Export your bookmarks to the HTML format. Descriptions are still there.

TyDraniu said

Export your bookmarks to the HTML format. Descriptions are still there.

BRILLIANT!!!! Many thanks!!! :D

It seems that Mozilla has gotten rid of the DESCRIPTION window when you right click on a bookmark's properties. This was done in July for the Mac version of Firefox and with Ver. 62.0 for Windows.

No warning was given and there are a lot of complaints on the Mac version forum about this change. Again with Windows there was no warning that this MAJOR change was going to take place.

Like MANY other people I use the DESCRIPTION window to store extensive information about a given webpage. You can imagine my shock this morning when I went to retrieve some info and the window was gone. A little digging online found the complaint thread on the Mac change.

I have no idea why this was done. If it was for some security reason then it is understandable........the change that is, not t he way it was handled.

There are solutions given on the Mac thread on how to use another companies add-on to show the past saved descriptions. They are still in the Mozilla data files but are not shown in Ver. 62. You can also do an EXPORT to a .html file and then open the descriptions in the browser. Or you can reinstall Ver. 61.x from the archives and set it to NOT check for updates. This is what I did for the moment.

PLEASE bring back the DESCRIPTION window in bookmark properties. This is absolutely nuts to have to experience what I went through this morning sorting this all out.

BH Davis

After I "Export your bookmarks to the HTML format." How do I exactly see "The Notes" that I had typed there previously???

Save the exported .html file to a folder on your PC. Then go to that folder and open the file. It will probably open in your browser.

You can then see it in your browser. From there if you want you can select everything and copy/paste it into a Word.doc or similar.

BH

I'm actually going to probably ask for a new password and such every time I write a comment here in the future, because you got rid of an extremely convenient feature for what? To accommodate somebody else doing something else? I don't care about "all devices", I don't care about gaming, I don't care about "pockets". I did care that this was the really great browser that I could store things about my bookmarks, and have done so since this browser was only a couple of years old.

What a disastrous and stupid upgrade. As you can see, I'm fighting with myself not to descend into just a string of obscenities. Who decided nobody needed anything they personally weren't using? A guy in a cave?

What the hell is the difference, now, from Chrome? I don't use an Apple because I have more than one finger. I don't use my phone because improvements in interfaces during the whole twentieth and what's transpired of the twenty first centuries have produced a plethora of wonderful interfaces that are big enough to see what you're doing, and advances in language since the neolithic period has made it possible to engage in very informative conversations by not limiting replies to 280 characters like was done when people chiseled their stuff in stone.

If you can't find anybody who can code well enough to keep good features and not devolve to millennial idiocy, say so. People might be willing to help if being over 4 years old isn't held against us.

SOLUTION:

Download Firefox 60.2 ESR. This is the institutional version of Firefox and it has maintained the DESCRIPTION window. Word is that it will hold as is until at least Oct. 2019. After that it is an unknown. But for now it solves the problem nicely and is identical in every way I can see to regular Firefox.

BH

Thanks, BH, I will do that.

But that still leaves open the question of why the field was removed, and who decided that in order to support cellphone addicts, longtime users should be disadvantaged on the one feature that visibly makes this browser better than Chrome. I have to use Chrome at work. Without this feature, I don't see why I need this browser anymore. Chrome can't do bookmark properties so it is inferior. Oh, wait, neither can Firefox anymore, it's incompatible with coders who think everybody uses the browser the way they do. I'm so frigging sick of "progress" that makes stuff worse.

Where can I find the code for the bookmarks, and in what language is it written? At the very least, I want to try to make myself something that will bring them up a bit more organized than an unformated HTML file when the feature permanently devolves.

This popped up at Mozillazine.com:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/bookmark-notes/

It's a Notes add-on someone wrote that maintains the bookmarks description display. I know nothing about coding though so don't know if this reads the existing description file that will be eliminated eventually or creates a new one.

BH

Thanks, I will look at it.

There have also been changes to the display when "Show All Bookmarks" is selected, it doesn't show anything that isn't in a folder, at least by default. Since that includes my "most frequently used" bookmarks, which I carefully positioned so I would find them with little scrolling, it's also a bust and a crying shame.

Like I said previously, the way FireFox used to do bookmarks was one of its best features. I could care less what happens on a phone. I use my phone to make phone calls. Tired of being pushed around by people who can't chew their food without GPS and an app.

I had the same thing. A little playing with right-click options on the Bookmarks icon (customize toolbar bookmarks icon that gives the bookmarks list in the sidebar) resolved the problem.

BH

bhdavis said

This popped up at Mozillazine.com: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/bookmark-notes/ It's a Notes add-on someone wrote that maintains the bookmarks description display. I know nothing about coding though so don't know if this reads the existing description file that will be eliminated eventually or creates a new one.

As of yesterday, it didn't have an import function. My 10-minute comments; the author's first update addressed some of the points already: https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/9ep8ts/bookmark_notes_quickndirty_replacement_for/

hkr3 said

Where can I find the code for the bookmarks, and in what language is it written? At the very least, I want to try to make myself something that will bring them up a bit more organized than an unformated HTML file when the feature permanently devolves.

Bookmark data is stored in a SQLite database. It's not easy to work directly with the database. If you use the Backup feature to create a JSON-format file, I have a page that will optionally convert only the bookmarks with descriptions from JSON to HTML, so at least you have a more compact archive:

https://www.jeffersonscher.com/ffu/bookbackreader.html

Actually, it keeps folder names even if they don't have any relevant bookmarks in them; someday I'll fix that.

If you think it would make sense to add other tools to the page, let me know your thoughts.

hkr3 said

There have also been changes to the display when "Show All Bookmarks" is selected, it doesn't show anything that isn't in a folder, at least by default. Since that includes my "most frequently used" bookmarks, which I carefully positioned so I would find them with little scrolling, it's also a bust and a crying shame.

For a long time now "Show All Bookmarks" opens the Library window to the "Other Bookmarks" category. But if you find you have to go there often, you may want to add the optional bookmarks menu button to the toolbar. Either:

(A) Use the Customize panel (Customize Firefox controls, buttons and toolbars) to drag the icon () to the desired spot on the toolbar

(B) Use the method from Bookmarks in Firefox - section entitled: How do I add the Bookmarks Menu button to the toolbar?

• Click the "Library" button:
• Click "Bookmarks"
• Click "Bookmarking Tools"
• Click "Add Bookmarks Menu to Toolbar"

bhdavis said

SOLUTION: Download Firefox 60.2 ESR. This is the institutional version of Firefox and it has maintained the DESCRIPTION window. Word is that it will hold as is until at least Oct. 2019. After that it is an unknown.

Firefox 60 ESR has the feature set of Firefox 60, so it's a two version feature roll-back. It will get just critical security updates for the next 10-12 months, and then will update to the next in the ESR series, expected to be Firefox 68. At this time, I have no idea what Firefox 68 will look like.

More info: Switch to Firefox Extended Support Release (ESR) for personal use

I am so upset about this so-called "upgrade." Bring back the Description window for the Properties of each Bookmarked page. I had very important notes that I kept in there. Fortunately, I was able to retrieve my notes and copy/paste it into a Word document, but this is NOT convenient at all. WTF were you thinking?

Bad news: Exporting to HTML does NOT totally do the trick. In some of my descriptions, the important information was very brief and located on the first line of the subsequent text. That information is missing. Luckily, I had copies of some of it elsewhere. Whoever decided to remove the description feature needs a good hard smack in the mouth.

Hi RochDoug, let's refrain from suggesting physical violence.

What do you mean by:

In some of my descriptions, the important information was very brief and located on the first line of the subsequent text. That information is missing.

The export may not preserve line breaks in Description data, so data on separate lines may all run together.

If you want to try a different conversion, you can:

(A) Generate a fresh JSON-format backup file. See:

Restore bookmarks from backup or move them to another computer

(B) Convert the JSON file using my page here:

https://www.jeffersonscher.com/ffu/bookbackreader.html

By default, the resulting HTML page will contain a style rule that preserves line breaks in the Description data.

By "located on the first line", I meant that I considered the possibility that Firefox truncated longer content, but the parts I really needed (like user names) were always located at the very beginning of longer content.