9.6 Bookmark Syncing

Before iSync came along, the biggest problem with bookmarks is that they were a one-computer-only thing. Meaning, the bookmarks you made on one computer weren't easy to get at from another computer, and there was no way of synchronizing them with another, or using them while you were visiting a friend or on vacation.

One of the nice things about using the Safari web browser (http://www.apple.com/safari) and iSync, is that you can make your bookmarks available to other Macs and use them online from wherever you are. Just imagine the following scenario: you're on vacation at your friend Marsha's place, and you're telling her about some article you read online and bookmarked with Safari a few weeks ago. Of course, Marsha now wants to read it, but finding the article could take a lot of time.

If you've synced your bookmarks with your .Mac account, all of your bookmarks can be accessed quickly, and with very little trouble. Best of all, you can access your bookmarks from any machine: Mac, Windows, whatever. All you need is a web browser.

Once you've used iSync to synchronize your Safari bookmarks, the bookmark data is stored on your iDisk in two places:

/Library/Application Support/Sync/BKMK

This directory contains a series of binary files (raw data) used by iSync. These files store the bookmarks in a format that can be transferred to another Mac using iSync, making them available in the Safari browser on the other side.

The files in this directory have odd filenames, too, such as 3D7E19DE-926B-11D7-BA79-00039398D26E.D000 . The first part of the filename ( 3D7E19DE-926B-11D7-BA79-00039398D26E ) is a unique identifier for your .Mac account. The extension ( .D000 , .D001 , .D002 , etc.) denotes a synchronization. Each time you use iSync to synchronize your bookmarks, a new file will be created, but with a differently numbered extension; the one with the higher number (e.g., .D002 is higher than .D001 and .D000 ), contains the data from the most-recent sync.

/Library/Application Support/Bookmarks

This directory contains but one lone file, Bookmarks.xml , which contains all of your bookmarks. When you view your bookmarks over the Web, the Bookmarks.xml file is used to supply the bookmarks displayed in the Bookmarks Window.

Synchronizing Safari's bookmarks with your iDisk makes them available to other Macs, and they can also be used over the Web from any computer with a graphical web browser such as Netscape Navigator (http://www.netscape.com), Camino (which dupes the .Mac servers into thinking it is Netscape; http://www.mozilla.org/projects/ camino ), and even Internet Explorer, which still ships with Mac OS X ( /Applications ). If you try to use a nonstandard browser, such as Opera (http://www.opera.com), you will be redirected to the page shown in Figure 9-25, telling you that the Bookmarks Window can only be viewed with Safari, Internet Explorer, or Netscape.

Figure 9-25. This page appears when you try to use a nonstandard browser for accessing your bookmarks over the Web.

9.6.1 Using Your Bookmarks on the Web

To use your bookmarks over the Web, follow these steps:

1. Click on the Bookmarks icon on the .Mac homepage, as shown in Figure 9-26.

   Figure 9-26. Click on the Bookmarks icon to gain access to your Safari bookmarks.

   
   

2. Now you'll need to get past the password page. If you've enabled Keychains to work with Safari (Safari Preferences AutoFill, and have checked "User names and passwords"), all you will need to do is click on the Enter button or hit the Return key.

3. Once your .Mac Member Name and Password have been authenticated by Apple's servers, you will be greeted with the Bookmarks Welcome page, shown in Figure 9-27.

   Figure 9-27. The Bookmarks Welcome page.

   
   

4. To start using your Safari bookmarks, click on the Open Bookmarks button. After clicking this button, another browser window will open , giving you access to all of your synchronized bookmarks, and the main browser window will return you to the .Mac homepage. The Bookmarks Window is shown in Figure 9-28.

Figure 9-28. The Bookmarks window.

The Bookmarks Window pops up as a separate browser window that you can move around on your screen as needed.

9.6.2 Using the Bookmarks Window

The Bookmarks Window (shown in Figure 9-28) gives you quick and easy access to your bookmarks from wherever you are, and from whatever system you're using. You can use this window to open existing bookmarks, and add or delete bookmarks as well.

Along the top of the window is a row of four buttons , which perform the following functions:

.Mac

Opens the .Mac homepage (http://www.mac.com) in a new browser window.

Mail

Opens the .Mac Mail page in a new window (of course, you'll have to authenticate yourself again to get at your Mail).

Preferences

Opens a Bookmarks Preferences window (shown in Figure 9-29).

Figure 9-29. The Bookmarks Preferences window.

The Bookmarks Preferences window gives you the following options:

Always open pages in a new browser window

This ensures that any bookmarks you click on will open in a new browser window. This option is enabled as the default.

Always open pages in the same browser window

This option will open any bookmark you click on in the same window as the Bookmarks window.

Since the purpose of having the Bookmarks Window open as a separate window is to make your bookmarks easily accessible, enabling this option is not recommended. The reason is because you will need to resize the narrow Bookmarks window to view the bookmarked page you selected, and you'll have to use the Back buttons to get back to the Bookmarks Window (which you can either leave large or resize to be smaller).

Save my password (Bookmarks log in not requried on this computer)

This option, which is unchecked by default, makes it so you won't have to authenticate yourself on the computer you're using in order to gain access to your bookmarks.

If you plan to use the Bookmarks Window often, it is recommended that you enable this option by clicking on the checkbox.

Language

There are only two language options available in the drop-down menu: English or Japanese.

Turn on .Mac Bookmarks Synchronization

This option, which is checked by default, enables (or disables, if unchecked) Safari bookmark synchronization. Beneath this option, you will also see the date and time that your bookmarks were last synchronized with the .Mac server.

If you have made any changes to the Bookmarks Preferences, click on the Save button to save your settings. If not, you can click on the Cancel button to go back to viewing your bookmarks.

Logout

Clicking this button simply closes the Bookmarks Window, which can also be accomplished by clicking on the red close window button or by using the keyboard shortcut, -W.

9.6.2.1 Using the Bookmark Category menu

Located just below the row of buttons is a pull-down menu that you can use to quickly gain access to different folders of bookmarks. When the Bookmarks window first opens, the pull-down menu is set to All Collections, which shows you the basic set of your bookmarks. To view specific folders, simply click on the set of arrows on the right side of the pull-down menu and select another category, as shown in Figure 9-30.

Figure 9-30. The Category pull-down menu let's you easily switch between folders of bookmarks.

After letting go of the mouse button on one of the bookmark categories, the bookmarks for that category are displayed in the center (white) portion of the window as seen on the right of Figure 9-30. As you can see in the Bookmarks window on the right, there are two folders (Mac and News) that have disclosure triangles next to them. This means that there are other folders within, each containing their own set of categorized bookmarks. If a folder doesn't have a disclosure triangle next to it, it means that the folder contains only bookmarks; there are no other folders within.

Here, the disclosure triangles act just as they do from within the List View of the Finder. To see the contents within, simply click on the disclosure triangle (which makes it point downward), as shown in Figure 9-31.

Figure 9-31. Clicking on a disclosure triangle next to a folder reveals its contents within the view.

To collapse an open folder, simply click on the downward-pointing disclosure triangle.

9.6.2.2 Managing your bookmarks

Running along the bottom of the Bookmarks window are three buttons that let you manage your bookmarks. These buttons, shown in Figure 9-32, let you add bookmarks, categories (or folders), as well as delete bookmarks from your collection.

Figure 9-32. The Bookmark window's controls for managing your bookmark collection.

With the Bookmark window open and another browser window open off to the side, you can click on the Add Bookmark button to create a bookmark for the site you're visiting. If you decide that you need to add a new folder to store some bookmarks in, click on the Add Category button. And finally, to delete a bookmark, click on the Delete Bookmark button. The next time you use iSync, the changes you've made to the bookmarks online will be applied to Safari's Bookmark. plist file on your Mac.

At the bottom-right edge of the Bookmarks window, near the window-resizing grabber, is a simple little question mark. When you click on this icon, the .Mac Help window, shown in Figure 2-5 (see Chapter 2) pops open, giving you access to all of Apple's .Mac help files.