Sent.

Thank you for continuing to develop BookMacster, I just purchased the v3 upgrade.

I sent the below via Apple Product Feedback form, but sadly I doubt it will help! By the way, I am now using Brave as my primary browser and would love it if you wrote / sold a Chrome extension for BookMacster adding Bookmarklet button to Chrome/Brave and an extension for searching! Right now I have BookMacster running on Mac for sorting / backing up, but more frequently use Bookmark Manager Plus chrome extension from HyunWooBro for searching for bookmarks and folders within-Brave (/ Chrome) but it's a 2017 extension and likely won't work much longer as no longer under development. I find it's search functionality very useful (even more than BookMacster menu bar extra).

Here's my feedback that I submitted today to Apple product forum:

Agree with Sheep Systems' Jerry Krinock's FB7772296:
[I put in URL to this thread - but as I haven't posted on this forum before, this forum won't let me include a URL]

fully implement WebExtensions API on Safari as Apple promised in 2020

Also, Apple will sell more macs if macOS remains open to 3rd party developers who enhance core operarting system functions, like HoudahSpot enhancing Spotlight file and Mail search, Default Folder X and Finder functionality, Swish and window sizing, BookMacster and Safari bookmarks, ChronoSync making bootable backups (now broken).

Increasingly Apple has been turning macOS into iOS. Apple only adds sales when you support the rich ecosystem of macOS 3rd party developers who enhance core OS functions and apps. Keep macOS and Apple apps open to power users and developers!

The Problem

Fifteen years ago, you could choose from a number of apps like ours for sorting, organizing, searching and otherwise managing your Safari bookmarks, and several apps for syncing your Safari bookmarks with other browsers.  Today, only our apps remain working.  Why?

Well, for most of your data – calendar items, contacts, photos, etc. – Apple provides to developers like us a guaranteed application programming interface, called API.  But Apple removed the API for Safari bookmarks in year 2011.  To keep our apps working, we have been, with great difficulty, reverse-engineering Safari.  (This is why you must grant our apps Full Disk Access.)  And, every year or so, the unauthorized functions in macOS which we use change a little, requiring us to, by trial and error, re-reverse-engineer things and then update our apps in a hurry.  Finally, it is possible that some future change by Apple might, either accidentally or on purpose, make it impossible for our apps to continue managing your Safari bookmarks.

In June 2020, Apple announced that Safari would support an open API, WebExtensions, which is supported by Firefox, Chrome and other browsers.  We were thrilled, because WebExtensions includes an API for bookmarks.  But when we tested this new API, we found that the bookmark functions were not implemented.

Action

Of course, we've contacted Apple's Developer Technical Services about this, but after two and a half years, we still have no bookmarks in Apple's API.  Feedback from users to support our FB7772296 could help.  If you care, please take a few minutes and tell Apple that 2023 is the time to implement the WebExtensions bookmarks API in Safari.  There are several ways you can do this…

• Open an email to Apple CEO Tim Cook.

• Submit to Apple's Product Feedback form.

• If you have Apple's Feedback Assistant app installed, launch it and click File > New Feedback > macOS.  Choose Problem Area Safari, type of issue Incorrect/Unexpected Behavior (since Apple did not indicate any exceptions when they advertised their support for WebExtensions), then under Details choose Extensions.  Leave the next three text fields blank, then enter your narrative under Description.

If you like our apps, getting this API will remove a big risk that our apps stop functioning in the future.  If you don't like our apps, this may give you some alternatives as other developers might step in and make similar apps that are more to your likes

Suggested narrative to Apple

You may copy, paste and modify the following as you desire.  If you want to replace third-party app with the name of our app which you use, that's fine.

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Safari WebExtensions : bookmarks

I use the Bookmarks feature in Safari on my Mac, so much so that I rely on a third-party app for advanced bookmarks management.  As I understand it, since Apple removed the API for Safari bookmarks access in 2011, this third party app has been using reverse-engineered Apple private API to edit my Safari bookmarks.  Apps like require frequent updates, cannot be sandboxed, and are rejected from the Mac App Store.

In 2020, Apple announced support for the open WebExtensions API.  Developers use the 'bookmarks' functions in this API to access bookmarks in Chrome, Firefox, Edge and other browsers.  But after two and a half years years, Safari's implementation still does not include the `bookmarks` functions.  Please ask the Safari team to make 2023 the year that WebExtensions' 'bookmarks' API gets implemented, so that we can have safe, stable and secure bookmarks management apps on the Mac.

"Me too" on Apple FB7772296.