We’ve all seen this before. A desktop with dozens, maybe even hundreds, of icons and shortcuts. I’m sure that the owner (and maybe you are the culprit in question) of this desktop had great intentions when they first started adding these colorful little images to their workspace, but things just got out of hand. I too used the desktop as a catch-all for some time, until I realized that anything more than about 10-15 icons was too much to handle. Part of the blame for this icon hoarding must fall on, what I like to call “future-surfing.” Future-surfing is the process of adding shortcuts of newly found web sites to your desktop for the purpose of returning to them later, when you “have time” or are “will be able to focus on it.”
We all find new and exciting sites as we explore the internet. These aren’t necessarily our “favorites” or sites we want to “bookmark” but sites we just want to investigate later and now there is a way to save the links for these pages without destroying our desktop. SaveLink is an add-on for Firefox that incorporates a new option to your File and right-click menus. That option, shown as “save link as file” allows the user to save an entire page or an individual link as a shortcut in a folder of their choosing. Below, we have some screen shots of this great Firefox add-on in action.
Installation
First, you’ll have to install the add-on for your copy of Firefox. Head over to this link and click on Add to Firefox.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/14019
SaveLink Add-on Web Site
Use
Once you’ve installed and restarted, you can begin using SaveLink in one of two ways.
Entire Web Pages – Simply navigate to the page you want to save, then go to File/Save link as file…
Go to File if You Want to Save an Entire Page
You’ll be asked where you want to save the file and what you want to name it. Pick any folder you like and then name your file, or use the default name that pops up. You can create a folder on your hard drive for “Sites to Research Later” or even put the new shortcuts into a Dropbox folder and access them on the go.
Individual Links – Right-click on any link within your browser and choose Save link as file …
Save a Link from A Web Page or Article
Now, you can go back to your newly created folder and access these shortcuts any time you want. Your desktop will thank you. Your friends and family will thank you. Best of all, you’ll actually be able to find that link again, without straining your eyes or your nerves.
Tags: Add-on, add-ons, bookmark, Firefox, Link, SaveLink, Shortcut, URL, web page
