Can someone please explain bookmark synchronization to me?

[martin]

I have enabled bookmark synchronization on three Macs. I've chosen on one Mac to copy the local bookmarks to the iDisk, and on the others to take the bookmarks from the iDisk.

Is it now only possible to change the bookmarks on the server (i.e. those that the other Macs will get) from the one that I've chosen to copy local bookmarks to my iDisk?

What exactly happens when I now chose the synchronize command from the bookmarks menu?

Is it possible to change the bookmarks on any Mac, copy the changes to the iDisk and get them on all other Macs?

I'm a bit confused here. :-)

[troyb]

Once you have all your machines synchronizing to the server, any changes you make locally should be uploaded by OmniWeb automatically (you can also use the manual option found in the bookmarks menu).

Once a change is uploaded, when you launch OmniWeb on your other machines it should reach out and grab those changes and add them to the local bookmarks.

So yes, it should be possible to make a change on machine 1, and then see the changes on machine 2 and 3.

[geofferensis]

Hello,

I am using Omniweb 5.5 Beta 1. I have turned on bookmark synchronization on two macs using .Mac. However, it does not seem to be working. Are there any tricks to try to fix it?

Thank you,

[scgf]

It plainly doesn't work. Hasn't for a long time. Broken.

The only way I can get it to work is to add then remove the syncing in preferences/bookmarks. You are then asked the question as to whether you want to keep local bookmarks and upload them to the server or to download server bookmarks.

What happens for me is that if I add a bookmark locally and do nothing, that bookmark is ultimately deleted and replaced by the server bookmarks. If I right-click on the bookmarks file in OmniWeb bookmarks and select 'synchronise now' the same thing happens and the sync process carries on and on and on sending lots of info across the network but seemingly doing nothing.

It is the *only* thing now stopping me from using OmniWeb full-time. I use Camino with Camitools which allow me to sync manually using an ftp site.

[Forrest]

Strange, it works fine for me. I'm not using .Mac though, just WebDAV. You guys are putting bookmarks into the Shared Bookmarks folder, correct?

[scgf]

I am using a regular WebDAV folder too.

Shared folder? No - didn't think that was necessary - it's not the case with Safari, Firefox or Camino.

I want to sync my 'Personal Bookmarks' and 'Favorites' - how does that work with Shared? OmniWeb won't allow me to create the two folders inside the shared folder.

I'm trying to sync bookmarks accross two macs whether in or out of the local network - I thought shared bookmarks simply meant they are shared on the local network.

Now I am confused!

[JKT]

The Shared bookmarks folder isn't for synchronisation - it is for broadcasting your bookmarks in the Shared folder via Bonjour to Macs on the local network (like the same function in iTunes and iPhoto).

For your WebDAV sharing, have you put in the correct path in the preferences? From the OmniWeb help:

Use a WebDAV server: If you do not have .Mac from Apple but you do have access to a WebDAV server, choose this option and enter the sever address in the field, including the full path to the folder where OmniWeb should store the bookmark files.

I use .Mac and have never had an issue myself, though I use the feature very, very infrequently (as it only comes into effect when I get a new Mac or visit my brother!).

[scgf]

This is how I understood the shared bookmarks feature.

JKT and Forrest, assuming you have some remote bookmarks on a WebDAV server just add a new bookmark to the favorites bar in OmniWeb, then go the the bookmarks panel and right-click on Favorites to sync. If the bookmark doesn't instantly disappear, try syncing on another Mac and see if it does then.

[troyb]

Hmm, how does this work?

1.) Turn off bookmark syncing on both computers.
2.) Turn Bookmark syncing on for the first *master* computer.
3.) Turn syncing on for the second computer, making sure you choose to use bookmarks on the remote server.
4.) Quit the unused copy of OmniWeb
5.) Save a bookmark in the active copy of OmniWeb and quit.
6.) Restart the other copy of OmniWeb. Do you get the saved bookmark? What if you do a manual check?

[geofferensis]

Hmm, how does this work?

1.) Turn off bookmark syncing on both computers.
2.) Turn Bookmark syncing on for the first *master* computer.
3.) Turn syncing on for the second computer, making sure you choose to use bookmarks on the remote server.
4.) Quit the unused copy of OmniWeb
5.) Save a bookmark in the active copy of OmniWeb and quit.
6.) Restart the other copy of OmniWeb. Do you get the saved bookmark? What if you do a manual check?

Well, I tried this and it worked. Bookmark synching seems to be working like a dream now. Thanks a lot.

Omni Group is omnificent.

[scgf]

I was really hopeful when I read your message, troyb. Unfortunately it didn't work. I followed your instructions to the letter. At step 5 I added a new bookmark, then quit OmniWeb. Went to the second Mac, fired up OmniWeb and the new bookmark wasn't there. I knew it wouldn't be because the 'master' copy of OmniWeb hadn't updated the server bookmarks after I created the new bookmark.

So, I opened up the 'master' OmniWeb to make sure that this time the upload happens. As soon as I started it, I saw a flurry of network activity on my router and OmniWeb promptly deleted the new bookmark!

The problem appears to be that Omniweb doesn't immediately update the server bookmarks when any changes are made locally. If this doesn't happen then you will lose any changes the next time. Period.

I use Firefox with the Foxmarks extension. Foxmarks synchronises bookmarks with 100% success. As soon as a change is made locally, the remote server knows about it immediately and the bokmarks are in sync. A second copy of Firefox on another machine seems to update immediately too - it is like the way .Mac sync work with iDisk.

Why can't OmniWeb adopt a similarly robust system?

[scgf]

Omnigroup? Does anyone from Omnigroup read these forums?

I would have thought that a report in the OmniWeb beta discussion forum of a failure with one of OmniWeb's feature would merit at least some comment from the developers.

Bookmarks syncing is the main reason I don't use OmniWeb day to day.

I ended my last post with a comment about bookmarks sync in Firefox and a question.

"Why can't OmniWeb adopt a similarly robust system?"

[Forrest]

Although people from the OG do read much of the forum, they don't always read all of it, or respond to it rapidly. They have mentioned a few times that the official way to get support, request a feature or submit a bug is to use the "Send Feedback…" option from within OW, under the Help menu.

[Len Case]

Omnigroup? Does anyone from Omnigroup read these forums?
Yes--lots of us do... however Troy was the one helping you earlier so I thought I would let him continue to help, since I was actually surprised by the list of steps he gave for bookmark syncing. Unfortunately, he was sick last week and is now catching up on the email that came in while he was out. Meanwhile, the developers were all at Apple's World Wide Developer Conference all last week.

I would have thought that a report in the OmniWeb beta discussion forum of a failure with one of OmniWeb's feature would merit at least some comment from the developers.
Actually, there are plenty of bugs with bookmark syncing which are already known--unless this is a new bug with 5.5 and not already in 5.1, it's not going to be part of the current release. We have so much to do with the conversion to WebKit that we can't fix the known bugs in 5.1 as well unless they are directly related to the conversion.

Bookmarks syncing is the main reason I don't use OmniWeb day to day.
I am sorry they aren't working for you--I have never used them myself, but I know other people around Omni who have.

I ended my last post with a comment about bookmarks sync in Firefox and a question.

"Why can't OmniWeb adopt a similarly robust system?"
I am planning a major overhaul of syncing in a future release, I will certainly explore what other browsers are doing when I do and I thank you for pointing me at what Firefox is up to...

[scgf]

Thanks for your reply, Len.

I have set up my own solution to the problem. I already have FoldersSynchroniser so I created an OmniWeb 5 folder on a remote WebDAV drive, and on each of my two Macs I set up FS to synchronise the ~/Library/Application Support/OmniWeb 5 folders with the remote OmniWeb 5 folder.

I have to initiate syncing manually, but the system works perfectly. If I could add a Folder Action to initiate the sync whenever the local copy of Bookmarks.html or Favorites.html changes I would have a pretty good system. The problem with the folder action is that I don't know how to write a script to detect a change in a file within a folder :-(

I have set up the same system for Safari and that works very well too. I have bookmarking syncing consistency!!

At last I can get back to using OmniWeb!

[scgf]

Len - I ought to point out that the Firefox solution is provided by way of an extension - a small add-on provided by a third party, FoxMarks at www.foxcloud.com.

A lot of people are finding that the extensibility of FireFox offered by these third-party extensions is proving an irrisistable attraction. There are a huge number of extensions which work on both Mac and Windows.

[Cortig]

It works fine for me using .Mac. I suspect that most of the problems are just .Mac problems though. I've had problems for a while and finally resorted to trash my local copy of the iDisk entirely to rebuild it. Since then it's working like a charm.

[scgf]

No, it isn't .Mac - I have tried using two different WebDAV servers and an ftp server. No joy. Cortig - how do you make sure OmniWeb has uploaded any changed bookmarks to the network location before you close it?

IMHO this is the crux of the matter. Closing OW before it has uploaded the changes then opening another instance of OW on another Mac elsewhere seems guaranteed to lose the changes on the first machine when you go back to it.

The problem is that I am a fairly experienced Mac user. I work with computers and consider myself very computer savvy, yet I can't get it working reliably. The average guy in the street certainly won't manage it with any degree of certainty.

[Forrest]

That may be one difference from my OW usage - I very rarely close OW.

[Cortig]

Cortig - how do you make sure OmniWeb has uploaded any changed bookmarks to the network location before you close it?


Well you get a point there. I can't really make sure uploading is done though every time I make changes in my bookmarks at work and get back home, the changes are there in OW thanks to .Mac.

Corentin

[JKT]

Len - I ought to point out that the Firefox solution is provided by way of an extension - a small add-on provided by a third party, FoxMarks at www.foxcloud.com.

A lot of people are finding that the extensibility of FireFox offered by these third-party extensions is proving an irrisistable attraction. There are a huge number of extensions which work on both Mac and Windows.
Unfortunately, finding ones that are worth having is the major problem with this extensibility - there are just too many of them and finding either the best one for any particular job, or novel ones that add must have features requires a heck of a lot of time, patience and effort. Unfortunately, the rating system just means that those extensions that are the oldest at doing a job stay the most popular and it doesn't necessarily mean that they are the best ones any longer. The newer, better versions can't get any traction because the rating favours those older extensions. Catch 22.

[jerrykrinock]

After reading this thread and the documentation, I'm still unclear about synchronization and am unable to get it to work as expected with my .Mac account. I think I could get it if I knew several things...

QUESTION 1

OmniWeb seems to put bookmarks in three places:

1. ~/Library/Application Support/OmniWeb 5
2. ~/Library/Application Support/OmniWeb 5/ServerBookmarks
3. the remote WEBDAV or .Mac server.

From reading the documentation, my understanding is that, after enabling the preference "Synchronize bookmarks to other Macs", the bookmarks files in location (1.) become useless garbage and are never read or written as long as this preference remains enabled. Is that true?

QUESTION 2

Also, the documentation implies that clicking menu > Bookmarks > Synchronize Bookmarks Now causes bookmarks in .../ServerBookmarks to be synchronized to those on the remote server. Now, there are three possible meanings to this:

(a) Copy files from .../ServerBookmarks to the remote server
(b) Copy files from the remote server to .../ServerBookmarks
(c) Look at file modification dates and copy newer over older

So, which does it do? (a), (b) or (c)?

QUESTION 3

Besides the manual menu command, there must be automatic triggers for the "synchronization" discussed in Question 2? The threads above imply that it may happen when OmniWeb is launched. Is that true? Is that the only other trigger? Is there an AppleScript command for triggering "synchronization"?

Thanks!

Jerry Krinock

[Golf11]

Hmm, how does this work?

1.) Turn off bookmark syncing on both computers.
2.) Turn Bookmark syncing on for the first *master* computer.
3.) Turn syncing on for the second computer, making sure you choose to use bookmarks on the remote server.
4.) Quit the unused copy of OmniWeb
5.) Save a bookmark in the active copy of OmniWeb and quit.
6.) Restart the other copy of OmniWeb. Do you get the saved bookmark? What if you do a manual check?

I'll give this a try too since trying to sync them is driving me nuts. Another a similar note related to bookmarks, can you tell us why when in bookmark preferences one selects place new bookmarks at the end of the list they always appear at the top? Also, it would be nice to be able to secondary or "right" click a bookmark from the list and open it in a new tab.

[troyb]

can you tell us why when in bookmark preferences one selects place new bookmarks at the end of the list they always appear at the top?

This seems to be working okay for me. Can you give me the exact steps you take to reproduce the problem?

Also, it would be nice to be able to secondary or "right" click a bookmark from the list and open it in a new tab.

I'm guessing you're referring to folders in the favorites bar right? They will follow the Command-Click behavior so you might try holding command down when selecting a bookmark.

[Golf11]

This seems to be working okay for me. Can you give me the exact steps you take to reproduce the problem?

I'm guessing you're referring to folders in the favorites bar right? They will follow the Command-Click behavior so you might try holding command down when selecting a bookmark.

I secondary click with my mighty mouse and select add book mark and I usually choose a location in the toolbar menu. The new bookmark shows up but at the top of the list even though in preferences I've set it to put it at the bottom. (My mac isn't that old, 4 days, so I know there aren't any settings I've knowingly corrupted that would cause this behavior.) Also I'm on the bookmark page and I'm cleaning things up and I want to get rid of empty folders...how do you do that?

Yeah, I know, but why should one need two hands to do this?

...I'm new to macs (which might explain my naivete) and I've been trying out all the different browsers and I LOVE omniweb but I must say there are a lot of basic functions in this program that are missing that should be standard fare for a browser...sorting bookmarks with a click; opening pages in a new tab with a single click without use of extra digits on one's free hand (yeah, lazy I know...); organizing bookmarks with a click and the ability to delete or remove empty bookmark folders or duplicate bookmarks by pressing delete. (speaking of pressing, there are also times when I click a link or a button and nothing happens...I have to click multiple times before I get a response it happens consistently on a number of sites I frequently use, so responsiveness is sluggish).

I'm sure I'll find more things as I continue to use the program but these are my initial pet-peeves for a product that costs money. There are a lot of nice bells and whistles and functionality but it seems like the zeal to add all of these things has caused the developers to overlook the basic ways in which users work and use an internet browser (Microsoft is famous for that). It's akin to installing a radio in the car but putting the controls in the back seat so the passengers have better access to them when they're in the car...nice to have, but... Some of these things shouldn't be "feature" requests that might make it into new builds.

Again, I love what I see in the program and this is truly meant as CONSTRUCTIVE criticism so please take my comments as intended as user feedback that hopefully will make this an even better program. My golf game stinks, so I look for perfection elsewhere, especially if it's cheaper! :)