TagSifter Firefox Extension
Browse your bookmarks with sets of tags
Version 3.1
Firefox 3 lets you tag your bookmarks, but it doesn't give you a great way to browse your bookmarks by their tags. TagSifter tries to.
Click a bunch of tags in the sidebar or menu to see the bookmarks and other tags that are related. Use the related tags to quickly filter your search.
Or, if you can handle real ultimate power, you can use a full range of set operators in arbitrary expressions to search your bookmarks by their tags. To see all bookmarks whose names contain the word "telecaster" and that you've tagged as being about classic films or books but not about hamsters, you might tell TagSifter:
(classic & (film + book)) - hamsters ?telecaster
TagSifter also comes with a tool to help you tag your old bookmarks as you migrate to Firefox 3.
Contents
Use
Two choices, a sidebar and a menu. Either way, browsing is simple: select a bunch of tags, and TagSifter shows you all the related bookmarks. You'll also see other tags that have bookmarks in common and with them you can easily narrow down your search.
Sidebar, Simple Use
Open the sidebar from the sidebar menu (View > Sidebar), the default keyboard shortcut (Ctrl+`), or its toolbar button. (Add the toolbar button to your toolbar via View > Toolbars > Customize. TagSifter is a courteous extension and does not by default add to the clutter of your toolbar.)
Click tags in the list to add them to the query. The sidebar will show only the bookmarks that are related—that is, those bookmarks that are tagged by all the tags in the query. The list of tags will be updated with those tags that have bookmarks in common with the tags of the query.
Remove tags from the query by clicking their names in the query cloud—that's the grouping of tags under the textbox. By default, clicking a tag will remove all succeeding tags. Right-click to open a context menu, which has more options. To remove all tags, click the reset button at the left side of the textbox.
Sidebar, Advanced Use
"Tag" is really just a silly word that means "a set of bookmarks." TagSifter lets you combine your tags in arbitrary and interesting ways by using complex queries with set operators. Like,
muffins - (cookies + brownies) ?donuts
will show you all bookmarks (and related tags) that are tagged with muffins but not with either cookies or brownies and whose names or URLs contain the word "donuts".
Easy peasy.
The following operators are available:
| Operator | Meaning | Example | Example Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| , | intersection ("and") | ness, paula | bookmarks tagged with both ness and paula |
| & | intersection | mario & daisy | |
| + | union ("or") | bub + bob | bookmarks tagged with either bub or bob |
| | | union | link | zelda | |
| - | difference ("but not") | sonic - tails | bookmarks tagged with sonic but not with tails |
| ! | complement ("not") | !crono | bookmarks not tagged with crono |
| ~ | complement | ~cloud | |
| ( and ) | precedence | !(samus & yoshi) | bookmarks not tagged with both samus and yoshi |
| ? | bookmark search (names and URLs) | ?chop chop master onion | bookmarks whose names or URLs contain the case-insensitive string "chop chop master onion" |
Note that the sidebar's simple use described above intersects all tags.
If a tag name or bookmark search contains one of the above operators, prefix the operator with a \ (backslash). Like, if you've got a tag named cock-a-hoop, type it as cock\-a\-hoop. Otherwise TagSifter will think you meant the expression cock - a - hoop.
The binary operators (intersection, union, and difference) all have the same precedence, which is lower than the precedence of the unary operators (complement and bookmark search), and are evaluated from left to right.
To make it a little easier on you, TagSifter assumes an intersection in certain cases:
| A ) followed by a tag name | ||
| (franks, beans) greens | ⇒ | (franks, beans) & greens |
| A ) followed by a ( | ||
| (peas, biscuits) (corn) | ⇒ | (peas, biscuits) & (corn) |
| A ) followed by a unary operator (complement or bookmark search) | ||
| (cornbread + chicken) !bacon | ⇒ | (cornbread + chicken) & !bacon |
| A tag name or bookmark search followed by a ( | ||
| porkchops (gravy | rice) | ⇒ | porkchops & (gravy | rice) |
| A tag name or bookmark search followed by a unary operator | ||
| ?potatoes !beans | ⇒ | ?potatoes & !beans |
By default the textbox will autocomplete tags as you type, and if it completes the tag you want, press Tab or Enter to skip to the end, where you can begin typing the next tag. Also by default, tag completions are drawn from the list of related tags. If you often use the advanced functionality of the sidebar, you may want completions to be drawn from all tags, and you can make that happen by toggling the relevant option.
Remove the last tag you typed by pressing Esc, and remove all tags with Shift+Esc.
Menu
The menu works similarly to the simple use of the sidebar. As you navigate the menus, you narrow down your bookmarks to those that are tagged by all the tags you've selected. Open the Related Bookmarks menu to see all such bookmarks. Each successive menu shows only the tags related to those you've selected.
Open the menu from its toolbar button. (Add the toolbar button to your toolbar via View > Toolbars > Customize. TagSifter is a courteous extension and does not by default add to the clutter of your toolbar.) On systems other than Mac OS X, the menu can also be opened from Firefox's bookmarks menu.
Tagging Bookmarks
TagSifter comes with a simple tool that can help you migrate your bookmarks from older versions of Firefox to tagged bookmarks in Firefox 3. Actually, you can use it to batch-tag any of your bookmarks.
It works by tagging bookmarks with tags corresponding to all the folders that contain those bookmarks. For example, if your Ramen Noodles bookmark is filed in folders Eats/Cooking/Chinese, then that bookmark will be tagged Eats, Cooking, and Chinese. You can choose the root folder at which to begin tagging.
Start the tool by either
- selecting "TagSifter Migrator" from the Tools menu (Tools > TagSifter Migrator), or
- selecting the "Migrate Folders" tab in TagSifter's options window.
Screenshots
Sidebar
Menu
Migration tool
Toolbar buttons
Sidebar with optional tag cloud
Coloring a tag in the sidebar
Options window
Options
TagSifter has a few options you can twiddle, like:
- Make the sidebar show tags in a cloud instead of a list
- Change the sidebar keyboard shortcut
- Disable autocomplete and find-as-you-type in the sidebar
- Change what happens when you click a tag in the sidebar's query cloud
- Hide the query cloud
You can open TagSifter's options window in the same way as other extensions (Tools > Add-ons, then find TagSifter and click the relevant button).
You can also color individual tags in the sidebar by right-clicking on them to bring up a context menu.
Style It
You can color individual tags in the sidebar by right-clicking on them to bring up a context menu. But, if you know some CSS, you can go above and beyond.
Known Issues
-
Some other add-ons that add icons to Firefox's menus prevent
TagSifter's tag menus from opening.
Here's a workaround. Add-ons that are
known to conflict with TagSifter are:
- CuteMenus - Crystal SVG extension
- Noia theme
- Smoke theme
- Command-`, TagSifter's default sidebar key on Mac OS X, is apparently used by OS X to cycle the windows of the current application. Whoops. You can change or remove the keybinding in the options window.
- Tag colors do not apply in the tag menu
- Livemarks are not expanded. But Firefox doesn't expand livemarks under tag folders, either...
- On the Mac, sidebar keyboard shortcut customization is kind of sketchy. Some key combinations just won't work, but because TagSifter doesn't know which, it can't tell you if they don't.
Wishlist
- Related bookmarks in the menus should be displayed directly instead of in submenus. The extra click is annoying.
- Ability to save queries for later recall
- Cut, copy, paste support
- Different orderings for bookmarks other than alphabetical. Chronological would be especially useful.
- Middle-click on tag menu opens all bookmarks in tabs
- Up and down cycle through history in tag input
- Drag and drop support
Changelog (clog?)
- 3.1 (June 18, 2008; Firefox 3.0–3.0.*)
-
- feature: bookmark (names and URLs) search operator
- feature: when there are no related tags, the sidebar's splitter collapses to hide the related tags display
- bugfix: random bookmark names appear blank
- bugfix: bookmarks with no name should display their URLs instead
- bugfix: tag input autocompletion incorrectly steps over the spaces in tags that contain spaces
- bugfix: duplicate tag names can trip up the sidebar's tag input
- 3.0 (May 20, 2008; Firefox 3.0–3.0.*)
-
- feature: Full set manipulation. Tags can be intersected, unioned, complemented, and subtracted by typing arbitrary expressions in the sidebar's tag input
- feature: "Open All in Tabs" bookmark command, which can be accessed in the tag menus and from the sidebar's context menu
- feature: middle-clicks on bookmarks in the tag menu open them in new tabs
- feature: tags in the sidebar can be individually colored (via context menu)
- feature: query cloud in sidebar can be hidden via options
- change: gussied up query portion of sidebar
- change: Unlike the betas the RC synchs the properties of all copies of a bookmark. So, added a bookmark Properties command, and bookmark titles are now taken from the synched copies (in the moz_bookmarks table) instead of the history (moz_places)
- bugfix: minor fixes to accommodate changes from betas
- 2.0.0 (May 2008; Firefox 3 Beta 5)
-
- Complete rewrite for Firefox 3, most Bookmark Tags functionality resurrected
- change: funky folder-based tagging system no longer needed, abandoned, yay
- change: tags must now be separated with commas when typing them, to match Firefox 3's method
- change: sidebar default keyboard shortcut changed to Ctrl+` because Firefox 3 stepped on my toes and set the bookmarks Library to the previous shortcut
- change: default tag display is now a list, to better match Firefox 3's UI
- change: changes in CSS selectors
- change: extra startup time no longer required, other side effects due to changes from Firefox 2
- feature: tag list scrolls as tag input is typed in sidebar
- feature: better-exposed options and help
- feature: customizable sidebar keyboard shortcut
- feature: find-as-you-type in the sidebar
- 1.0.0 (March 2008; Firefox 3 Betas 3 and 4)
- Released only experimentally for Firefox 3b3 and 3b4 as Bookmark Tags 1.0.0. Everything scrapped, migration wizard added
- Older
- In its previous lives TagSifter was known as Bookmark Tags, which enabled "tagged" bookmarks for Firefox 1 and 2