Mac Bookmark Management

[Bryan Davis]

A comprehensive list of bookmark managers appeared in the Mac listserv
Tidbits recently in three parts.  I will send each part to web4lib
separately.  The first part is below.

>On Tue, 4 Jun 1996, Mary-Ellen Mort wrote:
>
>> Please to consider a question for a friend who is Mac-based:
>>
>> Could anyone suggest Mac software (freeware or otherwise) to manage URLs and
>> notes from web surfing? She'd prefer a simple database that permits
>> keyword or subject searching. If it played nicely with Netscape so much
>> the better.
>>
>> Mary-Ellen Mort
>> JobSmart Project Director
>> memort at netcom.com
>> http://jobsmart.org

===============================================================================

More Bookmarks than Books, Part I
---------------------------------
  by Adam C. Engst <ace at tidbits.com>

  Let's face it: the bookmark or hotlist features of most Web
  browsers stink. They're utterly lousy. Most aren't even
  hierarchical, which makes it practically impossible to categorize
  your bookmarks, and the few (like Netscape Navigator's) that are
  hierarchical don't have the elegance of a well-written Macintosh
  application.

  When Web browsers first appeared, I yelled about how we needed a
  good independent bookmark program, partly because the existing
  ones were lousy, and partly because those of us who have to use
  and test multiple Web browsers find it difficult to switch back
  and forth if we lose our bookmarks each time. Also, since you
  collect URLs from multiple places (such as email, newsgroup
  postings, and Web pages), why should a bookmark manager be limited
  to a single program?

  It took a while, but now there are tons of independent bookmark
  managers, ranging from the truly simple to the overly complex. I
  look briefly at a number of them here, but thanks to the multitude
  of bookmark managers available, I'm splitting this article into
  two parts. The first part focuses on bookmark managers that use
  their own interface for organizing bookmarks, and next week the
  second part will look at programs that rely on the Finder for
  organization.


**BookMark Manager 1.521** -- Shinjiro Nojimi's $20 shareware
  BookMark Manager is a limited-time demo application that sports a
  two-pane interface for hierarchical storage of bookmarks. You can
  go more than two levels deep, but the Find Parent command becomes
  necessary at that point - more panes would be useful. BookMark
  Manager has a Find View that lets you find text in the title
  (fast) or in the URL and text notes for that bookmark (slower). It
  seems BookMark Manager has all the basics covered in terms of
  importing, exporting, sorting, and launching URLs, but its
  interface needs serious work - the buttons are too small and
  needlessly trying for 3-D, the main window isn't resizable, many
  of the dialogs are unnecessarily complex, and there are confusing
  menu commands (such as Cancel). Although BookMark Manager can
  launch URLs once registered, it has no shortcut for grabbing URLs
  from other applications.

<http://www.walrus.com/~noyo/BMReadMe.htm>


**ClipFiler 1.3 FKEY** -- Casey Fleser's <cfleser at infi.net> $10
  shareware ClipFiler FKEY, despite being the least full-featured of
  any of the bookmark managers, still gets a strong vote because of
  its simplicity. You drop a suitcase containing the appropriate
  FKEY in your Fonts folder, reboot, and from then on, all you have
  to do capture any text selection is hit that FKEY (Shift-Command
  and a number). ClipFiler saves the selection to a SimpleText
  document called Clippings on your desktop, and you can use Peter
  Lewis and Quinn's ICeTEe (bundled with Internet Config) to launch
  URLs by Command-clicking them. I like ClipFiler because I can
  easily snag more than just a URL, which makes it great for storing
  items to check out later. It makes a lousy bookmark manager, of
  course, but most bookmark managers are mediocre at storing much
  more than URLs and short descriptions.

<ftp://mirror.aol.com/pub/info-mac/gui/clip-filer-13-fkey.hqx>


**DragNet 1.0.2** -- OnBase Technology's $39.95 DragNet (with a
  limited demo) is perhaps the most ambitious bookmark managers. Its
  four windows provide most any feature you could want. The
  Addresses window lets you enter, name, and categorize new
  bookmarks manually (DragNet automatically adds fields for Date
  Added and Date Last Visited). You can search by typing words while
  no other text fields are selected - a handy, though confusing
  interface. The Directory window looks much like a Finder window in
  Name view with categories for folders and URLs for files. The
  Directory window simplifies the task of categorizing URLs and
  browsing among the categories. The Searcher window lets you find
  groups of URLs containing a text string (unlike the searching
  feature of the Addresses window, which finds the next matching
  URL). Finally, the Hot List window contains six configurable
  pop-up menus that hold URLs in a category. Below the six pop-up
  menus are ten buttons that, much like the buttons on a car radio,
  provide instant access to frequently visited sites.

  You can drag an item from any DragNet window to a browser to launch it,
or click the omnipresent Go To button. Snagging URLs is
  generally a matter of drag & drop as well, but DragNet can also
  get the current URL from some browsers, and there's an extension
  included that intercepts Netscape Navigator 2.0's Add Bookmark
  menu item and redirects the URL to DragNet's database. DragNet's
  online help stands in for the lack of a manual, and my testing
  revealed only some cosmetic display problems in 16-bit or 24-bit
  color on my second monitor. Oddly, DragNet does not use Internet
  Config, nor does it differentiate between different types of URL
  schemes, although it accepts non-http URLs. Nonetheless, in terms
  of the commercial database-oriented bookmark managers, DragNet's
  currently the best.

<http://www.onbasetech.com/DragNet.html>


**GrabNet 2.0** -- GrabNet, from the ForeFront Group, is a full-
  featured commercial ($19.95 with a 30-day full demo) bookmark
  manager. You can drag & drop URLs into your GrabNet document (it
  also can grab the current URL in your browser) and double-clicking
  an item or dragging it to your browser launches its URL. GrabNet
  supports hierarchical lists in both name and icon views and lets
  you sort them by label (name), origin (URL), and last visited
  date. Most interesting about GrabNet, however, is that you can
  create not only a comment for each URL, but you can also paste in
  some text or a graphic that displays when you have that URL
  selected within GrabNet. I'm not sure how I'd use this feature,
  and it seems like more work than I'd go to while creating URLs. I
  wasn't thrilled with GrabNet; its interface confused me slightly,
  and I'm not fond of toolbars and cryptic buttons (especially when
  they appear in the menus). Other than the capability to find a
  text string within the database, GrabNet seems to have all the
  basic features, including HTML import and export.

<http://www.ffg.com/grabnet.html>


**Internet Memory 1.5** -- The $20 Internet Memory (distributed as
  a locked, five-item demo) provides a clean interface for adding
  URLs via drag & drop and launching them with a double-click. It
  supports URLs of a variety of types, but doesn't use Internet
  Config to match URL types to helper applications. A neat feature
  is that Internet Memory can minimize its window to just its icon
  when you launch a URL; single-clicking that window maximizes it
  again. Unfortunately, you can't drag URLs into the minimized
  window. Internet Memory supports multiple address books and
  multiple folders for organizing URLs hierarchically, which is
  good, but forces you to edit everything in a dialog, including
  folder names and URL titles. You can search your address books,
  and Internet Memory has a Record mode that records URLs you visit
  with Netscape Navigator. Other unusual features include the
  capability to write-protect or DES encrypt your address books
  (can't say that I particularly see the need for either), and the
  capability to store multiple email signatures or other bits of
  boilerplate text to copy and paste into other applications.
  Overall, Internet Memory works, but doesn't have much to recommend
  it over other choices unless you need one of its more unusual
  features.

<http://www.circledream.com/inmn.html>


**MailKeeper 1.0.2** -- Nisus Software's $35 MailKeeper (with a
  75-record limited demo) does much more than just keep track of
  URLs. It stores and indexes text of any sort, and includes
  functionality to handle email addresses and URLs automatically.
  Storing text requires first copying the text, and then pressing a
  hotkey to move the selected text to your MailKeeper database. Drag
  & drop of URLs into MailKeeper also works, and you can drag URLs
  from MailKeeper to a drag-aware Web browser to launch them. As an
  added bonus, ICeTEe also works within MailKeeper if your Web
  browser doesn't support drag & drop. MailKeeper's most innovative
  feature is its method of helping you find items. Called Guided
  Information Access, it provides you with four user-defined columns
  of categories. Clicking on a category in a column narrows the list
  of items shown to those that match that category. Clicking another
  category in the same column or in a different one narrows the list
  to items that contain both categories. This process enables you to
  work easily through a large sets of data, and you can supplement
  it with date restrictions. You can define additional categories
  for MailKeeper to index automatically when an item is first saved
  to your database, although the method of getting MailKeeper to do
  that categorization after the fact is clumsy. MailKeeper suffers
  primarily from a confusing interface, and it's not really
  dedicated enough to URLs to be ideal for that purpose. I'd like to
  see MailKeeper add automatic recategorization when categories are
  added or deleted and the capability to index and then search an
  entire Eudora mailbox.

<http://www.nisus-soft.com/mailkeeper.html>


**SiteMarker** -- Rhythmic Sphere's $12.95 SiteMarker 1.0b5-3
  works only with Netscape Navigator. It provides an unusual
  vertical three-pane display, known as a collection. The top pane
  contains multiple catalogs; the middle pane contains multiple
  categories within a catalog; and the bottom pane contains markers
  - the actual URLs within the categories. A number of windoids
  complete the interface. The Notator windoid lets you add comments
  to a marker. The Searcher windoid provides an interface to
  searching many of the main Web search engines and catalogs. The
  Stylist windoid lets you change the look of your collection
  window, and - finally - the Button Bar provides quick access to
  your eight favorite markers. SiteMarker can import and export
  HTML, and it has a Browser menu that can control Netscape via
  Apple events. An unusual item on that menu is Extract Links, which
  you use to suck all the links out of the current Web page
  (especially handy for snagging the results of a Yahoo search, for
  instance). SiteMarker also features a record mode that creates a
  marker for every page you visit. You can launch URLs by double-
  clicking or dragging them to Netscape, but you can't drag from
  Netscape to SiteMarker. Instead, to snag the current URL, you
  click the Mark button in the SiteMarker collection window or use
  the Mark command in the Marker menu. Overall, I found SiteMarker
  full-featured (although it lacks a Find) but sluggish and somewhat
  clumsy. Still, its record mode and Searcher windoid make it a
  useful tool.

<http://www.rsphere.com/sitemarker/>


**The URL Manager 1.1** -- Alco Blom's $15 shareware application,
  The URL Manager, is fast, slick, and easy. Its documents open as
  Finder-like windows in Name view, but with a faster response time.
  You create bookmarks by dragging them in from a Web browser, or
  typing Command-N and editing the bookmark name and URL in place in
  the list (rather than in a clumsy dialog). You can search for text
  in names or URLs, and double-clicking a bookmark launches the URL
  in your Web browser. You can also open bookmarks in a specified
  (via Internet Config) helper application. A dedicated menu holds
  links to the main Web search engines. It's easy to get URLs into
  other applications, either by dragging or a simple copy and paste,
  which I find I do a lot in my writing and email. The URL Manager
  can import Netscape's bookmarks, bookmark files saved as HTML (it
  can even scan for URLs in normal text files), and Anarchie and
  Fetch bookmark files, and it can export an HTML page of bookmarks.
  You won't go wrong with The URL Manager, and Alco appears to be
  updating it frequently and with powerful new features.

<http://www.xs4all.nl/~alco/urlm/>


**WabbitDA 1.4.5** -- Mel Patrick's <mel at direct.ca> freeware
  WabbitDA has a lot going for it. It's quick, easy to use, fully
  supports drag & drop, and has flexible search capabilities. You
  create new bookmarks by either copying them and clicking the New
  button, or dragging them to WabbitDA's window from Netscape or
  another drag-aware application. WabbitDA can also import bookmarks
  from Anarchie, Netscape, or another WabbitDA file. You launch URLs
  by dragging them to a drag-aware application or Command-clicking
  them in the WabbitDA window. Unusual features in WabbitDA are the
  grouping of URLs by scheme, and the marking of the group by color,
  along with a stopwatch feature for tracking how much time you
  spend online. WabbitDA's main drawback is that it's not
  hierarchical, and although you can create multiple WabbitDA files,
  you can have only one open at a time. I prefer The URL Manager to
  WabbitDA, but WabbitDA is quite good, and the price is right.

<ftp://ftp.tidbits.com/pub/tidbits/tisk/tcp/web/wabbit-145-da.hqx>


**Web Squirrel 1.0.5** -- Eastgate Systems' WebSquirrel ($49 with
  a free demo, and for another week you can buy one, get one free
  via DealBITS) is the most innovative and unique of the bookmark
  managers. Drawing inspiration from Eastgate's hypertext editor
  Storyspace, Web Squirrel uses a graphical layout for storing
  bookmarks, simplifying navigation with a powerful Find feature and
  some easily accessed shortcuts. With support for pasting and drag
  & drop (from Web browsers or from other Web Squirrel documents),
  it's easy to get URLs into Web Squirrel, and a simple double-click
  launches the URL in the proper Internet Config-defined helper
  application. Web Squirrel suffers primarily from being somewhat
  unstable in my testing and from a plethora of unrelated
  metaphorical terms. This Web squirrel (since when do squirrels
  spin webs?) creates farms, which contain multiple items
  (bookmarks) that can be graphically grouped into neighborhoods or
  textually grouped into lists. You can walk or fly around your farm
  (what, no horse?). Agents (rather conspicuous on a farm in their
  dark suits) watch the contents of your farm for keywords and
  continually gather up matching sites. Web Squirrel's graphical
  display is screen hungry, but if it was more stable, I'd probably
  use it since its organizational schemes are actually fun to use.

<http://www.eastgate.com/squirrel/Welcome.html>
<http://www.tidbits.com/dealbits/>


**WebArranger 2.0** -- CE Software's $99.95 WebArranger 2.0 (1.0
  was distributed free through 16-Feb-96, and version 2.0 is a $49
  upgrade and comes with a free demo), is astonishing in its scope,
  thanks in large part to its heritage as a personal information
  manager called Arrange from Common Knowledge. WebArranger can grab
  URLs with a hotkey thanks to an extension called Grabber and can
  launch URLs with a keystroke (ICeTEe's Command-click also works).
  You can import Netscape bookmarks, and - in an unusual feature -
  your Netscape History file. WebArranger can check URLs to see if
  they've changed, record your path through strands of the Web, and
  even keep trying to get into busy FTP sites. A variety of
  searching and sorting features are available. On the downside,
  although WebArranger uses drag & drop internally, it doesn't
  accept URLs dropped into its windows. Perhaps my main criticism is
  that WebArranger is overkill - if you're willing to devote plenty
  of time to learning its features and using it constantly, it won't
  disappoint, but more casual users or those wishing to starting
  using a program quickly will find WebArranger's myriad options and
  features confusing.

<http://www.cesoft.com/webarranger/webarrangerpage.html>


**What URL?! 1.0a4** -- Noah Mittman's free What URL is an
  extremely simple application that accepts URLs dragged into its
  windows (you can also create bookmarks manually, although not
  directly, as in The URL Manager). It's not hierarchical, but you
  can create multiple windows and drag bookmarks between them.
  Launching is a matter of a double-clicking the URL in question.
  There's no sorting or searching, and you can only select one
  bookmark at a time. One unusual feature is a little padlock icon
  in the lower left corner of each window, which, when clicked,
  locks that window against accepting more bookmarks. A second click
  opens it again. What URL doesn't match up to The URL Manager or
  WabbitDA at this time, but it's still an early release.


<http://www.panix.com/~nam/whaturl/>


**WWW-Freund 1.0** -- David Renelt's free <maction at tnet.de> WWW-
  Freund sports a clean interface, but has little power under the
  hood. It uses a two-pane window to create a hierarchical interface
  to your bookmarks, and it has a button to copy the URL to the
  clipboard and another to launch the URL specifically in Netscape.
  You cannot drag URLs into WWW-Freund, or snag them with a hotkey;
  instead, you must paste the URLs in manually. And, although you
  can add and edit a description of the URL if you like, if you make
  a mistake in either the name or the URL, you cannot edit them. You
  can't even move a URL from one group to another as far as I can
  see.

<ftp://ftp.tidbits.com/pub/tidbits/tisk/tcp/web/www-freund.hqx>


**Take Your Pick** -- After looking at all of these bookmark
  managers, I feel the best commercial utility is DragNet, with
  honorable mentions going to WebSquirrel for being the most
  interesting, and WebArranger, for taking too many steroids. In the
  shareware arena, my pick is The URL Manager, and for freeware, I
  currently prefer WabbitDA.

  Which do I use? None of the above (actually, I do use WebArranger,
  but not for its bookmark management capabilities). Tune in next
  week for the second part of this article, which looks at bookmark
  managers that rely on the Finder. My personal favorite falls into
  that category.



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bryan Davis, Assistant Director                 Cedar Rapids Public Library
davis at crpl.cedar-rapids.lib.ia.us                        319-398-5124 voice
                                                       Luck follows effort.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~