This document describes the Sync In/Out tab of a bookmark book's window. This tab is divided into two parts.
- Sync In. Here we have ripped out half of Bookdog's old Migration document. This tab contains a list. The user lists, in order, the sources (browsers, services or standalone files) from which items will be matched or copied during a Sync In operation. (Users of only one browser/service will have only that single source and thus only one item in their list.)
When a Sync In is performed, for each item encountered in the source, the new application looks in the existing Content of the bookmarks book. If a corresponding item is found (it must have been copied during a previous Sync In), the properties of the two items are compared and, if any differences are found, the existing Content item's properties are changed to match the current properties of the source item. Note that an item's parent folder is a property, so this may also move items which were moved in the source. Corresponding items are matched by a unique identifier supplied by the source. If no match is found for a source item, the item is simply copied from the source. Mercifully, all browsers and services now supported, as well as those being contemplated for support in the future, now attach such unique identifiers to each of their items.
For each source, there are also four option checkboxes:
- Don't Create Duplicates. When match/copying in items from the second or later source, bookmarks will not be copied if they link to the same website or resource as an already-copied bookmark from a previous source. Note that this option does not stop duplicates which exist within the same source from being match/copied in.
- Create Tags From Folders. When match/copying in items, create tags for each user-created "soft" folder in the lineage of each bookmark. This option will only be enabled for sources which do not support tags. For example, if a bookmark is in a folder named "Fruit" which is itself in a folder named "Trees" which is in the source's Bookmarks Bar, when this bookmark is synced in to the new application it will have two tags, "Fruit" and "Trees". (The Bookmarks Bar is not a user-created "soft" folder.)
- Set Shared. When copy/matching in items, set the shared attribute to YES if this option is on and NO if it is off. This option is only enabled for sources which do not have a "private"/"shared" attribute such as Safari, Firefox and any other desktop web browser. Most web services such as del.icio.us and ma.gnolia.com do have such an attribute, so that attribute value is copied directly and therefore this option is enabled for those sources.
- Delete Unmatched. After copy/matching is complete, delete all items in the Content which were not matched by an item in the source. Not often used, this option allows the user to clone a bookmarks book Content from a "golden" source.
- Sync Out. Here we have ripped out the other half of Bookdog's old Migration document. This tab contains a similar list. The user lists, in order, the destinations (browsers, services or standalone files) from which items will be matched or copied during a Sync Out operation. (Users of only one browser/service will have only that single destination and thus only one item in their list.)
When a Sync Out is performed, any items in any destination which are not matched by items in the bookmarks book Content are always deleted, and the properties of remaining items are changed if necessary to match the properties of corresponding items in the Content. (For some browser/services, for technical reasons, this is done by deleting all items in the destination and then copying in all items from the Content. For others, this is done by copy/matching in items and then deleting the unmatched items. The user does not see this because, either way, the result is the same.)
There is one option, Create Folders From Tags which may cause additional copies of items to appear in the destination. This option may be set to one of three possible values
- 1. For each item with one or more tags, place the item in a folder which has the same name as one of the tags. Create this folder if necessary. The tag used is arbitrarily selected. That's not a very good situation, but the alternative is to order tags which is not done by any of the browser/services that support tags. But this is the way Bookdog does it now. This needs more thought.
- 1+. For each item with one or more tags, place the item in a folder which has the same name as one of the tags. Create this folder if necessary. For items with more than one tag, create copies of the item and do the same with each additional tag.
- 0. Do not create any folders from tags. This is the only value enabled for destinations which themselves support tags, since it would be undesirable to create such folders when you've got real tags.