Jan's Browser Basics: Favorites

Step-by-Step: Using Favorites

What you will learn:

to open the Favorites pane
to add a shortcut to Favorites with 4 methods

Start with:

View Favorites

Pane: Click on the Favorites button on the toolbar.
A new pane appears on the left of the display area. Your computer may have already folders besides the ones that come with IE.

The advantage of this pane is that the links stay visible so you can quickly choose a different one. The disadvantage is that it reduces the space available for the page.
Menu: Select the menu Favorites . A cascading menu opens. Do not click on any of the choices.
The menu has the advantage of displaying quickly and it does not take up screen space after you choose a link. Having to open and maneuver through the menu each time is its disadvantage.
Press ESC to close the menu. Leave the Favorites pane open.

Add to Favorites: Drag and Drop to pane

With the World Travel site displayed in the viewing area, drag the icon next to its address in the Address Bar down to the Favorites pane. Do not drop yet.
Hover over the Links folder until it opens and then move the pointer onto the list. A heavy black line appears to show where the link will be dropped.
Drop the link at the top of the list under Links. A new item appears, but not at the top of the list - index.html . This is not a very helpful name!
Right click on the new link and choose Rename .
Type the name World Travel and press ENTER
Test the link: First change the page by clicking on the Home button in the toolbar. Then click on your new Favorite in the left pane - World Travel. The browser should show the framed pages for the site World Travel

If you have trouble clicking a shortcut in the Favorites pane, try clicking the icon instead of the name.

Add to Favorites: Drag and drop to menu

With World Travel displayed, return to the icon at the left of the address bar and drag it up to the menu Favorites and hover there. Do not drop yet.
As the pointer moves, it will change to when over areas where you cannot drop.
After the Favorites menu opens, drag down the menu. A heavy black line shows where the link can drop.
Drop above the first folder.
A new entry appears with that unhelpful name index.html , and after a brief hesitation, the menu closes. You need to test this link.
Click on the Home button to change pages.
Open the Favorites menu and click on the new link: index.html
The framed page for World Travel should appear in the browser. This shows that you can have more than one link to the same page but in different Favorites folders. Very convenient!

Add to Favorites: Right click menu

In the left frame (not the left pane), right click on the link Tahiti.
From the popup menu select Add to Favorites... The dialog Add Favorite opens.
Click on the button Create in>>. The dialog box expands to let you choose a folder from the folder tree or use the button to make a new folder.
Click the button New Folder… and create a new folder named My Class .
Click on OK.
With the new folder My Class selected, click on OK in the Add Favorite dialog. The dialog closes.
In the Favorites pane, click on My Class to expand it. Your new shortcut is there!
In the Favorites pane, click on Tahiti . The Tahiti page opens in the full display area rather than in a frame! This is what happens if you create a link to a document that is in a frame.
Many framed documents don't work well outside of their frames. There may be no way to get to other pages on the original site. The page by itself may not make much sense.

Add to Favorites: Explorer

If you know a web address or the path to a file on your computer, you can put a shortcut to it in the Favorites folder. You are not limited to just pages on the Internet. You must do this from Explorer. Add to Favorites from Internet Explorer will only make a shortcut to the page currently being shown in IE.

Without closing IE, open an Explorer window to C:\Windows\Favorites\My Class
With the contents of My Class showing in Explorer's right pane, right click in an empty area of the right pane. From the popup menu choose New | Shortcut...

The Create Shortcut dialog opens.
Type in the Command line text box the URL:
http://www.jegsworks.com/Lessons/web/start/hurrah.htm . (You may use the equivalent path to the resource files if you installed them on your hard drive.)
Click the button Next. The dialog box changes.
Type Hurrah in the text box Select a name for the shortcut and click the button Finish. Your shortcut is added to the Favorites folder at the bottom of the list in the right pane.
Don't forget -- When you add files or folders in Explorer, they are at the bottom of the list in the right pane until you refresh the window. If the list is long, your new items will be out of sight. Don't get lost!
Press the F5 key to refresh the display. The items will be re-sorted.
Switch to the Internet Explorer window and look at the Favorites pane.
Click on the new shortcut Hurrah.
Success!

By the way, no other pages have a link to this one.

Browser Basics: Favorites