Like many power-users, I typically use multiple browsers on my Macs - specifically: Safari, FireFox, and Camino. During my recent experimentation with FireFox 3, I fell in love with the new staring and tagging features which are part of the software's bookmarks overhaul, and decided I may try using it as my primary browser (bumping Safari). Furthermore, I've been using the Foxmark extension to synchronize my Firefox bookmarks from Windows with those on my Mac, and it works great! Here's my problem: Cross-browser Synchronization.
I currently use Bookit to synchronize my Safari & Camino bookmarks. While I don't use Camino as much as I used to, I still use it as my "primary" bookmarks, only to keep the separators which Safari doesn't support. Now, I'd like to add Firefox to my Bookit routine, but Bookit doesn't yet support Firefox 3. So, I tried Bookdog. While I don't like its interface very much, Bookdog supports Firefox 3 seems to work well for synchronization, but unlike Bookit, Bookdog will only will synchronize 2 browsers at one time. Bookdog also exposed a very serious problem I have with Firefox 3: No root bookmark folders.
Apparently, the new bookmark system in FireFox 3 no longer allows keeping bookmarks in folders. It seems FireFox has depreciated the traditional bookmark folder hierarchy structure in favor of tagging and keywords. I'm all for tagging, but as an enhancement or alternative to the traditional way and not a complete replacement. Folders can be created, but they have to be put under either "Unsorted Bookmarks," "Bookmark Menu," or "Toolbar Menu." This means I can't migrate my existing bookmarks directly from Safari, Camino, or FireFox 2 to Firefox 3 because I have thousands of bookmarks saved in dozens of bookmark folder at the root level of my Safari/Camino/Firefox 2 bookmark list. While I can add these bookmark folders to "Unsorted Bookmarks" or "Bookmarks Menu" in Firefox 3, they would end up syncing this way back to Safari/Camino throwing off these browsers bookmark lists.
I remember years and years ago when all bookmarks had to be kept under the "Bookmark Menu" folder. Then, browsers got smart, and allowed you to create folders to suit your organization style. Now, it seems, in an effort to move bookmarks forward, FireFox has actually gone backwards, returning us to those ugly bookmark organization days of yore. This is quite unfortunate because it greatly complicates my cross-platform bookmark sync plan, and means I won't be able to sync my Firefox and Safari bookmarks at all (which really means I'll probably stick with Safari and won't be using FireFox 3 much on my Mac, even though I do like many of its other features).
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1 comments:
Interesting post, Jeff. Sometimes I wonder if anyone besides me notices these things. Personally, being a "keyboard" kind of guy, I like to keep all my bookmarks in the Bookmarks Menu where they are easy to reach with Full Keyboard Access, QuicKeys, etc. But in my years of supporting Bookdog, I've seen many users' bookmarks and know that many people like it your way.
But, indeed, Safari has recently gone in the other direction. Safari 2.x allowed you to make your own Collections at root but not loose bookmarks. But in Safari 3.x, you can have loose bookmarks at root too. I believe this was done for iPhone users who might like to keep a few frequently-used bookmarks at the root level. Navigating through folder hierarchies is not that much fun on a 3-inch display.
Regarding Firefox 3, I wouldn't say that they've gone backwards in this regard, they've just redefined the top level. How about if you change the name of your "Unsorted Bookmarks" to "Jeff's Bookmarks", and put everything in there?
Well, you may not like the name "Unsorted Bookmarks". That name appears to be editable in the Firefox 3's Organize Bookmarks Library, but when you begin to type, nothing happens. (Hey, it's still not a final release). Oh well, if you want to, you can work around that by downloading and running a little script I cooked up. (The download is 448 KB because, for safety I included the latest version of the sqlite tool for Tiger users.)
Regarding the fact that the permanent Unsorted Bookmarks in Firefox map to a newly-created "Unsorted Bookmarks" folder in Safari, well, that's the way I designed Bookdog. I could have mapped them to root, but that may have displeased others. Of course, I could allow the user to choose the mapping, but the interface for such a thing might be confusing. Manually, you can always move them wherever you want, using drag and drop.
Finally, regarding Bookdog not being able to sync multiple browsers, actually, if you have Mac OS 10.4 or later, it can! Bookdog can sync any number of browsers in any combination and with different options, using an Automator Workflow. If you've never used Apple's Automator, running this
sample workflow using Bookdog to sync Safari, Camino and Firefox 3 might be a teachable moment for you.
Jerry Krinock
Sheep Systems
San Jose, CA USA
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