-drop the icon (favicon) in front of the URI in the adresse bar to the personal bar.
That's the way I prefer to bookmark websites.
On June 06, 2005 at 02:06 PM, Flavio Suárez wrote:
Some shortcuts you don´t have mentioned:
(while the focus is on the list)
- You can just type a letter and Opera will locate the first bookmark wich its name starts with that letter.
- The right-arrow key "opens" (expands) the selected closed folder.
- The left-arrow key "closes" (colapses) the selected open folder and any "child" folder.
On June 06, 2005 at 03:04 PM, pEeDy wrote:
True, that is the way I add them too. But when you drag it to your Personal Bar, it also gets added in your bookmarks! That's what frustrates me...
On July 05, 2005 at 10:27 AM, Dinesh wrote:
Hello,
I love Opera. One of the best and most useful feature is the Bookmark tooltip. Unfortunately it is not working. Can you help?
I have posted the question on the Forum->General on the Opera site under the heading of Book Description - Where has it disappeared?
The strange thing is on the same system it works for one user and doesn't for another.
I am re-installed Opera 8.01. Yet it is not working. The only file common between the old and the new installation is the Bookmark file - opera6.adr.
Please help. Thank you very much.
Regards, Dinesh.
On July 15, 2005 at 01:42 PM, martin wrote:
Online bookmark service for opera will be great in the future
On September 04, 2005 at 07:26 AM, Chris wrote:
Is there a way to back-up the bookmarks in Opera (location where the bookmarks are stored?) I lost all my bookmarks in my previous browser (no bookmark back-up made) when I updated that browser (Goodbye Firefox) I sure don't want to experience this again.
Great tips for Opera on this site, thanks.
Regards,
Chris
On September 04, 2005 at 06:42 PM, TjL (tntluoma.com) ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://operalover.tntluoma.com/nav-commenters.gif)
wrote:
Chris, see this page
How do I back up my Opera files?
http://www.opera.com/support/search/supsearch.dml?index=313
On September 23, 2005 at 07:20 AM, Edward Welbourne wrote:
Chris: note that your bookmarks file, opera6.adr, is automatically backed up to opera6.adr.bak from time to time. So even if the primary copy gets trampled, you will usually have a recent back-up to fall back on.
On September 29, 2005 at 08:06 PM, Maciek Mrozik wrote:
TjL,
Thanks for this great site. I must admit I'm taking it much slower than a day at a time... :-)
Chris,
You can easily backup your bookmarks without exiting Opera - through the Bookmark Manager (Bookmarks -> Manage Bookmarks...). To do that select either "Save As..." or "Export Opera bookmarks" from the "File" drop-down menu (the one with the disk icon inside the Bookmarks tab). Once you somehow lose your original bookmarks (provided that you do), simply select "Import Opera" bookmarks from the same menu.
Several people mentioned this in passing but I think it should be clearly stated (for those who don't know): you can also place bookmark folders on the personal bar (1. select a folder in the Bookmark Manager, 2. click "Properties" - or select "Properties..." in the right-click menu, 3. tick the box next to "Show on personal bar").
On October 07, 2005 at 12:08 PM, i-0 wrote:
First, I'm an Opera fan having made it my primary browser about two weeks ago forsaking FF and IE. However, there are a few things that I'd like the Opera folks to revisit in regards to bookmarks:
1. When mousing over a bookmark the URL should appear as a tooltip.
2. It should be possible to middleclick a bookmark to have it open in a new window.
3. It should be possible to rightclick a bookmark and edit.
4. It should be possible to move bookmarks on the bookmark menu without opening the edit menu.
5. The ADD Bookmark feature should have a MRU function.
I think these simple edits would perfect the Opera bookmark functionality.
On October 09, 2005 at 07:09 PM, Maciek Mrozik wrote:
A follow-up to my comment about backing up bookmarks:
It seems the back-up method I suggested isn't very effective.
Every time you back up your bookmarks using the "Save As..." method, Opera changes the default bookmark file location (to the one you saved to). So the next time Opera loads - it will use your bookmark back-up file instead of the one in the profile folder (you can check the location Opera is using by typing "opera:about" in the address bar). Any changes you make to your bookmarks at this point will be saved to the file you previously backed up to and not to the file located in the profile folder. So you might ultimately end up having several different back-up copies of your bookmarks while the bookmark file in your profile folder becomes obsolete. This happened to me - as I have discovered a couple of minutes ago. I suppose it should be considered a bug?
On October 13, 2005 at 12:12 AM, myshkin wrote:
How can I set the favicon for a bookmark to come from my hd instead of the site? I read somewhere else in the Opera forum to tweak opera6.adr by changing the icon link. i.e.
NAME=eBay
URL=http://www.ebay.com/
VISITED=1128918016
ICONFILE=C://Icons/ebay.ico
But I can't get this to work. Any suggestions?
((TjL writes: I don't know the answer but I am hoping someone else will.))
On June 05, 2005 at 07:58 PM, BtEO wrote:
It's worth noting that the chosen sort order is applied to the bookmarks menu too. Making "my order" more useful that at first it may seem. You can group bookmarks into folders (Bittorrent, Shopping, Daily, etc...) and order your menus explicitly without having to resort to 01-Daily, 02-Shopping...
Further to this, folders placed on the personal bar also respect the same sort order. When you have as many bookmarklets as I do this is brilliant for putting the most commonly used entries nearer the top and including separators to prevent yourself going overboard with subfolders.