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Instead of constantly importing, exporting, and synchronizing with Clients, you can add bookmarks directly to your BookMacster Bookmarkshelf while browsing the web, and visit bookmarks from your BookMacster Bookmarkshelf while in any application. These features are the essence of Usage Style 3.
BookMacster provides five ways to add new bookmarks directly. In this context we call it landing a new bookmark…
• BookMacster’s Anywhere Menu, available in any app via a keyboard shortcut • The Add Here item in BookMacster’s Status Menulet (most browsers) • The Add Here item in BookMacster’s Dock Menu (most browsers) • The Bookmarking Widget (Google Chrome, Chromium or Firefox only) • An AppleScript • The BookMacsterize Bookmarklet
and four ways to visit a bookmark…
• Click the bookmark in BookMacster’s Anywhere Menu • Click the bookmark in BookMacster’s Status Menulet • Click the bookmark in BookMacster’s Dock Menu • Doubleclick the bookmark in the main Content View
BookMacster’s Anywhere Menu makes BookMacster always within reach. You can access it via its keyboard shortcut, BookMacster’s Dock Menu, or BookMacster’s Status Menulet. In this menu, you can add a new bookmark to the web page you are currently viewing into any desired folder, and you can also visit a bookmark you have previously stored in a BookMacster Bookmarkshelf.
This hierarchical menu has keyboard focus, and the best way to navigate it is using the arrow keys on your keyboard. The → key takes you down to the next child level. The ← key pops you out to the parent level. The ↑ and ↓ keys navigate up and down the presently-displayed menu. Once you’ve reached the desired menu item, hit the ‘enter’ or ‘return’ key to “click” it.
All of the bookmarks in any open Bookmarkshelf are in the Anywhere Menu. To visit one, just click it.
At the top of the Anywhere Menu is an Add To menu item. The item to be added is a bookmark to the last web page you visited in Camino, Chromium, Firefox, Google Chrome, OmniWeb, Opera, or Safari.
Besides your default New Bookmark Landing, BookMacster remembers the last ten folders that you’ve landed new bookmarks into.
If you click one of the items farther down, you can navigate through the entire hierarchy in your Bookmarkshelf and land a new bookmark in any folder by using the Add Here menu item for that folder. In this example, we’re about to add that Apple - Support web page we were viewing to our Apple folder, which is a subfolder of our Bookmarks Menu in our open Bookmarkshelf.
If you have more than one Bookmarkshelf open, the menu shown becomes a submenu, and there is one for each open Bookmarkshelf.
BookMacster offers several keyboard shortcuts which can create or visit bookmark while you are working in any cooperating web browser application. That is, these keyboard shortcuts become enabled whenever a cooperating web browser application becomes the active application. They become disabled whenever any other application (including BookMacster itself) becomes the active application.
These keyboard shortcuts are not active by default. To set or un-set them, click in the menu Preferences and then click the Shortcuts tab. (Note: This feature is not available in BookMacster 1.6.x for Mac OS X 10.5. You must have Mac OS 10.6 or later and be using BookMacster 1.8 or later.)
If you enter a keyboard shortcut which conflicts with a keyboard shortcut in a cooperating web browser application, your BookMacster keyboard shortcut will over-ride the web browser’s keyboard shortcut.
Since many web browsers use ⌘D to create a new bookmark, we recommend using ⌘D as your keyboard shortcut for Add Quickly, so that you can add a bookmark to your Bookmarkshelf in the same way as you added a bookmark to your web browser before you became a BookMacster user. ⌘⌥D is a good choice for Add & Inspect.
These shortcut keys work even if BookMacster has been launched in the background or its window(s) are minimized to the Dock.
BookMacster’s little Anywhere Menu is displayed above your web browser whenever you hit its keyboard shortcut. In this menu, you can add a new bookmark to the web page you are currently viewing, either into your New Bookmark Landing or into any desired folder. You can also visit a bookmark you have previously stored in a BookMacster Bookmarkshelf.
Through the magic of browser add-ons, BookMacster is able to install widgets into some web browsers which send bookmarks directly to BookMacster. In Firefox, the widget takes the form of two menu items added to Firefox’ Bookmarks menu:
Google Chrome does not allow other apps to add menu items, so instead the widget takes the form of a browser action button which sits to the right of Chrome’s address field:
Although there is only one action in Chrome, you can still Add Quickly or Add & Inspect by using the option key to control whether or not the Inspector appears.
These widgets are not installed by default. To install them, in BookMacster click in the menu Preferences ▸ Adding and check the desired boxes. To uninstall, uncheck.
For users who have not configured BookMacster’s keyboard shortcuts, the same menu displayed by the Anywhere Menu is available in BookMacster’s Dock Menu and, if enabled, BookMacster’s Status Menulet.
The BookMacsterize Bookmarklet is not as handy as the other methods described above. It is kept for Mac OS X 10.5 users who do not have BookMacster’s keyboard shortcuts from web browsers available, and because it works in all locally-installed browser apps, even if it is not a cooperating web browser app.
Although it looks like any other bookmark, clicking this bookmark does not visit any site. Instead, it sends the title of the web page you are visiting, its URL, and any static text which you have selected in the page, to BookMacster. BookMacster immediately creates a new bookmark from this information, entering the selected static text into its Comments field.
There are two ways to create a BookMacsterize bookmarklet.
Export to Browser (Recommended). Clicking in the menu File ▸ Export Bookmarklet to ▸ will create a BookMacsterize bookmarklet in the frontmost open Bookmarkshelf if one does not exist, and then export only the BookMacsterize bookmarklet to a selected Client browser.
Add to Bookmarkshelf. One of the menu options under the [+] (Add) button in the upper-right corner of the Content Tab is to add a BookMacsterize bookmarklet.
After you perform an Export, this BookMacsterize bookmarklet will appear in the Bookmarks Bar/Toolbar/Favorites (or whatever it is called) in any locally-installed web browser app which you exported to.
The URL of the BookMacsterize Bookmarklet is a bit of JavaScript which sends the information to BookMacster. Modifying this JavaScript may render it no longer functional.
By default, the BookMacsterize bookmarklet is placed at the end of the Bookmarks Bar/Toolbar/Favorites, but you may move it to wherever you wish, or you may delete it if you don’t want to use this feature. You can restore a missing or broken BookMacsterize bookmarklet by selecting its menu item under the + button in the top-right corner of the Main Content View.
You may also rename it. For example, to conserve space on your Bookmarks Bar, you may want a shorter name. The letter “B” works fine. You might also find a suitable symbol by clicking in the menu Edit ▸ Special Characters. We didn’t find any that we liked enough to use as default, but here are some you might consider: ◆ ✸ ✔ β ◉. Tip: You can copy and paste from here.
When using BookMacster directly, you may minimize a window to the Dock by typing ⌘M.
If you switch on BookMacster’s Status Menulet in BookMacster ▸ Preferences ▸ General, you will notice another checkbox to Launch in Background. If you check that box too, the next time you launch BookMacster it will be a faceless background application, meaning that it will not appear in your Dock and not appear in your ⌘-tab Application Switcher. That is, it can be a faceless background application.
When it is running as a faceless background application, if you decide you want to do something which requires seeing, for example, a Bookmarkshelf window, you can bring BookMacster back to normal by clicking Show BookMacster at the bottom of the Status Menulet window. However, due to a limitation in Mac OS X, you cannot switch an application into the background after it has launched (normally) as a foreground application. To get it back into the background, you must quit and re-launch, wherein your Launch in Background preference will again do its thing.
Also, due to a bug in Mac OS X, after clicking Show BookMacster, BookMacster will not show its menu until you activate a third application and switch back to BookMacster. Just hit ⌘-tab a couple times, then ⌘-shift-tab.
BookMacster plays a the sound of a page ripping out of a book when landing a new bookmark, and two quick beeps when landing a duplicate bookmark. The sound effects may be silenced with a checkbox in Preferences ▸ Adding.
When adding a bookmark, in some cases you’re in a hurry or don’t want to break your concentration. In other cases, you want to stop, compose a good name, add tags and notes, and/or place the bookmark in its proper folder. BookMacster allows you to do it either way, at any time. In the first case, you’re done in one click. In the second case, BookMacster opens its Inspector on the new bookmark wherein you can edit and move it.
If you are using the menu item in Firefox, you have two menu items to choose from, Add Quickly and Add & Inspect, which command these two cases, respectively.
If you are using the [Add Here menu item], or the browser action button in Chrome or the BookMacsterize Bookmarklet in any browser, whether or not you get the Inspector depends on whether or not you’re holding down the option/alt key on your keyboard. To set which is which, click in the menu BookMacster ▸ Preferences ▸ Adding
(If you use the BookMacsterize Bookmarklet in Firefox, you must hit the option key quickly after clicking the bookmarklet, because holding down the option key prior to clicking any bookmark or bookmarklet seems to activate the Save As feature in Firefox.)
A new bookmark created with most of the tools described on this page will have its Name set initially to the title of the window in the web browser (which is generally the name provided by the website publisher, and if you have selected any text on the web page, the bookmark’s Comments will initially be set to your selected text.
When BookMacster creates a new bookmark via a Bookmarking Widget or BookMacsterize Bookmarklet, it is initially placed in the folder designated as your New Bookmark Landing. You can change a Bookmarkshelf’s New Bookmark Landing with a popup menu in Settings ▸ General.
Which Bookmarkshelf? BookMacster lands a new bookmark into whatever Bookmarkshelf you have open, asking you to choose one if you have more than one, or none, open.
Since you may be adding bookmarks sporadically throughout the day, the Bookmarkshelf landing such bookmarks needs to be saved periodically.
When a bookmark is landed, the landing Bookmarkshelf is automatically saved, immediately. In addition, if the Inspector pops up, and if you make your changes and close the Inspector within 60 seconds, your changes are automatically saved when you close the Inspector.
If you are using Mac OS X 10.7 Lion or later, these saves are coordinated with the Auto Save feature of Mac OS X, which is adopted by BookMacster.
If the active application is a web browser, the bookmark will be visited with that web browser. This is normally the case if you are browsing the web with, say Safari. Thus, you can visit any bookmark with any browser at any time by activating the desired web browser before clicking the bookmark.
If the active application is not a web browser, the bookmark will be visited with whatever browser you have designated in the Visit With popup menu in the Inspector palette, including Your Default Browser. Thus, if you want to visit a bookmark with your designated web browser for that bookmark, activate any app which is not a web browser (not Safari, not Firefox, not Google Chrome, etc.) before clicking the bookmark.
Note that the latter case always applies if you doubleclick a bookmark in a Bookmarkshelf window, because at that time BookMacster itself is the active application, and BookMacster is not a web browser.
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