Firefox 3 introduced a new way of keeping an overview over the bookmarks of Firefox by adding tags. Tags are descriptions of an item and can be used to load the site in the address bar which is probably easier than having to type part of the url of the website. They also come in quite handy if several bookmarks of a website exist in Firefox that all point to another part of the website, say different articles here at Ghacks.
Writing down part of the url in the address bar would display all hits while tags only show the websites that have been tagged with that name which means that a unique tag will only show one result.
Adding tags to bookmarks is completely optional and a cumbersome process especially for users who imported bookmarks from Firefox 2 and decided to tag them all, or at least part of them to use the tagging feature for all bookmarks.
The following three Firefox add-ons help the user and make tagging much easier.
- Handytag: Firefox 3 does not suggest tags when a user bookmarks a page, even if he bookmarked and tagged a similar page before. Handytag steps in and provides tag suggestions by looking at previous tags and external sources like Delicious, the webmaster of the page and the inbuilt keyword extractor.
- Tagmarks: Inspired by the star in the address bar which, when clicked on, will automatically bookmark the current tab. Tagmarks introduces a set of additional icons in the Firefox 3 address bar which can be used to tag a page. The user can select between one and all of the icons available and list all tagged bookmarks in a separate window.
The Firefox add-on does have a few limitations. There is no way to associate different names with the icons or to add new icons that might be missing. This could be really useful if the developer would add customization to the add-on.
- TagSifter: Provides a way to browse the tags in the sidebar which are showing related bookmarks when selected. Comes with a Firefox 2 bookmark importer that can tag pages automatically and makes use of operators to find tags, for example tag2-tag3
Related Articles:
Firefox Bookmarks: Reset Special FoldersAdd Delicious Bookmarks to Firefox
Display Firefox Unsorted Bookmarks More Visibly
Bookmarking In Firefox Got A Tad Easier
Exclude Websites From Appearing In The Firefox Address Bar