Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: Better Bookmarks

Author:Dave Rogers
Posted:12/1/1998; 7:33:45 AM
Topic:What if there were a third browser?
Msg #:647 (In response to 591)
Prev/Next:646 / 648

I've been working on finding a solution to the same problem. I don't know if you're using Windows or a Mac, but I'm using a Mac so I'll offer some of my experiences on that platform.

Cyberdog is a fairly competent browser, but the feature I really like is the Notebook. I drag the name of the page to the notebook and place it in its appropriate category. Categories can be collapsed like topic headings, but you can't have sub-topics. That's a good start, but it's not quite enough. You can have additional Notebooks within a Notebook, which gets around the sub-topics issue a bit, but that can get to be a bit cumbersome with two or more notebooks open on the desktop.

WebArranger is a re-issue of the vintage '94 PIM program called Arrange. It's really neat, an object-oriented database in an outliner format. WebArranger (CE Software) is specially configured to manage bookmarks and includes WebWhacker to facilitate offline browsing.

What I like about WebArranger is that once you enter a URL note, you can reference it in any number of subtopics without re-entering all the data. It's not as transparent as the drag-and-drop entry Cyberdog uses, but it offers a great deal of flexibility to include scheduling reminders to visit a site. You can get to a site by control-clicking on the URL, so it is fairly well integrated with your browser.

It's a robust program with a lot of features and I use it for a lot more than just managing bookmarks, but it does have a fairly steep learning curve.

A couple of other alternatives I haven't explored in depth yet are Idea Keeper, a shareware product which is somewhat similar to WebArranger in many respects, and Ambry, a shareware object-oriented database. I haven't had an opportunity to try them out as bookmark managers yet, but they seem to offer similar potential.

I know there are dedicated bookmark management applications out there, but I was looking for something which offered similar functionality to Cyberdog's Notebooks and WebArranger caught my attention, which then lead me to other "object-oriented" databases.

Frontier might very well be another outstanding application for managing bookmarks in an outline format, and as a scripting language, it probably integrates well with your browser of choice.

Just some thoughts.

Dave Rogers

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