The Links Bar

I was in a meeting at the office and we were discussing a bunch of changes to the computers we are going to make. I had a list of issues we were discussing and most of them seemed fairly reasonable.
When we got to discuss ‘The Links Bar’ the room got quiet. First, they looked at me like I was from Mars. I said, “You know, the Links Bar!” Then everyone looked at me with a sad face.
Before going forward here’s what the Links Bar looks like:

The Links Bar is kind of like a displayed set of Favorites/Bookmarks that resides in your toolbars so that you don’t have to pull down a menu to get to your frequently hit pages. It’s called the Links Bar in Internet Explorer, but the feature exists in most modern browsers.
Back to the story…
I began asking why the Links Bar was locked and hidden away. They all gave me a look that said, “You poor out of date man. What are you going to ask for next, a fax machine?” I said, “Am I the only one that uses the Links Bar?” They all nodded. I simply couldn’t believe this. I find the Links Bar invaluable. “Really, none of you use it?” I looked around the room and the eight other people all looked at me, shaking their heads.
Unable to wrap my head around this I asked how they got to their bookmarks. “Umm, we use the pull down…” Much head nodding.
They tried to be nice and humor me. They offered to unlock the Links Bar and put whatever bookmarks I wanted there. But the damage was done. I was the weird one, using the quirky feature noone else values.
The next time I am about to jab my Mom or Dad about the strange things they do on their computer that seem silly to me (electronic post-it notes and an upside-down touchpad instead of a mouse), I will remember this and cut them some slack.
Does anyone else use the Links Bar?

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15 thoughts on “The Links Bar”

  1. I used to use it pretty frequently. I put the sites I went to most often into the links bar. Then, I started putting folders of links there so there was less clicking-n-dragging to get to the things I used most frequently. I find it to be pretty useful.
    That being said, I no longer use that, or the bookmarks menu at all. I have a Mac running OS X and I have a shareware application called LaunchBar that lets me get at all of my applications, files, and bookmarks with some very quick keyboard shortcuts. So, no matter what program I’m in, I type command-space (Apple-space for the uninitiated) and then a few characters identifying the bookmark. So, for example, to go to Google it’s command-space-g. To go to Lukwam.com it’s command-space-l. To go to Livephish.org it’s command-space-l-p. Other sites I just begin typing the name of the site, so I might have to do something like command-space-c-r-u-f-t to get to this site. But either way, it’s a lot faster than going through any number of hierarchial menues and there’s no hunting. I love it.
    But the Links Bar is okay too.

  2. ummm….shyeah. The Links bar is by far and away the most efficient way of bookmarks used on a daily (or hourly) basis.
    Where are these people from? Frozen ice blocks dug up for deep in some glacier in the Himalayas? Sheesh.

  3. ummmm, are these IT type guys? And they don’t use the links bar?? C’mon guys! *All* of my most recently visited sites have a home in my links bar. Hell, most of the time I’ve got so many on there I have to hit a drop down to get at some of the last ones, thus defeating the entire purpose. =/

  4. There are three buttons on my (Mozilla) link bar right now. One goes to my Movable Type menu. Another goes to my blog itself (to make sure everything looks okay). The last goes to TV Guide’s TV Listings for my area.
    Those three buttons are an integral part of my daily routine. When I’m on another computer and don’t have my link bar, I feel like I’m lost in a storm. It’s a mark of great honor to be placed in my links bar. Only the most essential sites have any hope of remaining there for a week and I try to always keep empty space for that new essential link.
    All hail the mighty link bar.

  5. I’ve only recently started using the links bar in IE. I only use IE for some of the poorly crafted web pages on our intranet that require IE. Most of the time I use Phoenix, the greatest browser available, and have quite a few links in the “bookmark toolbar” which is basically the same feature. I even have some folders in my bookmark toolbar.
    If that’s not a testament to having too many bookmarks, I don’t know what is. 🙂

  6. I USED to use the links bar until I became an XP Guinea Pig and my rights got ripped away from using it. I hate to tell you this, but your staff is insane.

  7. I usually park bookmarklets on the links bar, like the ones that open pages in the search pane or ping weblogs.com for me. I don’t necessarily keep the whole bar displayed, though — I use it as a special menu, with the most-used link visible.

  8. I use the links bar for 90% of my surfing…
    My favorite 6-8 sites, plus MT tools are there, all one click away, which makes it a little too easy to distract myself from other work…

  10. I keep the “favorites” window open all the time on the left side of the screen in IE. Links bar’s just not big enough for me. Sorry. I still think you should be able to have it, though; there’s just no rhyme or reason to some of the things that get locked out by these IT types.

  11. Why wouldn’t you use the Links Bar? I can’t think of a better way to get to ESPN’s baseball homepage quickly and often.

  12. Yep, I use the links bar extensively. I rarely hit favorites anymore… I’ve got folders on the links bar that contain everything in nice, easy to get to buckets.

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