DONE: Datestamp internet explorer favorites to ease locating

[mouser]

i get lost in my ie bookmarks - it would really be nice to have a commandline tool that recursively went through favorites directory and prefixed all url bookmark filenames with the file date in sortable form (ie 'YYMMDD_HHMM').

note you have to be really carefull about any such recursive auto renaming - if you mess up and rename all the files on the hard disk it would be hell.  but restricting it to .url files would go along way.

would be nice to have an option to also REMOVE such prefixes, so it could be used as a toggle.

and would be nice if it auto-located the ie favorites folder location, so that out of the box you could just run it to add prefix or remove prefix, without any configuration (thought you might want to have it confirm favorites folder location on first run).

oh yeah, big important thing - it should be smart enough to detect its own datestamp so that it doesnt add it again when run on files that already have it (youll need to be able to identify it anyway if you are going to provide a "remove" toggle feature).


anyway i would add this command as a link on my browser toolbar so i could re-run it periodically.

[jgpaiva]

First the good news: the main part can be done. The toggle functionality does make sense, and can be done too.
The only problem is the out-of the box functionality.
How about if it had one initial "please tell me where your favourites are located" dialog?
It can be done with a default (english) directory, and if that directory isn't found, it'd prompt for the right one.
Everything else looks like not a big problem, if all the favourites are stored in the one only root directory.

[mouser]

yeah i don't mind at all the initial asking for directory;
there is a registry key that will tell you it, but who cares if it's only asking for it once and if you were going to have to make user confirm it anyway.

[skrommel]

  Try AddUrlTimeStamp!


AddUrlTimeStamp - Prefix favorites with creation date.

Features:
- Ignores the Links folder, and urls starting with +.
- Command line tool, run it without parameters to show a folder selection dialog.
- Syntax: AddUrlTimeStamp.exe "foldername"

You'll find the downloads and more info at 1 Hour Software by Skrommel.

Skrommel

[skrommel]

  And RemoveUrlTimeStamp!


RemoveUrlTimeStamp - Remove prefixed creation date from favorites.

Features:
- Command line tool, run it without parameters to show a folder selection dialog.
- Syntax: RemoveUrlTimeStamp.exe "foldername"

You'll find the downloads and more info at 1 Hour Software by Skrommel.

Skrommel

[f0dder]

Four-digit year stamp is preferable... makes the file sort much more naturally if you have pre-2000 files

[skrommel]

  Do you get two digit year stamp? Maybe it's your Explorer settings? According to the AHK help file, it should be YYYYMMDDHH24MISS.

Skrommel

[f0dder]

Do you get two digit year stamp?

-skrommel (March 25, 2006, 10:44 AM)

Nono, don't worry, it was just in response to mouser's original post

[mouser]

let me try this sucker out.

[mouser]

absolutely brilliant.
works perfect, both add and remove!

and its VERY useful.  suddenly i can find the favorites i added because i know when i added them!

i have one request i had not thought of ahead of time:
the "Links" subdirectory of Favorites has a special meaning for IE engines - its used for the toolbar.

May I request that the Links subdirectory never be processed for ADDING (though you might as well process it for REMOVING, just in case).

And while i am requesting things, how about we add a way to make AddUrlTimestamp ignore a url file:
i propose a + as first character of filename be treated as an "ignore" flag, so AddUrlTimestamp should never add timestamps to urls that start with +.

this script is a real keeper for me, extremely useful.

[skrommel]

  Try the latest AddUrlTimeStamp I just oploaded!

- Ignores the Links folder, and urls starting with +.

Skrommel

[mouser]

wonderfull!!!

i'll leave the icon to you, but i made you two screenshots if you want them:

[skrommel]

  It doesn't look too pretty with the underscore. Maybe a space is better? Try the ones I just uploaded. And remember to run the old RemoveUrlTimeStamp before replacing it!

Skrommel

[mouser]

yeah space is better - nice work. (ps. your icons for these tools are perfect, as always).

[mouser]

at the risk of beating a dead horse i just want to say i am LOVING this snack.

another nice thing about it is that, ironically the fact that new bookmarks dont get timestamped is actually a nice thing, because it makes it even easier to find bookmarks you have just recently added, until you want to update the timestamps.

i should have asked for this a long time ago - suddenly i can find the new bookmarks and see the order in which i added them..

[f0dder]

I'm currently struggling on whether to think this whole thing is a good or a bad idea. From a purist viewpoint it's bad, since you should sort your bookmarks into sub, sub-sub, sub-sub-sub (etc.) categories. But from a pragmatic viewpoint, it's useful - even if you do subgroup your bookmarks.

This is one reason why explorer-style links-to-bookmark-URLs is nice; this would probably be more complicated for firefox et al.

[mouser]

i do subgroup my bookmarks into a nice deep rich organization, but i still often quickly add a bunch to root and only periodically file them away, and i frequently get completely lost trying to find one i was just at, even though i know that i bookmarked it very recently.  this lets me find it immediately.

[f0dder]

We seem to do the same bookmark things, then, mouser

[mouser]

some ideas to think about for a future version:
it might be nice to have some date-based rule for adding timestamp -
like maybe:
add dates only to bookmarks that are 3 months old or newer, others as normal.

or
add full dates only to bookmarks 3 months old or newer
within 1 year old they get YYYYMM
beyond 1 year they get YYYY

(this could actually be very useful as a way of quickly separating old from new).