[Zope] Bookmark manager protype

albert boulanger aboulang@ldeo.columbia.edu
Wed, 4 Apr 2001 14:33:12 -0400 (EDT)


   I've got a proof-of-concept prototype of a bookmark manager up and running
   and if anyone is interested I'd like people to try it out and give me some
   feedback.

   The idea was to allow creation of a Web-accessible set of bookmarks as
   easily as creation of bookmarks local to a browser without having to fill
   out forms.  It came out of frustration from trying to keep track of
   bookmarks in multiple browsers on multiple computers at multiple
   locations.  I wanted it all to work on the Web and not depend on locally
   installed software so I could even get to my bookmarks when visiting a
   friend or at a public access machine.

   I've done it by having Zope act in effect like a proxy browser or a
   Browser-in-a-Browser.  You browse the web in the main frame of a page and
   the upper frame has a form to enter a new address and links to create or
   view bookmarks.

   The main problem is that heavily scripted pages often don't work in the
   proxy browser, so I've provided a means at any step of the way to escape
   the proxy browser to look at the page directly.

   If you're interested, you can see the prototype at:
   http://cpgray.lib.uwaterloo.ca:8180/noddies/bookmarkerExperiment/browserFrame

   One 'feature' I have noticed is that it doesn't seem to like URLs
   consisting of a domain only (e.g. http://www.zope.org/
   vs. http://www.zope.org/index_html).


I have also been looking at this for a client for a portal (based on
Plumtree) but with Zope acting as one of the gadget servers. The ideal
would be some kind of drag and drop bookmarks into a folder tree. In
Internet Explorer there is a lot you can do. (Inlcuding uploading your
IE bookmarks to the server). The nicest I have seen is at
www.djuice.com which is a Euopean WAP portal. You can set up your WAP
folder tree menu by a nice DHTML based Bookmark editor. You can for
certain URLs drag em into the menu, cool! There is a nice DHTML
package called folder tree that is avialbale form javascript resource
sites.


FYI,
Albert Boulanger
vPatch Technologies
aboulanger@vpatch.com