Bookmarks: suppress descriptions?
Dave Royal
when saving a bookmark? Or setting a maximum length?
For years I've saved my bookmarks file on the web so I can use it from
anywhere - crude but simple. But my one-line-per-bookmark file is
becoming polluted with multi-line descriptions - some of them adverts.
Failing that, has anybody written a description-remover for linux?
Dave
--
(Remove any numerics from my email address.)
David McRitchie
> Is there an option to prevent Firefox completing the 'description' field
> when saving a bookmark? Or setting a maximum length?
>
> For years I've saved my bookmarks file on the web so I can use it from
> anywhere - crude but simple. But my one-line-per-bookmark file is
> becoming polluted with multi-line descriptions - some of them adverts.
>
> Failing that, has anybody written a description-remover for linux?
Hi Dave,
Firefox does not fill in bookmark descriptions, you must have an extension.
I use the "OpenBook" extension to fill in descriptions from meta data
of the HTML file. Installing the extension means that you take the time
have meaningful bookmarks and perhaps normally clear out the description
but it is there if you want it.
You might want to reconsider getting rid of all descriptions as they are
searchable. I would concentrate on why you getting advertising as
descriptions, and are the ads really on the webpages that you are bookmarking.
If the descriptions are an annoyance, where are you actually seeing them?
I'm only aware of seeing them in the properties of a bookmark and in the
bookmarks.html listing. They don't even show up as tooltips, you have
to right click on the bookmark to see properties.
Do you have extensions for bookmarking, bookmark synchronization, or
interface to social bookmarking (del.icio.us!), possibly even live bookmarks.
Also are you actually looking at bookmark properties, or might you have
very long titles in your bookmarkmarks.
If you are concerned about space the addition of favicons to bookmarks
file consumes far more space as it is not text.
--
HTH,
David McRitchie,
Firefox Custom: http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/firefox/firefox.htm
Dave Royal
>
> Firefox does not fill in bookmark descriptions, you must have an
> extension.
>
> If the descriptions are an annoyance, where are you actually seeing them?
> I'm only aware of seeing them in the properties of a bookmark and in the
> bookmarks.html listing.
when I go travelling. I know there are other ways of doing it but I can
get there in one go from any machine - I just remember the URL.
These things seem to come from the meta name="description" field - and
some of them are very long. Try bookmarking this page for example:
http://www.interglobalpmi.com/index.php?page_id=23
Mozilla/SeaMonkey didn't (doesn't?) collect descriptions - they've only
appeared since I started using Firefox. As you said, I can see them in
bookmark properties and I can clear them there - one by one. But I'd
rather not collect them.
>
> If you are concerned about space the addition of favicons to bookmarks
> file consumes far more space as it is not text.
>
I just want the bookmarks.html file to be one line per bookmark when
displayed, and not contain essays or adverts - especially if I'm using a
PDA.
Rav
I also see this behavior, and have no extensions which should be causing
it. I routinely display bookmarks.html in order to select previously
saved web sites, so I too want only one line per bookmark, and I
routinely have to remove the description after adding a bookmark. I
also wish there was a way to automatically have Firefox not add
descriptions just because a site makes them available.
David McRitchie
> David McRitchie wrote:
> In bookmarks.html - as I said I just upload it onto my free webspace when I go travelling. I know there are other ways of doing it
> but I can get there in one go from any machine - I just remember the URL.
>
> These things seem to come from the meta name="description" field - and some of them are very long. Try bookmarking this page for
> example:
> http://www.interglobalpmi.com/index.php?page_id=23
>
> Mozilla/SeaMonkey didn't (doesn't?) collect descriptions - they've only appeared since I started using Firefox. As you said, I can
> see them in bookmark properties and I can clear them there - one by one. But I'd rather not collect them.
>
> I'm using a PDA.
I can see that is indeed happening in 2.0.0.12 and in minefield (3.0b4pre)
without even having the OpenBook extension. The description never
used to be filled in automatically by Firefox. I first got a hint of this
in 3.0b3 but it looks like it is in the main Firefox. I really haven't been
adding many bookmarks at all since beginning of December and
even less in 2.0.0.12 so can see that the only ones with descriptions
were what I put there. So I'm pretty sure that is all new behavior.
That page is a very good example of misuse and abuse of
Meta tags for both description and keywords, and why you
would not want to have them automatically get incorporated.
That's why I like Open Book it would bring up the full bookmark
properties with description loaded and I could discard it when
bookmarking, or modify the description. But I would never
ever want to accept the description provided by the website.
But now that is in the browser, I have no idea what to tell you.
The descriptions that I see could be removed by removing
everything from "<dd>" through "<" and replacing with "<"
within multiple line ranges.
I'm not very good with Regular Expression editing but that is
what you would need and you would have to make sure that
it is only used on the copy of bookmarks.html that you use
for viewing as you are.
Agent Ransack, David Vest, file searches, supports regular
expression (RegExpr). Downside is that it is a line by line search
so search cannot find text split between lines. So it won't work
for you. http://www.mythicsoft.com/agentransack
I use it to search without replacements to see searched string
in the context of the lines it was found in within files.
ReplaceEm, freeware, Bill Keane, designed to operate on multiple files at once. And you need not only perform one search-replace
operation per file -- you can setup a list of operations to perform. Supports Regular Expressions. 572KB download
http://www.orbit.org/replace/
That one would probably work. Just be careful what you use it
on and don't use it on your live bookmarks file, only on a copy.
Dave Royal
bookmarks.html (from my website) in Firefox, using css. If I try this:
DD { display : none ! important; }
using a css-testing tool it does indeed suppress descriptions. But if I
include it in my user style sheet it doesn't work.
Blinky the Shark
> David McRitchie wrote:
>> Firefox does not fill in bookmark descriptions, you must have an
>> extension.
> The only extensions I have are Adblock, Flashblock, and BBCodeExtra.
>> If the descriptions are an annoyance, where are you actually seeing them?
>> I'm only aware of seeing them in the properties of a bookmark and in the
>> bookmarks.html listing.
> In bookmarks.html - as I said I just upload it onto my free webspace
> when I go travelling. I know there are other ways of doing it but I can
> get there in one go from any machine - I just remember the URL.
>
> These things seem to come from the meta name="description" field - and
> some of them are very long. Try bookmarking this page for example:
> http://www.interglobalpmi.com/index.php?page_id=23
I just did that. FF 2.0.0.3 No description is saved. The page title
is saved. Are you confusing title and description?
I've never even thought about saved descriptions, so I've not manually
suppressed them as a default. I am running no bookmark add-ons.
--
Blinky
Killing all posts from Google Groups
The Usenet Improvement Project: http://improve-usenet.org
Blinky: http://blinkynet.net
David McRitchie
>I tried to suppress *display* of the descriptions when viewing
> bookmarks.html (from my website) in Firefox, using css. If I try this:
>
> DD { display : none ! important; }
>
> using a css-testing tool it does indeed suppress descriptions. But if I
> include it in my user style sheet it doesn't work.
Hi Dave,
Just summarizing again, the url you provided definitely has a description
and that is filling in the description in both 2.0.0.12 and Firefox 3 and is
new behavior. That url is very excessive for both description and keywords.
http://www.interglobalpmi.com/index.php?page_id=23
I certainly would not have thought of suppressing with CSS, but
I tried the following right after the <Title>...</Title>
and save the file as bookmarksxxxx.html and it worked.
<style type="text/css">
DD { display : none ! important; }
</style>
Though 1,719 KB file is a large file for notepad to it took
while to add that, You would want to copy it in all at
once, and then save as another filename.
Wonder if there is a way to limit the number of characters
rather than that. But then I shouldn't need it myself as I've
always put what I want into bookmarks.
Blinky the Shark
> Dave Royal wrote:
>> David McRitchie wrote:
>>> Firefox does not fill in bookmark descriptions, you must have an
>>> extension.
>> The only extensions I have are Adblock, Flashblock, and BBCodeExtra.
>>> If the descriptions are an annoyance, where are you actually seeing them?
>>> I'm only aware of seeing them in the properties of a bookmark and in the
>>> bookmarks.html listing.
>> In bookmarks.html - as I said I just upload it onto my free webspace
>> when I go travelling. I know there are other ways of doing it but I can
>> get there in one go from any machine - I just remember the URL.
>>
>> These things seem to come from the meta name="description" field - and
>> some of them are very long. Try bookmarking this page for example:
>> http://www.interglobalpmi.com/index.php?page_id=23
>
> I just did that. FF 2.0.0.3 No description is saved. The page title
> is saved. Are you confusing title and description?
>
> I've never even thought about saved descriptions, so I've not manually
> suppressed them as a default. I am running no bookmark add-ons.
I see others reporting that it is, indeed, a later-verisions issue.
Dave Royal
> Just summarizing again, the url you provided definitely has a
> description and that is filling in the description in both 2.0.0.12 and
> Firefox 3 and is new behavior. That url is very excessive for both
> description and keywords.
> http://www.interglobalpmi.com/index.php?page_id=23
>
this for a year at least. I just looked for a bugzilla entry for when it
was introduced but couldn't find one; maybe it didn't have one.
SeaMonkey does *not* save this meta data.
Does anyone think this is worth an RFE for an /option/ in Firefox?
> I certainly would not have thought of suppressing with CSS, but
> I tried the following right after the <Title>...</Title>
> and save the file as bookmarksxxxx.html and it worked.
>
> <style type="text/css">
> DD { display : none ! important; }
> </style>
>
Thanks for that confirmation. It's the fact that it didn't work in my
user style sheet that surprised me. Maybe you need /some/ css before it
looks at user style.
userbookmarks.html has got a lot bigger since I started to use it for
accessing my bookmarks when travelling - it now, as you say, has big
icons in it. It used to be quite compact - fine for downloading onto a
PDA over a phone. Having looked at it now I have decided that I will
edit it before upload to remove some of this stuff.
This seems to work for me with SED:
s/ICON="[^"]*"//
/<DD>/d
Dave Royal
> userbookmarks.html has got a lot bigger ...
Correction: I meant bookmarks.html
»Q«
> userbookmarks.html has got a lot bigger since I started to use it for
> accessing my bookmarks when travelling - it now, as you say, has big
> icons in it. It used to be quite compact - fine for downloading onto
> a PDA over a phone. Having looked at it now I have decided that I
> will edit it before upload to remove some of this stuff.
>
> This seems to work for me with SED:
>
> s/ICON="[^"]*"//
> /<DD>/d
That should do it. In case you're interested, I overwrote a script to
strip out the icons, and modifying it to handle the descriptions should
be as simple as adding a sed line. <http://remarqs.net/scripts/>
(The overkill was because I was learning to do various things with
bash. But I do like that it takes a profile name as an argument.)