Do You Use Sidebar Bookmarks?

The entire reason we didn’t use sidebars for anything in web browsers years ago is simply because we didn’t have the screen real estate for it. We more or less always had the option, but it took too much away from web page viewing to be useful.

Since many people today use higher resolutions, we now can use bookmarks in the sidebar while still having plenty of space left over for web pages.

I use a 20-inch monitor with a 1680×1050 display. When I have my browser maximized I can easily enable the sidebar and it works out quite nicely, like this:

Above is the Firefox web browser, but this can be done in Internet Explorer or Opera as well.

There are three distinct advantages to using bookmarks the sidebar way.

Keyboard navigation

You can click in the sidebar area then use your up/down (and left/right for menu expansion), then press Enter for were you want to go quickly and easily.

Bookmark-only search (Firefox)

While it’s true you can use the address bar to search bookmarks, unfortunately this also mixes in your browser history in the search results. The bookmark search will only search bookmarks – a huge plus.

Easy drag-and-drop organization

Having bookmarks in the sidebar is by far the easiest way to organize your links. Just drag and drop them in whatever order you like. In Firefox you can add separator lines and folders easily as well.

If you’ve got the resolution to do it, try it out

Got the pixels available to go a little wider and enable sidebar bookmarks? Try it out – you’ve always had it available.

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bTibbs
I’ve been using something similar for a few years. Its an addon called all-in-one sidebar for Firefox. It has an auto-hide function which is great for those who don’t have a 20+ inch monitor like a laptop screen. Check it out:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1027
Nate
I use the All in One Sidebar add-on for FireFox. I simply cannot live without it. I sits nicely to the left of my screen and lets me easily manage my Bookmarks, history, downloads, extensions, and more.
I really like it for easily watching the status of my downloads
Stu
Rich said:
While it’s true you can use the address bar to search bookmarks, unfortunately this also mixes in your browser history in the search results.
Rich,
open the options and click the Privacy tab. At the bottom of the window, there is a drop-down box where you can specify what the Location Bar searches for. I have mine set to “Bookmarks” and that’s all I get. When I do want to search history, I press Crtr-h to open the history sidebar. (Press Ctrl-I to change it back to bookmarks)
One thing I do with every Firefox release is to cruise every pane in the Options to see what’s new and to make sure they haven’t changed or set up any new “default” settings that I didn’t ask for.
http://changingoftheguard.tumblr.com Charles Kane
Absolutely. I use a lot of bookmarks and open a lot of sites at once – there is really no other way to do this. I don’t have it open all the time (Ctrl+B is pretty easy), but when open drag and drop to save bookmarks -or be rid of them, or sort them is a boon. I tried all-in-one but it really served no purpose as a simple keystroke is all I need.
BTW my bookmarks are very fluid and probably 30% of about 4 or 500 change every six weeks or so.