Idea: Program to save URLs from open Internet Explorer windows

[Backslash]

A small program would look at the open Internet Explorer windows and save the URLs to a file.  This program would be sort of similar to UrlHistory (which I recently discovered and love), but saves all the URLs of the _open_ windows, instead of having to go through and select each window and copy it (which is my workaround for now).

I have been looking for a program like this for a while, and even tried to make one.  I ended up with a VBscript that does what I need, however it only works with Explorer as the Windows shell.  (As I use Litestep a lot, this is unfortunate.  It gives an "ActiveX component can't create object" error.)  [I'll be glad to give you the code if you want to see it!]  It gets the item.LocationURL from Shell.Application -- I'm guessing this might be an easy place to start, but then I'm only a mediocre programmer, so far... ;-)

Now that I think about it, I bet other people (if any end up using it) would like it if the program were to do the same for Firefox tabs, if that is easy to implement. 

I'd appreciate comments on this idea.  Also, I'd be glad to carry on programming it myself if anyone has tips or suggestions on where to start... but I bet you guys could do it a lot faster if you felt like it :-)

[kimmchii]

Maxthon browser – Tabbed Internet browser software

has this feature, group>save windows as group.

[mouser]

i think what backslash is asking for is not the same as the save windows as group feature in maxthon and netcaptor.

i may take a look at this later backslash, though ie itself does keep such a history that you can view and search, so another less-cpu intensive solution would be to read that history list rather than monitor for urls in the address bar.

[AbteriX]

???

did you talk about a feature like "Ctrl+H" with iE ?

In
C:\Documents and Settings\UsErNaMe\Local Settings\Verlauf\History.IE5\MSHist012..
you can find an index.dat file.


- Open this .dat into PSPad
- Search Ctrl+F
- select the Regex checkbox
- select "Find a URL" from [!]-button
- choose [Copy]-button to get an new side with all the URLs

[Backslash]

Some good ideas.  I will check them out.
Yes to kimmchii, the Maxthon's save windows as group is what inspired this.    I use Maxthon at home, but for at-work use we are stuck on IE.    Heck if I ever figure this out I might format the output the same so to be able to open with Maxthon.

Thanks mouser, I'll see if I can figure out the APIs for the history list.  Good idea, hadn't thought of that.  Won't quite show the currently-open windows but is better than nothing. 

Stefan, your extension to that idea is intriguing, but I'm running into a couple problems.  (I'm assuming "Verlauf" is Temp or something like that, cause I don't have anything called "Process" or similar -- but I'm surely translating that wrong anyway.)  I am administrator and yet the editor claims that the History.IE5 folder is access denied.  Will keep looking.  Still, thanks for the PSPad recommendation!  I had heard about it before but hadn't realized it was free, or so cool.

Thanks for the tips so far!

[AbteriX]

... (I'm assuming "Verlauf" is Temp or something like that, 

"Verlauf" == history

e.g.
C:\Documents and Settings\Default User\Local Settings\History\History.IE5\

I am administrator and yet the editor claims that the History.IE5 folder is access denied. 

You spoke about an company PC, so estimated there are security settings on that folder.
So check the settings on the parent folder "Local Settings".

  Will keep looking.  Still, thanks for the PSPad recommendation! 
I had heard about it before but hadn't realized it was free, or so cool.

Thanks for the tips so far!

Yes its cool and free.
Check out the PSPad Forum for further help on http://forum.pspad.com/


Welcome to the community

[Carol Haynes]

Bookmark Buddy allows you to do this with a single click per page you want to save. Not sure you can do it automatically though for all pages visited.

[neilanm]

Yes, I would like the code to the program, you can email it to me at neilanm@hotmail.com