Thank you, Cynops. This is my second favorite question, after "When is this beta test going to be over?"
Cynops wrote on Dec 31
st, 2009 at 12:30am:
Say I decide to edit things one day and add, delete and rename some bookmarks while I'm using Camino. Now I want those changes to be moved over to Safari where I may or may not have added a bookmark or two since last running BookMacster.
I'm going to give you a long answer which I believe will do exactly what you want, then at the end I'll explain how to make life easier.
1. Open the Bookmarkshelf which has previously imported these bookmarks and go to the Settings ▸ Clients tab.
2. In the Import list , activate (checkbox ON) Camino.
3. Because you want your deletions in Camino to be deleted in the Bookmarkshelf and later Safari, checkbox Import's
Clean Slate ON.
4. In the menu click Bookmarkshelf ▸ Import (Camino). Your additions, deletions and renamings will be imported from Camino to the Bookmarkshelf.
5. In the Import list, de-activate (checkbox OFF) Camino. (I believe this step is optional but we don't need to import from Camino more than once.)
6. In the Import list , activate (checkbox ON) Safari.
7. Because you don't want the new bookmarks from Camino to be erased because the're not in Safari, this time checkbox Import's
Clean Slate OFF.
8. Because you don't want your renamings from Camino to be overwritten by old names from Safari, set the
Merging Keep to
Bkmslf.
9. In the menu click Bookmarkshelf ▸ Import (Safari). Your additions only will be imported from Safari to the Bookmarkshelf. Now, the Bookmarkshelf has all of the bookmarks you want, all of the renames you want, and none of the bookmarks you deleted.
10. In Export Clients, activate (checkbox) Safari.
11. In that same row, checkbox
Clean Slate ON. This is so that when you export, anything not in the Bookmarkshelf (in particular, the bookmarks that you deleted in Camino) will be deleted in Safari.
12. In the menu, click Bookmarkshelf ▸ Export (Safari).
Whew! By carefully using all those checkboxes and settings, you're able to get what you want in twelve steps. That's why we put them in there, because users are coming from different starting points and may need special tweaks in order to initially get organized. However, if you do this every day or every week you're going to end up in another kind of "twelve-step" program. Let me suggest a workflow which will make life easier:
This workflow is for the common case of someone who wants to see all the same bookmarks in different web browsers. You may wantonly add bookmarks while you are browsing the web in any browser (=Client). However, when you get the urge to start renaming, rearranging and deleting, stop and Import from all browsers (Clients) into your Bookmarkshelf with Import's
Clean Slate set to OFF. Then, in BookMacster, do your renaming, rearranging, and deleting. Save the Bookmarkshelf and then Export to all Clients, with each client's
Clean Slate set to ON.
The aforementioned settings are actually the default settings which will appear when you add Import and Export Clients, so in theory you never need to touch them. And, since you probably won't do renaming, rearranging and deleting every day, after you're confident with the way it works, you may create an Agent to do the Import and Export automatically.