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ernests21
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Re: support for iCab 6?
Reply #3 - Apr 27th, 2021 at 3:11am
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Staggering Jerry! Much thanks to you so much and indeed, it worked easily. A debt of gratitude is in order for the clarification with regards to how iCab handle bookmarks. I'm fine with utilizing this workaround. What dazzles me in iCab is the printing - it appears, of the multitude of programs - to be the most un-hazardous in saving a page as a pdf.
« Last Edit: Apr 27th, 2021 at 1:03pm by Jerry Krinock »  
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guy
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Re: support for iCab 6?
Reply #2 - Oct 4th, 2020 at 10:36am
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Stunning Jerry! Thank you so much and yes, it worked without a hitch. Thanks for the explanation as to how iCab handle bookmarks. I'm fine with using this workaround. What impresses me in iCab is the printing - it seems, of all the browsers - to be the least problematic in saving a page as a pdf.
  
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Jerry Krinock
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Re: support for iCab 6?
Reply #1 - Oct 4th, 2020 at 6:13am
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I just tried iCab 6.  (I was surprised to find out that iCab was still around, but it looks like it never died!)

"Supporting" iCab 6 might be fairly simple because it looks like the only change was that the name of the bookmarks file:

~/Library/Preferences/iCab/iCab 4 Bookmarks

has been changed to

~/Library/Preferences/iCab/iCab 6 Bookmarks

which is a little odd because I wonder why they changed the name if the file format is the same.  You know, they did not change the bookmarks file name for iCab 5, they continued to use iCab 4 Bookmarks.

Supporting iCab 6 would thus appear be a small amount of work, which could be rolled into the next major update which we are working on.  There are a couple issues, however:

• iCab 6 appears to still not provide any extension system by which we could politely access its bookmarks.  So, as with previous iCab versions, we would need to impolitely access its bookmarks file on the disk directly.  Furthermore, as with previous iCab versions, iCab does not write changes to its bookmarks file until it is quit, and disregarding and overwriting any changes made by others while it is running.  So, as with previous iCab versions, our apps could only import from or export to iCab while iCab is not running, which I have always found to be quite annoying.

• iCab 6 now appears to support syncing with the iCab on iOS and other Macs.  Depending on how they implemented that, and again due to the lack of a polite way to access iCab bookmarks, this might cause some unforeseen bugs if you were to use both their syncing and our syncing together.

* * *

If you are interested in getting iCab 6 working with BookMacster now, you can use this workaround:

1.  Quit iCab if it is running.
2.  Find the file at path  ~/Library/Preferences/iCab/iCab 6 Bookmarks
3.  Rename the file, changing the "6" to "4".
4.  In BookMacster, Markster, Synkmark, or Smarky, Import from and/or Export to iCab as desired.
5.  Rename that file, changing the "4" back to a "6".
6.  Run iCab and verify that any exported changes are as expected.

I just tried renaming a bookmark using that procedure and it worked for me.  If you only want to occasionally import from iCab but not export to iCab, you could make symbolic link, named as the "4" file, targetting the "6" file.  Then no file renaming is necessary.

If you could verify that the file renaming works for you, doing more complicated exports to iCab, we would be motivated to make the changes in our apps which would eliminate the file renaming steps 2, 3 and 5.  But, as I explained, iCab has never been and still does not appear to be very friendly to bookmarks management by other apps.







  

Jerry Krinock
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guy
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support for iCab 6?
Oct 4th, 2020 at 1:44am
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Hello. I've been a bit disappointed with the behaviour of my usual browsers lately (Firefox, Safari, Vivaldi) and so I restarted using iCab version 5 which is odd but useful for some sites. It worked well with BookMacster. A new version of iCab has appeared (v6) which I think is very good - I'd be interested to hear of others using it - but BookMacster no longer appears to work with it. Are there any plans for including support for version 6 is later versions of BM?
  
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