Can I allow another user access to my bookmarks?
So far I've been sole user of a Vista Home Premium SP2 laptop, with 1 user account (admin, password-protected). I've now created a 2nd user account, non-admin & password-protected, for husband Dave. Both accounts have Firefox (ver.12) as default browser.
It'll be Dave's first foray into using a computer, and his main use of the laptop will be finding information on the web. I've built up a large collection of bookmarks over the last 10 years or so (organised in folders, sub-folders & so on), which would save him some time. None of them are confidential. Is there any way I can allow him access to them? And only when he wants to see them?
I have xmarks, but doubt it would help here, as I don't want to merge bookmarks; I'd just like Dave to be able to refer to mine when he wants to (while still having a blank canvas to build up his own on).
The laptop's used almost exclusively at home, and we 2 are the only people living in the house; I think we could do without password-protection of the user profiles most of the time, if that would help.
Gekose oplossing
Fogmatic wrote:
I exported them as you suggested, and the HTML file does show the hierachies, but not as clearly as the folder view in Firefox. There's quite a lot of scrolling down when bookmarks number about 2,000!
You need to import the bookmarks from the HTML file, like I pointed out above.
Fogmatic wrote:
I've learned that Xmarks (which I use already) can probably do what I want
You said you didn't want to "merge" bookmarks. If you do actually want to synchronize bookmarks, then by all means use either Xmarks or the built-in Sync feature.
Lees dié antwoord in konteks 👍 0All Replies (11)
Fogmatic wrote:
I have xmarks, but doubt it would help here, as I don't want to merge bookmarks
So you just want to export and import them? If so, see the following articles:
Thank you! That's useful to know, and exporting them to a file and giving it to user 2 will do almost all I want to. What I was hoping to do ideally was to enable user 2 to see my bookmark library complete with folders & subfolders (like it appears to me in Firefox). I exported them as you suggested, and the HTML file does show the hierachies, but not as clearly as the folder view in Firefox. There's quite a lot of scrolling down when bookmarks number about 2,000! It's easier to start with seeing the list of top-level folders, as in Firefox, where mine (about 30) fit into 1 screenful.
I've learned that Xmarks (which I use already) can probably do what I want, though the relevant checkbox in mine isn't working (I'm awaiting a reply in the Xmarks forum about that).
You can automatically export the bookmarks if you close Firefox to a location where you have write access to to make it easier.
You can make Firefox create an automatic HTML backup (bookmarks.html) when you exit Firefox if you set the browser.bookmarks.autoExportHTML pref to true on the about:config page.
That backup is created by default in the profile folder as bookmarks.html, but you can set the file name and path via the browser.bookmarks.file pref on the about:config page.
This pref doesn't exist by default and you may need to create a new String pref browser.bookmarks.autoExportHTML and set the value to the full path of the backup bookmarks file.
Thank you for all the info, cor-el. It'll be invaluable if I do end up going the export-to-HTML-file route. (I'm still checking around for alternative methods at the moment).
I'm hoping the Xmarks sharing facility will do the trick, once I'm able to try it (I hadn't noticed it before I searched for similar queries). Apparently it'll park a copy of the bookmarks (folders and all) online, that anyone anywhere who's given the URL can use. If it works for me, I could simply go there from the 2nd user account & bookmark it. (That's what I've been wanting, some neat little gateway from user account 2, to my bookmark library as viewed in Firefox).
Gekose oplossing
Fogmatic wrote:
I exported them as you suggested, and the HTML file does show the hierachies, but not as clearly as the folder view in Firefox. There's quite a lot of scrolling down when bookmarks number about 2,000!
You need to import the bookmarks from the HTML file, like I pointed out above.
Fogmatic wrote:
I've learned that Xmarks (which I use already) can probably do what I want
You said you didn't want to "merge" bookmarks. If you do actually want to synchronize bookmarks, then by all means use either Xmarks or the built-in Sync feature.
Thanks Gingerbread Man. Sorry - for some reason I was thinking that importing the file would have some effect or other I didn't want (troubleshooting/configuring has that effect on me after a while - It gets hard to see the wood for the trees!).
Anyway, importing the file into Dave's bookmarks did the trick of course. Then I just moved my folders there into a new one called 'Fogmatic's bookmarks' (and deleted the untidy stragglers I haven't sorted into folders yet!), and he now has exactly the neat arrangement I was hoping for.
I do use Xmarks to synchronise bookmarks between laptop & desktop (& access them on the move), and thanks for reminding me to try Firefox Sync (I think I'd have tried it first if it had been around at the time).
Thanks again.
By the way, I exported the file (while in my user account) to a USB stick, from which I imported it after logging on as Dave. I haven't found a simpler way yet, but it's my first experience with more than 1 user account (I only discovered recently, for instance, that I can't simply copy & paste etc between accounts!).
Be aware that you will get an extra set of bookmarks (they will be merged with the existing bookmarks) if you import an HTML backup, so you need to remove the bookmarks that ere previously imported.
Thanks for the tip, cor-el. The import I did into Dave's Firefox is intended as a one-off; just a way of supplying some ready-made search pointers under various subjects. Being under a single folder will presumably make the imported bookmarks simple to delete in the case of a later import, or if no longer wanted.
Thanks again cor-el and Gingerbread_Man.
Fogmatic wrote:
By the way, I exported the file (while in my user account) to a USB stick, from which I imported it after logging on as Dave. I haven't found a simpler way yet
To share files between accounts, you can place them in the public folder.
Thank you for the links, Gingerbread_Man (that'll take care of the rest of the configuration!).