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Food for thought!
Bookmark Folder Structure on my.xmarks.com and its equivalent.
my.xmarks.com = Firefox = IE
>(locked)Bookmarks = Bookmarks Menu = Favorites
>no equivalent = Bookmarks Toolbar = Favorites Bar (aka Links)
>no equivalent = Unsorted Bookmarks = no equivalent
NOTE: When you first create your xmarks account your default folder listing is just the "Bookmarks(locked)" folder.
After installing and setting up xmarks|ie/firefox for the first time, depending on which browser, your my.xmarks.com dir structure will either look like one of the following:
my.xmarks.com|firefox:
-Bookmarks(locked)
>Bookmarks Toolbar(locked)
>Unsorted Bookmarks(locked)
>Mozilla Firefox
my.xmarks.com|ie:
-Bookmarks(locked)
>Links(locked)
>Microsoft Websites
Now the problem I am noticing with xmarks is as followed.
If at any point the only option is to upload(overwrite server) and your using xmarks|ie then your my.xmarks.com will look similar to the xmarks.com|ie dir structure above. Now the issue is if you where to sync your xmarks|firefox after that upload(overwrite) your Firefox Bookmarks dir structure will be different. Instead of "Bookmarks Menu" you will have "no title" and instead of "Bookmarks Toolbar" you will have "links".
So in my opinion the problems lies on the server side (unless the client is the one altering the folder names). So instead of my.xmarks.com default dir structure is just Bookmarks(locked), it should have its own folders structure that would be the standard, like in the following:
my.xmarks.com
-Bookmarks (which represents "Bookmarks Menu" or "Favorites") and its locked even from a upload overwrite.
>Toolbar (which will represent both the Favorites Toolbar and Bookmarks Toolbar) and its locked even from a upload overwrite.
Now the theory is if I do my initial install/sync then the the default locked folders should not change at all. However if using xmarks|firefox an additional locked folder will appear, "Unsorted Bookmarks". Now if I am at a last option of doing an upload overwrite the locked dir structure shall still remain the same (Bookmarks, Toolbar). The last theory is that if I did a upload overwrite using xmarks|ie and then did a sync/merge afterwords using xmarks|firefox my firefox bookmarks dir structure should not change. It should still remain Bookmarks Toolbar and Bookmarks Menu, but as of now most of us probably know that is not the case as of now. The server should detect when doing a sync/merge what browser is requesting and during the sync/merge the only the contents of the locked folders are sync/merge not the folder it self or its title.
I also believe that by default that when syncing that the sync/merge should alwasy be start with server first unless other wise specified. Another thing that should occur during sync/merge is prevention of duplication.
Now another thought is with in the settings of my.xmarks.com where the user specifies there default browser. So in my case I choose Firefox. Therefore no matter what browser or how I sync it uses the folder structure of that specified browser. So if I did a upload overwrite using IE, then the folder structure online remains as the default (in my case firefox) this way no overwrite of folder (locked) titles.
my.xmarks.com = Firefox = IE
>(locked)Bookmarks = Bookmarks Menu = Favorites
>no equivalent = Bookmarks Toolbar = Favorites Bar (aka Links)
>no equivalent = Unsorted Bookmarks = no equivalent
NOTE: When you first create your xmarks account your default folder listing is just the "Bookmarks(locked)" folder.
After installing and setting up xmarks|ie/firefox for the first time, depending on which browser, your my.xmarks.com dir structure will either look like one of the following:
my.xmarks.com|firefox:
-Bookmarks(locked)
>Bookmarks Toolbar(locked)
>Unsorted Bookmarks(locked)
>Mozilla Firefox
my.xmarks.com|ie:
-Bookmarks(locked)
>Links(locked)
>Microsoft Websites
Now the problem I am noticing with xmarks is as followed.
If at any point the only option is to upload(overwrite server) and your using xmarks|ie then your my.xmarks.com will look similar to the xmarks.com|ie dir structure above. Now the issue is if you where to sync your xmarks|firefox after that upload(overwrite) your Firefox Bookmarks dir structure will be different. Instead of "Bookmarks Menu" you will have "no title" and instead of "Bookmarks Toolbar" you will have "links".
So in my opinion the problems lies on the server side (unless the client is the one altering the folder names). So instead of my.xmarks.com default dir structure is just Bookmarks(locked), it should have its own folders structure that would be the standard, like in the following:
my.xmarks.com
-Bookmarks (which represents "Bookmarks Menu" or "Favorites") and its locked even from a upload overwrite.
>Toolbar (which will represent both the Favorites Toolbar and Bookmarks Toolbar) and its locked even from a upload overwrite.
Now the theory is if I do my initial install/sync then the the default locked folders should not change at all. However if using xmarks|firefox an additional locked folder will appear, "Unsorted Bookmarks". Now if I am at a last option of doing an upload overwrite the locked dir structure shall still remain the same (Bookmarks, Toolbar). The last theory is that if I did a upload overwrite using xmarks|ie and then did a sync/merge afterwords using xmarks|firefox my firefox bookmarks dir structure should not change. It should still remain Bookmarks Toolbar and Bookmarks Menu, but as of now most of us probably know that is not the case as of now. The server should detect when doing a sync/merge what browser is requesting and during the sync/merge the only the contents of the locked folders are sync/merge not the folder it self or its title.
I also believe that by default that when syncing that the sync/merge should alwasy be start with server first unless other wise specified. Another thing that should occur during sync/merge is prevention of duplication.
Now another thought is with in the settings of my.xmarks.com where the user specifies there default browser. So in my case I choose Firefox. Therefore no matter what browser or how I sync it uses the folder structure of that specified browser. So if I did a upload overwrite using IE, then the folder structure online remains as the default (in my case firefox) this way no overwrite of folder (locked) titles.
I’m thankful and confident
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Inappropriate?Wow, you've put some thought into this. Thanks for writing in! I've spent a lot of time attempting to get IE and Firefox to play nicely together, but (as you've noticed) it doesn't always work correctly. Give me some more time to think about your post, I'll get a more thorough reply later this week.
Cheers,
Colin -
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Inappropriate?Alright, I know I'm a little late in getting back to you, but I wanted to say thanks again for the ideas. A few thoughts:
The "no title" name for the root bookmark folder was a bug in Xmarks for IE. I've just released an update that should fix this.*
The duplicates during a merge is also a bug (in both Xmarks for IE and Xmarks for Firefox). Again, the latest Xmarks for IE should help clean this up. I don't remember off the top of my head if the fix has made it's way into Xmarks for Firefox yet.
We spent a lot of time trying to figure out how uploads from various clients should work together. In the end we decided that an upload from IE should be exactly that: IE's view of your Favorites. Similarly an upload from Firefox puts Firefox's view of your bookmarks on my.xmarks.com. When another client synchronizes it's that client's job to take your bookmarks on my.xmarks.com and make them fit in to the correct view for that client. So when Xmarks for IE sees a Links folder named "Bookmarks Toolbar" it automatically converts the name to "Links" (for the current machine only, it doesn't sync that change back to my.xmarks.com). Firefox doesn't care what the name of your bookmarks folder is, so it happily uses "Links" as the name if you uploaded things from IE originally.
All that being said, this isn't the only possible solution. I actually really like your idea of allowing each user to decide which view should be the default view. The original design of our bookmark synchronizer was created when we only supported a single browser (Firefox). Things have changed a lot since then, we now have 4 different browser all trying to fit themselves into our original model. At some point we're going to have to redesign things from the ground up with multiple browsers in mind. When we do, we'll be looking at exactly the same points that you raised.
Colin
* The update to Xmarks for IE hasn't been officially released yet but you can download it and try it out here: https://static.xmarks.com/clients/ie/...
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