Two problems with 'Favorites\Links'

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PeterD - 13 Mar 2008 22:59 GMT

I'm trying to do two things here:

1. I want to add items to the user's Favorites\Links folder, so they
show up on IE's links bar. sfGetSpecialFolder will give me teh
Favorites folder, but there is no definition to get the Links sub
folder. Problem is that I can't just drop in 'Links' because this only
will work on English based Windows versions. There is a registry key
for Links under IE, but I'm finding in many systems this key is
missing! Anyone know of an API to get 'Favorites\Links' (the IE links
bar location)?

2. I also want to be able to turn on the Links bar for a user if they
want to... I had someone who claims to have once researched this and
found a way, but they've forgotten how it was done. A google doesn't
seem to give me anything, but I'm relatively sure there is a viable
way to do this...

(in both cases above, I need solutions that work for all recent IE
versions (especially 6 and 7) and various languages, so 'hardcoded'
constants are not going to work here.

Nothing terribly exotic about the program, VB6, two check boxes (one
to add items to the Links bar, one to turn the Links bar on.)

Suggestions?

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Steve Easton - 17 Mar 2008 01:24 GMT

> I'm trying to do two things here:
>
[quoted text clipped - 21 lines]
>
> Suggestions?

http://vbnet.mvps.org/index.html?code/browse/browsenetwork.htm

Has instructions on how to open the favorites "directory" in a Browse for Folder dialog
that will recurse the folders in favorites and display them all.
Why not use that to allow the user to select their version of the "links" folder
to store your links in.?

As for the registry entries for the links bar, if the user has never enabled the links bar,
the registry entries don't exist.

As for enabling the links bar from your program.
Not sure it can be done from outside of IE, but I'm a newbie.

However there is a ShowBrowserBar Method
Shows or hides a specified browser bar.
Syntax
object.ShowBrowserBar( _
vClsID As Variant, _
[bShow As Variant,] _
vSize As Variant)
Parameters
vClsID
Variant of type String that specifies the class identifier of the browser bar to show or hide. This object
must be registered as an Explorer Bar object with the CATID_InfoBand component category. For more information,
see Band Objects.
bShow
Optional. Variant of type Boolean that specifies if the browser bar should be shown or hidden.

false
Browser bar is hidden.
true
Browser bar is shown.

vSize
Not currently used.
This is from the October 2001 version of the MSDN library.
Try searching MSDN on line for newer info.

the CSLID for the links bar appears to be:
{F2CF5485-4E02-4F68-819C-B92DE9277049}
Because that's what was written to the registry when I enabled it

hth

Signature

Steve Easton

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PeterD - 17 Mar 2008 14:32 GMT

>> I'm trying to do two things here:
>>
[quoted text clipped - 28 lines]
>Why not use that to allow the user to select their version of the "links" folder
>to store your links in.?

It's an installer, that must limit its user interaction.

>As for the registry entries for the links bar, if the user has never enabled the links bar,
>the registry entries don't exist.
>
>As for enabling the links bar from your program.
>Not sure it can be done from outside of IE, but I'm a newbie.

Actually I found a way, google "showbrowserbar" and VB6 and there is a
code snippit from MSFT/MSDN/KB that shows how to do it as you
described below.

>However there is a ShowBrowserBar Method
>Shows or hides a specified browser bar.
[quoted text clipped - 26 lines]
>
>hth

Thanks for the suggestions... I've decided not to turn on the browser
links bar automatically, so that part of my problem is dead (and is
the one part that I did finally solve).

As to finding the Favorites/Links, that is still a challenge, and we
may have to give it up so to speak. The biggest issue is that for
non-English users both Favorites and Links can be non-English words.
So I can't assume the text in those cases.

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Larry Serflaten - 17 Mar 2008 19:14 GMT

> As to finding the Favorites/Links, that is still a challenge, and we
> may have to give it up so to speak. The biggest issue is that for
> non-English users both Favorites and Links can be non-English words.
> So I can't assume the text in those cases.

What entries do you see at:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbar

I see a LinksFolderName item that contains "Links"

Might that suit your needs?
LFS

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PeterD - 17 Mar 2008 23:42 GMT

>> As to finding the Favorites/Links, that is still a challenge, and we
>> may have to give it up so to speak. The biggest issue is that for
[quoted text clipped - 8 lines]
>Might that suit your needs?
>LFS

The key is not present on all machines/all versions of IE... If it
were there, that would solve my problem! <bg> (And I wish it was.)

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VB Forum / Win API / March 2008

Two problems with 'Favorites\Links'