Guide to Internet Explorer
Favorites

Figure 1: The Five Internet Explorer Toolbars

1. The Title bar, which contains the formal title of a web page. This text comes from the title tag, embedded in the HTML code.
2. Menu bar
3. Button bar - Navigation
4. Address bar - The URL (Uniform Resource Locator) of the Page. The URL is the address of the web page.
5. Links Bar - instant access to selected favorites

Figure 2: Organizing Favorites

Working with Favorites

In the Favorites Window you can edit and delete entries and folders. Searching favorites is a little difficult.

Favorites/Organize Favorites opens the Favorites window. You can edit an entry, changing the name andURL These bits of information are called the properties. To change a name or URL, RIGHT (opposite) click on the entry and select properties from the pop up menu.

Default Entries

Browsers arrive with pre-set favorites in place, usually to a selection of commercial sites. I recommend you delete these favorites or create a folder, named commercial and drag all those favorites into it.To delete a favorite just click once on the entry, to highlight it, then press the Delete key.

Editing Favorites: the Properties

Often it's useful to change the name of a favorite or to update the URL when the owner changes the location of the page.

1. Open favorites: Favorites/Organize Favorites
2. Click to highlight the entry you want to edit and select properties from the pop up menu.
3. Enter the changes and click the OK button to close the edit window.

Searching Favorites

This search actually occurs outside of Internet Explorer and is more a function of Microsoft Windows than Internet Explorer.

Click on the Start Button
Select Find / Files or Folders

Figure 3: The Find window

1. Enter a keyword (search term) you recall being part of a favorite name
2. Look in refers to where on the hard drive you want to perform the search.Use the Browse button, 2a. to point at, or just type the entry you see in Figure 3. You will need to follow that exact path, to c:\windows\favorites. (it doesn't matter if you type the path in upper, lower or mixed case)
3. Click the Find Now button
4. And see the results of the search in the lower part of the window.

Organizing Favorites with Folders

You can create, edit,delete folders. You can drag favorites in and out of folders. As you add a web page to favorites, you can immediately file it in a folder. You can edit the name of the entry as you file it which can be extremely useful when you need to add clarifying and searchable key words to the listing label.

The text label in the favorites listing comes from a special command embedded into the HTML code of a web page. This is called the title tag and its function is to assign a formal, bibliographic title to the web page. You may not want to use that text as your label in the favorites listing, or you may want to add text to it (this can often be useful later when you're searching for a specific entry).

You can use drag and drop to arrange the list of folders and to add and move marks to and from folders and to alphabetize folders and entries.

• Create folders: In the Organize Window select Create Folder
• Edit folders: Select the Rename button.

Adding Entries Directly to a Folder

1. Click on the Favorites button
2. Select Add to Favorites
3. In the Add Favorite window you can edit the label for the entry, click to highlight the folder you want to file it in, or even create a new folder to file it in.

Links: Your Personal Toolbar of Favorites

In Figure 1, the fifth toolbar serves as a quick list of links to web sites. You can enter a single URL or you can add a folder of links. The links toolbar may not be readily apparent. It may be hidden at the far right end of the fourth toolbar, the Address bar.

The Three Great Strengths of MSIE

1. Click and Drag Anywhere, Anytime

• Try this: click the favorites menu, click on a favorite and drag it over to your Windows Start button and drop it. Now when you click on the Start button you'll see that favorite listed in the shortcuts area of the Start menu.
• Control-click-and-drag will copy the favorite, regular click-and-drag will move the favorite.
• Drag a prgram shortcut to you links toolbar and drop it there to access it at any time. You can also drag a shortcut to a directory path to open at any time. This gives you instant access to launching a program or opening a directory on your hard drive with a single click.

2. Right-click (or opposite-click for southpaws) options, anytime, anywhere, and extremely fast.

3. The tight integration with Windows and Windows Explorer

Open Windows Explorer (RIGHT-click (opposite-click) the mouse on the Start button, select explore). Put the Links Toolbar up, and it starts to look just like Internet Explorer. Click on a URL on the Links bar and it becomes IE.

The ability to place URLs and program shortcuts on the Links bar and in the Favorites folder and to see the same toolbar in the computer and in the browser, and to access these resources back and forth in such a seamless fashion offers a truely powerful research toolkit.

http://edmiston.org/paula/recap2001/msiebm.html
paula@edmiston.org Last edited 8 May 2001

Content Copyright 2001, Matrix Magic, Inc. Used by permission.