Convert URL Text to Individual URL Shortcut

  • Thread starter Thread starter Ray
  • Start date Start date
R

Ray

I have a text file containing entries like these:

Linux Journal
[InternetShortcut]
URL=http://207.178.22.52/cgi-bin/frames.pl/lj-issues/issue52/2999.html

Urban Legends Reference Pages
[InternetShortcut]
URL=http://209.176.31.25/snopes/

I would like to convert these entries to individual Favorites for use
in Internet Explorer. I think I already have the format correct; all I
need is to extract the first line and use it as the name of the file.
For example, the file with this name:

Linux Journal.url

would have these contents:

[InternetShortcut]
URL=http://207.178.22.52/cgi-bin/frames.pl/lj-issues/issue52/2999.html

and would function as a Favorite when clicked.

If this format is not ideal, I could use Word or Excel to convert it to
some other format as needed. For instance, the foregoing examples
could look like this:

Linux
Journal*http://207.178.22.52/cgi-bin/frames.pl/lj-issues/issue52/2999.html
Urban Legends Reference Pages*http://209.176.31.25/snopes/

with an asterisk separating filename from URL on each line of a
spreadsheet or text file.

In other words, how can I create individual URL files from a series of
lines of text, each of which contains the information pertinent to a
single Favorite?

Thanks in advance for any ideas.
 
Ray said:
In other words, how can I create individual URL files from a series of
lines of text, each of which contains the information pertinent to a
single Favorite?
Click to expand...

Hi Ray,

Not sure how happy you are on the command line, but if I was going to do
this, I'd probably use NirCMD and a bit of GAWKing - NirCMD will
definitely create a shortcut from the command line, how you get the text
to it would be up to you. You could even create the appropriate batch
file using a spreadsheet then export to text (.bat) to execute it.

NirCMD can be found here :
http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/nircmd.html

The command format for creating a shortcut can be found in the list of
commands on that page, but for quick reference :

Create a shortcut to NirSoft Web site on your desktop
nircmd.exe urlshortcut "http://www.nirsoft.net" "~$folder.desktop$"
"NirSoft"

Is the file exported from any particular web browser/url organiser?
There may be programs which already support the format without any
fiddling around...

HTH

Ben
 
http://www.tranglos.com/free/visiturl.html

You may want to try VisitURL. I doubt it will do exactly what you want to
do, but here are some things it will do -

a.. Configurable import of URLs from plain text files, HTML documents and
Internet Explorer "Favorites" (i.e. Internet Shortcuts). For instance, you
may choose to only import mailto links, only links to '.zip' files, or only
URLs beginning with 'http://' - or any combination thereof. The 'Import'
feature itself is the most powerful I've seen in applications of this type.

a.. Export URLs to a plain text file, as Explorer's 'favorites', to a
delimited file (*.CSV) or to Netscape Navigator's bookmarks.

Note that the author has ceased developing VisitURL and his other freeware
programs. The program is still available for download.
 
Thanks for these replies. I am noticing this last one after having
already resolved the problem, and after doing the writeup of how I
resolved it. The writeup appears in alt.msdos.batch, posted today, at
this location: http://tinyurl.com/ro7pe
 
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