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HTBM

Summary

HTBM is the HyperText Bookmark Manager. This is a web-based app (i.e., PHP code in front of a PostgreSQL backend store) designed to simplify (to the extent possible) the managing of web bookmarks.

This came about because of a number of annoyances inherent in bookmarks. First off, I've got Netscape 4.x bookmarks, I've got Mozilla bookmarks, I've got Opera bookmarks (both 5.x and 6.x), I've even got occasional bits of Konqueror and Galeon, and then all the random pieces that I've just saved in text files. Not all of them interoperate; even those that claim to have import/export functions don't always work. So, at best, I've still got 2 or 3 seperate bookmark repositories.

Then add the issue of networks, where I could concievable be using a different operating system, possibly a different browser, and not uncommonly a different congressional district, if not geopolitical region! Ugh! So, we want a network-capable, cross-platform, simple, robust, and efficient method to store bookmarks.

Now, to be sure, this isn't the only web-based bookmark manager. In fact, it's probably not, in an objective sense, even the best. I needed something like this, I looked at the options, and none of them really seemed to fit for me. So, I started writing HTBM.

How to use it

NOTE!!! HTBM is BETA software. It's not yet sufficiently robust for what I'd call a 1.0 release. It's still missing a lot of features and extensions that I'd consider minimum running functionality.

However, it will let you create, edit, and destroy both bookmarks and categories. So it's a working start.

To install, first download and unpack it. Then read the README file in the distribution; it describes the basics of how to setup and use the system. Then come back here every day and pray for a real release to fix all the gaping bugs you'll more than likely come across.

Download

Have a nice pre-release beta (BETA5). This made another round of significant cleanups, which made things more robust again, as well as notable efficiency improvements. The big plus here is that the backup/restore facility, which uses a XML backing file, was completed. A script was also written to translate Mozilla/Netscape and Opera bookmark files to that XML format, so you can then "restore" them into HTBM. And then, as usual, a few rounds of bugfixing.

Historical interest

  • htbm-BETA4:

    This made a lot of behind-the-scenes cleanups, which made it a lot more robust. It also extensively reworked the admin stuff, and eliminated the dependancy on the PEAR DB layer. And, the usual round of bugfixes since BETA3.

  • htbm-BETA3:

    This added the ability to multi-parent both categories and bookmarks. So, a given bookmark can be in more than one category, and a given category (and thus all its bookmarks and subcategories too) can be in more than one category. And, the usual round of bugfixes from BETA2.

  • htbm-BETA2:

    This fixed a glitch in BETA1 where the list of categories would double its size and complexity for every new entry you added into it. Kinda cool, except for the part about becoming infinitely (well, not infinitely, but unboundedly) sized.

  • htbm-BETA1

    This is the first public snapshot release, if you really want it. It's got serious bugs that are corrected in -BETA2.