Mac Bookmark Management

[Bryan Davis]

And Tidbits compilation, Part 3:

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

  When we publish articles that attempt to review a comprehensive
  collection of a certain type of product, we sometimes miss a few
  products for one reason or another. Here then, are the products
  that didn't make it into the previous two parts of this article,
  which began in TidBITS-323_.


**Clay Basket** -- Dave Winer's Clay Basket, now at 1.0b8, was one
  of the first bookmark managers, but in its second major
  incarnation added Web site management features that drove its
  bookmark management features into the background. Dave tells us
  Clay Basket's third incarnation will reverse direction.

  Clay Basket only works with Netscape Navigator and is essentially
  an outliner, like Frontier's, that displays bookmarks
  hierarchically. Although you can drag links from Netscape into
  Clay Basket's outline window, that merely creates a new outline
  item with the URL as the name; it doesn't make the item hot (you
  must manually copy the URL into the item's Location window to make
  it hot). You can launch the URLs associated with normal hot items
  by double-clicking their outline triangles. However, if you make
  an item with a URL into a topic heading, you can only launch its
  URL by opening its Location window and clicking the Send to
  Netscape button. Clay Basket can import and edit a Netscape
  bookmarks file, and it offers a Netscape recording mode. Clay
  Basket supports non-Web URLs, but only through Netscape. Clay
  Basket is not so much of a bookmark manager but an alternate
  editor for Netscape's bookmarks file (making it unnecessary with
  Netscape 2.0.x).

<http://www.hotwired.com/staff/userland/yabbadabba/>


**In Control 4.0** -- Attain's $85 In Control information manager
  (with a free limited demo) recently added support for URLs. Like
  WebArranger, In Control enables you to snag URLs at any time
  (thanks to an extension) and you can drag & drop URLs into In
  Control. Also like WebArranger, you can organize bookmarks any way
  you like (thanks to In Control's database capabilities). In
  Control uses Internet Config, can import bookmarks, and can
  extract URLs from HTML files. Most interestingly, In Control can
  identify URLs even in other text that you grab, giving you the
  context of the surrounding text and the capability to launch the
  related URL. Tim Stein <tstein at ultranet.com>, who told me about In
  Control's new capabilities, feels that In Control is faster and
  easier to use than WebArranger.

<http://www.attain.com/ic40mac.htm>


**InfoDepot 2.5** -- Chena Software's $189 information management
  program, InfoDepot, now supports URLs in version 2.5, which is a
  free upgrade for registered users of 2.4. You can drag URLs into
  InfoDepot from Web browsers that support drag & drop, and once you
  have the URLs in InfoDepot, you organize them with InfoDepot's
  outlining capabilities. Launching URLs is done via a script, or
  you can use ICeTEe to Command-click the URLs to launch them via
  your preferred helper application. InfoDepot supports three URL
  schemes (http, ftp, and gopher) but doesn't use Internet Config;
  instead it routes all URLs through Netscape Navigator. Although it
  lacks the URL features, Chena offers a free outliner based on
  InfoDepot 2.4.

<http://www.chena.com/chever25.htm>


**SurfBoard 1.0b1** -- Abbott Systems' $39 SurfBoard is perhaps
  the most attractive of the bookmark managers I've seen, featuring
  an interface reminiscent of a futuristic TV remote control. A tall
  vertical green button opens the display screen to show your
  current list of URLs (you can have more than one list). The main
  list is likely to be long and hard to navigate (although you can
  sort by name or last access time), so nine "fast dial" buttons in
  the main screen provide quick access to URLs in categories you
  set. A blue triangle button at the top of the window lists the
  last 15 URLs you've visited, and a blue "plus" button grabs the
  current URL from your Web browser (either Netscape Navigator or
  Internet Explorer). You can drag links into SurfBoard from
  Netscape, and SurfBoard can import bookmark lists from both
  browsers. I haven't used SurfBoard for long, but it looks like a
  great effort. I'd worry about it bogging down with too many URLs,
  but its features for making recently accessed URLs available will
  help a great deal.

<http://www.abbottsys.com/surf.html>


**URLs R Us** -- There are a ton of HyperCard stacks that track
  URLs, and most of these stacks, useful as they may be for their
  creators, generally aren't good general purpose solutions.
  However, Jon Pugh's URLs R Us stack goes beyond most other
  HyperCard URL managers because it uses AppleScript to grab URLs
  from Netscape Navigator or the clipboard, can launch them easily,
  and has various sorting and finding features. Even more unusual
  are its features to check Web pages, updating a "Date visited"
  field and "Title" field. Jon's stack has a variety of other
  features as well, so be sure to turn on balloon help when
  exploring its interface. If you use HyperCard all the time anyway,
  Jon's stack is worth a look.

<http://iw.cts.com/~jonpugh/hyperstuff.html>


**WebPinMaker 1.2.4** -- Hisashi Hoda's free WebPinMaker is an
  interesting program. At first blush it's just a way of snagging
  URLs, and then only from Netscape Navigator. WebPinMaker creates a
  small windoid that is always available, floating over all other
  applications. Clicking the push pin icon in that windoid snags the
  current URLs in one of three formats. You set the formats by
  zooming the windoid and selecting Pin File (a format that
  CyberFinder will take over if loaded), Netscape URL, or Self
  Launch. A Pin file is a WebPinMaker file that launches its URL by
  launching WebPinMaker first. A Netscape URL is the same as what
  you'd get by dragging a bookmark out of Netscape 2.0's bookmark
  list. A Self Launch file is the self-extracting version of a URL:
  double-click it and it launches the URL itself without needing
  WebPinMaker around (which is true of the Netscape URL file as
  well, and they're smaller).

<http://atom.co.jp/VOYAGER/WebTools/WebPin/WebPinMaker-E.html>


**Other Comments** -- Readers always send in lots of tips when we
  publish articles of short reviews, and I wanted to share a few of
  the more interesting ones. First off, Mel Patrick, author of
  WabbitDA, wrote to pass on a correct email address:
  <mpatrick at express.ca>.


**Alco Blom** <alco at xs4all.nl>, author of URL Manager, writes:
  I'd like to mention one powerful feature of URL Manager (that you
  indeed included in your review) that I use frequently in
  combination with TidBITS - the Scan Text command. Drop a TidBITS
  issue on URL Manager's window (or use drag & drop with a whole
  chunk of TidBITS text), and voila, you have imported all hypertext
  links mentioned in that issue.


**Aleks Totic** <atotic at netscape.com> wrote to tell us that if you
  drag bookmarks or folders from Netscape's bookmarks window to the
  Finder while CyberFinder is loaded, you get CyberFinder bookmarks.
  The reverse is true as well, so dragging CyberFinder bookmarks or
  folders from the Finder to Netscape's bookmarks window creates
  Netscape bookmarks.


**Outliners** -- A number of people mentioned using other
  outliners, specifically Acta and Frontier, to store URLs. Although
  getting URLs into these programs isn't generally easy, launching
  URLs via ICeTEe is trivial.


**Finding in the Finder** -- A criticism of bookmark managers that
  rely on the Finder (like CyberFinder) is that they don't seem to
  have sophisticated searching capabilities. You can search for the
  name of a bookmark file, but what if you want to search for text
  that appears in the URL itself? You can if you have System 7.5's
  Find File program.

  Open Find File and select the disk(s) in which you want to search.
  Click the More Choices button to reveal a second set of menus.
  From the first pop-up menu, choose "creator," and in the text
  entry field to its right, enter "URL1" (sans quotes). That limits
  the search to files created by CyberFinder (though you could enter
  the creator for any bookmark manager). Now, press Option while
  choosing contents from the second pop-up menu (contents won't
  appear unless you hold down Option). Then, type the text you want
  to find in the text entry field to the right, say "apple" to find
  all sites whose URLs contain the string "apple". Finally, click
  the Find button.

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