Sheep Systems Forums - multi-client sync scenario

Jerry Krinock Admin Offline Posts: 1666 Location: San Jose, California, USA Joined: Sep 29^th, 2008	Re: multi-client sync scenario Reply #2 - Jan 30^th, 2010 at 2:07pm	Print Post
	From another thread, scott wrote on Jan 30^th, 2010 at 1:48am: I think you need to toss the Import/Export/CleanSlate paradigm and switch to "syncing". From what I'm seeing initially, the change to Bookmarkshelf files is only creating problems, not making this process easier? So you're questioning is the decision between these two options: Sync. Examples: Apple's iSync of Safari bookmarks, Mail to the cloud The old Bookit app. Bookdog Migrating between two browsers Import/Export. Examples Migrating mailboxes from Microsoft Entourage to Apple Mail Safari importing bookmarks from Internet Explorer Open Office (NeoOffice) importing Microsoft Word document. The old URL Manager Pro app. There are three reasons why BookMacster uses Import/Export instead of Sync. Syncing can only be done without ambiguity when you've got control of the Clients on both ends, and the data structure in the Clients is the same, or at least reasonably similar. For example, Apple's iSync syncs between Safari on the Mac and Safari on the iPhone. Bookdog used the "reasonably similarness" of each pair of Clients, for example Safari and Firefox, but many compromises needed to be made. The basic "sync" operation involves only two Clients. You can chain "sync" operations together to make a "super sync" of three, four or more Clients, but you run into many issues, as I described in my previous post. Import/Export handles an unlimited number of Clients natively. With Import/Export, we can add capabilities which require BookMacster to have its own storage and be kind of like a Client itself. For one example, recall the "Add Bookmark" menulet of URL Manager Pro. We'll be able to do that with BookMacster. And then there's all the management operations which Bookdog does, which BookMacster does -- sorting, finding duplicates, verify. These things don't fit into the Sync paradigm at all. So Bookdog was actually two programs in one: Bookmarks Manager, and Bookmarks Syncer. There was no connection between the two, which I found quite confusing. Thanks for making me think about all this. I would like to think some more, reorganize this post and the last into a nice "white paper" explaining in an organized fashion why we chose the Import/Export instead of Sync paradigm for BookMacster. But I need to go fix a couple bugs and get this beta done. And I'm still thinking about ways to hide the complexity (Clients tab in particular) from the majority of users that don't need to know about it. I'll also think some more about the Clean Slate options. Clean Slate is a little different than all the other checkboxes and settings in the Clients tab, in that it is an option in the Import/Export process itself and not, like the others, a means of matching the disparate property sets of each Client to the Bookmarkshelf. My opinion up to this point is that it can be treated the same, though, and all we've got to do is keep the 90% of people who want them all ON to accept the default settings of ON and don't worry about them.

	Jerry Krinock
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Jerry Krinock Admin Offline Posts: 1666 Location: San Jose, California, USA Joined: Sep 29^th, 2008	Re: multi-client sync scenario Reply #1 - Jan 30^th, 2010 at 4:35am	Print Post
	scott wrote on Jan 30^th, 2010 at 2:15am: How do I set up BookMacster to do this: - I have 4 places that I have bookmarks: Safari, FireFox, Google Bookmarks, Delicious (and actually Chrome also, but we can add that in later) - All I want it to "sync" the bookmarks between all clients (do you understand what sync means or should I define it?) The only exception to mirrored syncing is: I don't want to ever delete anything at Delicious. (Delicious gets changes, mods, additions, but no deletions: call that "archive") That defines it good enough. scott wrote on Jan 30^th, 2010 at 2:15am: So how do I set up BookMacster? Step me though it please... First of all, use the New Bookmarkshelf wizard... In menu click File ▸ New Bookmarkshelf Select "Manage bookmarks among Multiple Browsers", then "OK" Select a Delicious account, Firefox, Google Bookmarks account, and Safari, then "Continue" These Clients will be pre-selected for you in Export Clients. Just click "Continue". Accept default "I'd rather Import and Export manually" and "OK". Choose first Import and whether or not you want to skip initial dupes, then "OK". Name the document "AllMyBookmarks" or something like that, then "OK". It may take a few minutes to import and download all of your bookmarks. After it's done, to meet your special requirement with Delicious, click in the toolbar Settings ▸ Clients and in the Export list, in the Delicious row, un-check "Clean Slate". Save the Bookmarkshelf document scott wrote on Jan 30^th, 2010 at 2:15am: I hate to have to start another topic, but it "seems" that every case is different (though I think that appearance is what's causing problems) You are doing it correctly. New topics give better results for people searching the forum archives. scott wrote on Jan 30^th, 2010 at 2:15am: I think the average user wants to keep their bookmarks the same regardless of what browser/client they are using, which I would call "syncing." This is what you get when using the New Bookmarkshelf wizard dialogs and accept all of the default settings. scott wrote on Jan 30^th, 2010 at 2:15am: Any more complex mixture of common/shared and client unique bookmark sets should be clearly separate (like "auto" and "manual" mode) I realize that the Clients tab is a problem, but haven't figured out what to do with it yet. Seriously, maybe we should put a big warning on the Clients tab of Settings. The first time a user enters it, instead of showing the controls, just put a statement that says "Warning. You are about the enter the Clients tab. This has lots of checkboxes and scary stuff which allow you to customize the way your Bookmarkshelf will import and export from each Client. If the New Document wizard set it up for you, and you just want bookmarks synced in the normal sense, and things are working OK, you have no need to go in here. Are you sure you want to look at this? [Yes, I can take it] [No (Default button)]. scott wrote on Jan 30^th, 2010 at 2:15am: I'm still very unclear about the CleanSlate issue Well, in your case Clean Slate was needed, to never delete bookmarks in Delicious. It's there for people who need it. scott wrote on Jan 30^th, 2010 at 2:15am: it seem that has just created another layer in the old BookDog scheme -- never having permanent database of bookmarks. If this architecture was used in iTunes, we'd all shoot ourselves in the head! Long story short: "Don't get me started" with iTunes. "Syncing" can only be done between two databases at a time. Address Book, Mail, iTunes etc. simply sync a local database with the cloud or an iPod. And that's what Bookdog does with a "Migration". One source, one destination. To sync more than two in Bookdog, you need to write an Automator action, and some astute users have actually done it, with three Clients. With four, it becomes even more complicated. You'd have to do something like this... Sync A to B Sync B to C Sync A to C Sync A to D Sync B to D Sync C to D Here are some of the problems: You'll get different results by doing these in different orders. In each of the syncs you need to specify which one is "favored", and set the other checkboxes in the Bookdog Migration window, some of which are equivalent to some of the settings in the Clients tab. It's not any simpler. It is easy to lose attributes. For example, if you sync from Firefox to Safari, tags will be lost because Safari does not support tags. Then if you sync from Safari to Delicious, you've got no more tags. If anything goes wrong with any of the syncs, you've got a holy mess. The paradigm in BookMacster for this use case is much easier to understand. You import from Clients. BookMacster supports all attributes. You edit, reorganize, verify, delete as desired. You export to Clients. scott wrote on Jan 30^th, 2010 at 2:15am: If you then added "history" to BookMacster it would then be better than Apple syncing (cause being able to undo changes/mods/deletes in the syncing of Address Book is what is sadly missing on the Mac) Yes, history requires a separate database. BookMacster and Time Machine together do what you want, if you take the .bkmslf file back in time. We'll save anything more for "BookMacster 2.0". scott wrote on Jan 30^th, 2010 at 2:15am: My head's spinning again... This program seems sooooooo complicated... help... I hope that starting over again with the New Bookmarkshelf wizard, as described above, will make it simpler. But then I realize that we need a way to get other new users to do that, instead of agonizing over all the checkboxes and settings in the Clients tab. Thanks again for the feedback.
	« Last Edit: Jan 30^th, 2010 at 1:29pm by Jerry Krinock »
	Jerry Krinock
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scott Junior Member Offline Posts: 7 Joined: Jan 29^th, 2010	multi-client sync scenario Jan 30^th, 2010 at 2:15am	Print Post
	How do I set up BookMacster to do this: - I have 4 places that I have bookmarks: Safari, FireFox, Google Bookmarks, Delicious (and actually Chrome also, but we can add that in later) - All I want it to "sync" the bookmarks between all clients (do you understand what sync means or should I define it?) The only exception to mirrored syncing is: I don't want to ever delete anything at Delicious. (Delicious gets changes, mods, additions, but no deletions: call that "archive") So how do I set up BookMacster? Step me though it please... ----- P.S. I hate to have to start another topic, but it "seems" that every case is different (though I think that appearance is what's causing problems) I think the average user wants to keep their bookmarks the same regardless of what browser/client they are using, which I would call "syncing." Any more complex mixture of common/shared and client unique bookmark sets should be clearly separate (like "auto" and "manual" mode) I'm still very unclear about the CleanSlate issue -- it seem that has just created another layer in the old BookDog scheme -- never having permanent database of bookmarks. If this architecture was used in iTunes, we'd all shoot ourselves in the head! I think the program just needs to handle "deletes" -- just like address book, mail, iTunes, and all other Apple syncing. If you then added "history" to BookMacster it would then be better than Apple syncing (cause being able to undo changes/mods/deletes in the syncing of Address Book is what is sadly missing on the Mac) My head's spinning again... This program seems sooooooo complicated... help...


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