284900 - Feature Request: Keyword search of bookmarks

Status: RESOLVED EXPIRED

(Firefox :: Bookmarks & History, enhancement)

Description

[Jonathan Gross]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20041001 Firefox/0.10.1
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20041001 Firefox/0.10.1

OK, so this is not a bug, but how does one make a suggestion?  I have a lot of
bookmarks, some of which could fit into multiple categories.  How about a
feature that lets me search through the bookmarks by keyword expression? 
Optionally, search link page for expression.

Reproducible: Always

Actual Results:  
Can't search.

Expected Results:  
Want to find a bookmark.  When it finds the (regular expression?), list the
category path and bookmark information.  One step beyond that: search bookmark
URL content for the keywords.

Produce local HTML table with three columns:

Bookmark | Category Path containing hit |  Matched text linked to bookmark

Comment 1

[Ben Fowler]

The bookmark manager does have a keyword facility.

Do you have time to add keywords to your bookmarks.

What I think is required is a 'brain helper' or 'knowledge manager' or google, 
separate from the existing bookmarks (bookmarks, like a mark in a book, ought
to much lighter weight and primarily be effective in keeping your place
between browsing sessions). 

Like the original Memex, my proposed 'knowlege engine' or index, should keep
a full text index of pages that you have considered valuable. (Perhaps 
the Cmd-W should close and index as average rating, Cmd-Opt-W close and
rate as above average, and take the Cmd-K from 'move to Google Box' and
use it as 'Kill', that is close and rate the page as below average). This
is much the same as the distinction between close mail as delete, read and 
spam.

et cetera, et cetera.


I have to admit, that I open my bookmarks file in text editor to do
what the Reporter wants, and think that this in itelf indicates missing
or inaccessible functionality!

Comment 2

[Jonathan Gross]

(In reply to comment #1)
> The bookmark manager does have a keyword facility.
> 
> Do you have time to add keywords to your bookmarks.
> 
> What I think is required is a 'brain helper' or 'knowledge manager' or google, 
> separate from the existing bookmarks (bookmarks, like a mark in a book, ought
> to much lighter weight and primarily be effective in keeping your place
> between browsing sessions). 
> 
> Like the original Memex, my proposed 'knowlege engine' or index, should keep
> a full text index of pages that you have considered valuable. (Perhaps 
> the Cmd-W should close and index as average rating, Cmd-Opt-W close and
> rate as above average, and take the Cmd-K from 'move to Google Box' and
> use it as 'Kill', that is close and rate the page as below average). This
> is much the same as the distinction between close mail as delete, read and 
> spam.
> 
> et cetera, et cetera.
> 
> 
> I have to admit, that I open my bookmarks file in text editor to do
> what the Reporter wants, and think that this in itelf indicates missing
> or inaccessible functionality!

Maybe I wasn't clear:  I was thinking of KWIC (Key word in context), e.i. word
search in the text using, perhaps, an existing search capability.  I was not
thinking that I would classify my bookmarks semantically.  That classification
is, I assume, reflected in the organizational structure of the bookmark hierarchy.

I was thinking of the operation that you perform by doing a text search on the
bookmark text.

Think about a nicely filtered search both on the bookmarks themselves, and
optionally one level deep to the page to which it referes.  The problem I'm
trying to solve (in my old age) is this:

I know I made a bookmark to some information previously researched, but now I
don't remember the specifics of the bookmark, but I know it was associated with
some key words.  If I think that I made a book mark to it, why search the whole
Web again?  I just want to search my (MRU) cache of information. 

Comment 3

[Jonathan Gross]

(In reply to comment #1)
BTW, Thanks for your comments, and sorry about the reply text; this is the first
time I have used the bug reporting facility.

Comment 4

[Ben Fowler]

(In reply to comment #2)
> (In reply to comment #1)
> I know I made a bookmark to some information previously researched, but now I
> don't remember the specifics of the bookmark, but I know it was associated 
> with some key words.  If I think that I made a book mark to it, why search 
> the whole Web again?  I just want to search my (MRU) cache of information. 

I fully agree, and I have had this problem many, many times. Yes is 
often quicker and simpler to STW than to find something on one's disk. 
Email clients should do as gmail does. I think that what is needed is 
something like a outboard brain 
http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2003/08/05/outboard_brains.html .
All I can say at this stage is that I am distressed that there seems no 
easy way for Firefox to keep a full text index of all cached docs. This 
ought to mean that anything you have seen before, can be matched back to 
its URL, provided that you can rememebr the context.

Comment 5

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

This is an automated message, with ID "auto-resolve01".

This bug has had no comments for a long time. Statistically, we have found that
bug reports that have not been confirmed by a second user after three months are
highly unlikely to be the source of a fix to the code.

While your input is very important to us, our resources are limited and so we
are asking for your help in focussing our efforts. If you can still reproduce
this problem in the latest version of the product (see below for how to obtain a
copy) or, for feature requests, if it's not present in the latest version and
you still believe we should implement it, please visit the URL of this bug
(given at the top of this mail) and add a comment to that effect, giving more
reproduction information if you have it.

If it is not a problem any longer, you need take no action. If this bug is not
changed in any way in the next two weeks, it will be automatically resolved.
Thank you for your help in this matter.

The latest beta releases can be obtained from:
Firefox:     http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firefox/
Thunderbird: http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/releases/1.5beta1.html
Seamonkey:   http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/

Comment 6

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

This bug has been automatically resolved after a period of inactivity (see above
comment). If anyone thinks this is incorrect, they should feel free to reopen it.

Comment 7

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

sorry for bugspam, long-overdue mass reassign of ancient QA contact bugs, filter on "beltznerLovesGoats" to get rid of this mass change