To migrate from URL Manager Pro to Bookdog
URL Manager Pro and Bookdog
The Difference between URL Manager Pro and Bookdog
Alco Blom's URL Manager Pro was designed to suck in all your bookmarks, and after the initial import, although you can export to your browsers, it is more convenient to access your bookmarks from within URL Manager Pro rather than using the Bookmarks Bar or Menu in your browser. Although you can do this with Bookdog by combining all your bookmarks and using "Save As", Bookdog does not yet have the little menulet and other features that made URL Manager Pro a convenient "centralized bookmarks repository". Bookdog is more geared toward saving your bookmarks back to where your web browser(s) can find them and then you use them normally within your browser; i.e. Bookmarks Menu, Bookmarks Toolbar, etc.
Migrating from URL Manager Pro to Bookdog
1. Choose Your Choice Browser to use as a "Go-Between" (see below).
2. In URL Manager Pro, menu > File > Save to Browser > Your Choice Browser.
3. In Bookdog, File > My Macintosh Account > Your Choice Browser.
4. If you get an error Alert saying that there are "unescaped apostrophes", or a Fetchback failure, use "Try to Fix" if available. If that does not work, launch Your Choice Browser. If Your Choice is Safari, OmniWeb or Opera, open the Bookmarks Manager and move or rename some bookmarks a little, then quit the browser (unless it is Safari), then repeat step 2 and it will probably work. What you are doing here is forcing your browser will rewrite the bookmarks file(s). The reason this works is that URL Manager Pro sometimes writes files with a few differences compared to the way your browser writes them, and Bookdog's Fetchback self-test is very fussy and will not open your bookmarks unless he understands each and every bit. (Fetchback is to prevent loss of data which could occur if you updated a browser, but did not update Bookdog, and the browser had added new file features).
Migrating from Bookdog to URL Manager Pro
To go from Bookdog back to URL Manager Pro is easy. There are two alternatives:
Alternative 1. In Bookdog, migrate or copy the bookmarks you want to Your Choice Browser and Save. Then, in URL Manager Pro, menu > File > Get from Browser > Your Choice Browser.
Alternative 2. In Bookdog, menu File > Save As > Choose File Format: Camino, to any location you desire, then in URL Manager Pro, menu > file > Import that file. Unlike Bookdog, URL Manager Pro simply tries to read whatever it can and does not do a Fetchback-type self-test. So you shouldn't have to "fix" anything.
Which Browser to use as a "Go-Between"
For Your Choice Browser, first of all you need one that you've installed, so that it will show up in Bookdog's File menu. We recommend Camino if you have it, since Camino should preserve the Notes/Description attribute, and is guaranteed to rewrite your bookmarks file whenever it quits, and its file format has been fairly stable so you may not have to do step 4. A second choice would be Firefox, though step 4 will probably be necessary due to the unescaped apostrophes written by URL Manager Pro. Third choice is Safari, but you'll lose any Notes/Description. OmniWeb and Opera should preserve all the attributes but you may have to mess around alot before they write the file. OmniWeb writes bookmarks in three separate files, so you have to mess around with at least one bookmark in each of your Favorites, Personal Bookmarks and My Shared Bookmarks (if you have any). And you may have to run it twice, because sometimes it appears to cache changes to your bookmarks temporarily in a different file.
Shiira and URL Manager Pro
The Shiira Project changed their method of storing bookmarks with Shiira 2.0. Shiira 1.x stores bookmarks in old plist file, but Shiira 2.x uses an sqlite database accessed using Apple's CoreData technology. While Bookdog supports the new database, URL Manager Pro 3.4.4 still works on the old file and is unaware of the new database. This should explain any confusion you are seeing among Shiira 1.x, Shiira 2.x, URL Manager Pro and Bookdog.