How to turn an Internet Explorer "Favorites" list of bookmarked website URLs into a clean, publishable Adobe GoLive HTML page. Ideal for making a "links list" for your website. This is FREEWARE.

News flash: I just found a Mac application called gURLfriend which does most of this process! Check out my description of this application which does just about everything that my more complicated process did (but gURLfriend has one bug). And I'm investigating how do do this using an XML datasource. If you know how to convert an Explorer favorites list into XML, PLEASE let me know!

A big attraction on silentway.com is the Silent Way Directory of over 2000 links to websites which I recommend to visitors. Using fairly common applications, anyone can use this technique to create their own list. I couldn't find an application that manages URLs and can ouput the list in HTML, so I designed this method. I'd love to hear of an easier solution.

This process will take your Microsoft Internet Explorer list of bookmarked websites and generate a publishable webpage. This also makes it easy to update the resultant links list frequently, and a second step generates a categorical "Table of Contents" for external referencing. The Favorites file is actually an HTML file to begin with, but it's full of tons of useless extra data, has no anchors for easy searching, and is a longer download. Some URLS may also contain your site passwords, IDs or user name, which you should not make public.

Requirements: Adobe GoLive version 4 or later, QuicKeys, Microsoft's Internet Explorer. You will also need to download Silent Way's QuicKeys sequence. This technique is for the Mac, but could probably be adapted for Windows or for Dreamweaver.

It works by a series of QuicKeys sequences which convert the Internet Explorer file "Favorites.html" into a clean GoLive HTML page. Then, a separate page is created as an index to the (much longer) list of links. (If you have more than 500 links, I recommend further breaking your main list into seperate pages for easier navigation.) This is not a simple process, so read all the instructions first.

While websurfing with Explorer, add favorites and organize them with folders and subfolders with UNIQUE names. Add descriptions in Explorer's "about this Favorite" window (Select a Favorite and press Command-I). These descriptions will follow the link on your final page. To easily check the list for dead links, try an application like Big Brother.

First, import the QuicKeys sequences for GoLive into QuicKeys. The QuicKeys sequence I use will work for up to 1700 links or so. If you have more than that, you will need to increase the number of times that each sequence repeats.

In the Finder, temporarily allocate a LOT more memory to GoLive or it will crash if the favorites file is big (I have around 1700 Links and I give GoLive 55 megs).

Optional- To sort the list alphabetically:
Open Explorer, and select "Organize Favorites" from the "favorites" menu. Open all folders and subfolders so that they all show in the main window. Sort (alphabetize) them by name. Quit Explorer.

Make a backup copy of your favorites file. It can be found in the Explorer preferences folder (System Folder --> Preferences --> Explorer)

Drag the favorites.html file into your GoLive site's parts folder in the "Extra" window.

Open the file and switch to HTML source view. A long list of links may take a minute to open.

Open Find window (Cmd-F), and click the "find and replace" tab at the top. Check "regular Expression" and "from top", and click on the triangle to expose the "replace window."

Close the Find window.

Shrink HTML window to 5-10 lines tall (this will speed up screen redraw during the QuicKeys sequence.)

Run the QuicKeys (GoLive) sequence FAVORITES --> HTML. This removes tons of useless Microsoft info, leaving just the links and the headings (folders/subfolders), so the size (and download time) is thus reduced by at least 50%. It also adds an anchor to each folder and subfolder for linking to each category. This may take 5+ minutes, so wait for the message and sound which means that the sequence is finished. As long as the QuicKeys "tape recorder" icon is flashing, the sequence isn't done yet.

Check this HTML source for errors. If something goes wrong during the QuicKeys sequence, the color coding of the HTML code may have a break in it's otherwise consistent look. This is the signal that a link may be weird. It's easy to see if there is an extra quotation mark or tag bracket by this color coding. Also, there are inevitably a few extra bits of text left over, but that text is most likely insignificant, unless they interfere with the opening and closing tags.

To change links so that they open in a new window:
find this text (including the quotation mark): ">
replace with: " TARGET="_top">

Save this file. We'll call this "urls.html".

Duplicate the file by "saving as" another name. We'll call this "toc.html" (for Table of Contents). This new file will become a "Table of Contents" referencing page to your list of links, with links to each section.

Open "toc.html" (**NOT urls.html!**), switch to HTML view, and run the QuicKeys sequence Delete dd,link. This deletes all the links and any comments. (Careful here... don't do this to your urls.html file.)

Count the number of categories that you have.

Run the sequence Anchr->Link2Anc. This changes the remaining anchors into links to the anchors on the main links page. The sequence will prompt you, asking the name of the links page, and how many categories there are.

Switch to Layout view.

Run the sequence Links->list.

Reformat to taste.

This set of QuicKeys sequences takes advantage of GoLive's ability to use Regular Expressions in its Find/Replace function. Regular Expressions are a series of variables that allow searches for items that meet a range of criteria. They are used in many applications, and their availability in GoLive is a blessing. For more information on how these powerful tools work, search the web for "Regular Expressions."