Back in October 2007 we previewed a new feature in Firefox 3 called Smart Bookmarks. Firefox 3 has a more advanced bookmarking system, and keeps tabs (no pun intended) on the sites that you visit the most. When those two things collide they form what has come to be known as Smart Bookmarks.
Since the feature’s initial launch the number of Smart Bookmarks has been trimmed down a bit. They initially started with six, but have now dwindled down to the ones I put in bold:
- Recently bookmarked pages
- Recently visited bookmarked pages
- Most visited bookmarked pages
- Recently used tags
- Most used tags
- Most visited pages
The question is how do you get these bookmarks back once they have been deleted? I expected that Mozilla would incorporate some sort of option into the Bookmarks Organizer, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Instead you need to dive into the about:config to get the Smart Bookmarks back:
Updated on May 19, 2008 to reflect Firefox 3 RC1 changes.
- In the Firefox Address Bar type about:config and press Enter.
- Find the option that is named browser.places.smartBookmarksVersion.
- Change the value to 0 by double-clicking on it.
- Restart Firefox, and you should see the Smart Bookmarks folder located on the Bookmarks Toolbar.
Now you’re back in business! I’m very anxious to see if someone creates an extension that lets you customize the Smart Bookmarks, and possibly even let you assemble your own based on visit frequency, date, keywords, and more.
[via Mozillazine]
Thanks to Jason for the tip!
[foxiewire.com]
You can actually create different ones yourself. To make a new one just search for something in the Library and save the search. Then open its parent folder and select the search you saved. You’ll see in the info pane a place: uri. You can change this uri and add new criteria like limit the results to a certain date.
See: [developer.mozilla.org] (it’s really for developers, but some of the info there can help
Here is a list of what can be put in those place: uri’s: [developer.mozilla.org]
It’s not totally useful now, but hopefully it will be updated.
There used to be a more useful save search ui, but it was removed because there wasn’t enough time to finish it. There’s a chance once Firefox 3 is done it will be made into an extension. I’m sure something similar will be made.
Have you guys heard any word on when Delicious will be upgrading their bookmarks extension to work with FF3? I remember they were slow to upgrade to FF2 as well.
We are actually working on an article along those lines. We’ll explain what some of the different parameters do and how you can really customize them. Thanks for the resources to look at!
Of course they’ll be upgrading it, and I would assume that they would do so before the final version of the browser is released. I honestly believe that’s one of the reasons development has gone slow… to give the “big” extensions time to get a Firefox 3 compatible version released.
Places could have been a big thing for Mozilla – a new “killer feature” of the browser. Instead its just a mess. I loved the little star in the address bar, such a brilliant idea and all I ever really want is a one-click bookmark – for things I want to find in many years I may add more tags or descriptions, but generally I just mark it because I’ll be coming back in a few days. Thing is, if you just star it it doesn’t appear anywhere – you have to go into the Organiser and then Unfiled Bookmarks to get at it, or remember either part of the address or the name. Also if you’ve not filed a bookmark and you do an export all the unfiled ones are left out. Its like they’re trying to force us to spend more time organising. Finally with so many Bookmarking sites around, why no Sync options with any popular APIs?
With Safari on the PC being damned fast and Opera having everything but the kitchen sink whilst still being speedy the only thing thats holding Mozilla above the rest is extensions and existing market share. If they don’t come out with something new (Microsoft have two new ideas for IE8) or reduce their memory consumption (by default the browser does less than Opera and takes more memory) then they’ll fall behind.
You can place the “unfiled bookmarks” folder anywhere you would like and it will still work. If you want it on the Bookmarks Toolbar you can do that. Then it’s just as easy to access.
It doesn’t work on Firefox 3 RC1, instead set “browser.places.smartBookmarksVersion” to 0 and restart Firefox.
Thanks, updated the post accordingly.
Thanks so much! This was a wonderful tip, and exactly what i was looking for.