>Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2000 11:31:23 +0000
>From: "Ron Clarke" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: Edit Arachne's Hotlist
> My own method is to use the Arachne Hotlist as a sort of notepad for
>accumulating URLs (with despriptions). I then transfer those entries to
>a fixed BOOKMARK.HTM file, written and edited by me, deleting the
>harvested bookmarks behind me. My BOOKMARK.HTM is one of only a few permanent
>entries left in HOTLIST.HTM. BOOKMARK.HTM has many more categories, and
>a full index (with internal HTML links). I have so many bookmarks that
>this is the only way to keep track of them all. I set up a link to my
>BOOKMARK file from the Arachne desktop as well, and have hot-keyed it to
>Shift+F6, so I can call it up at any time.
Yes, Ron, I share this approach, too! There are basically two
different functions related with Arachne's hotlist:
1. accumulating URLs -> Arachne hotkey A
the descriptions for the bookmarks are by default taken from the
title tag in the bookmarked page.
2. revisiting URLs -> Arachne hotkeys H or Alt0 or Ctrl\
you call one bookmark file which need not necessarily be
identical with the accumulating list from 1.
These two functions play a very important role in browsing online
and offline. A well organized bookmark file saves time and money. I
think, Arachne should be most flexible here! And as storing
bookmarks is something that actually concerns every user of Arachne,
it would be good to provide a way of customizing and editing the
hotlist that can be understood by everybody.
Present hotlist manager is an attempt in this direction. But loading
time and complexity of your collection of bookmarks soon cause
problems with this approach. I first tried to put everything into one
huge structured file and insert links to move between its main
chapters. With growing number of URLs, the loading time increased,
until I decided to split the file into several topics. Besides that
the Ctrl+Arrow function in Arachne does not allow to jump between
diferent parts of one file, but only switches between different
files.
So, I think, sooner or later any collector of bookmarks will arrive
at a tree structure with various bookmark files which are more or
less in a logical relation to each other. You will abandon hotlist
manager and start editing your links as ordinary HTML documents with
your favourite text editor. And at this point the bookmark function
of IE is still far superior to Arachne. How can Arachne improve
here? I can (only theoretically) imagine two directions:
- Hotlist manager (or whatever comes after it) will use discrete
files in HTML format, perhaps with a DOS directory structure in
DOWNLOAD subdirectory, and relate them to each other (no, I do not
know, how!)
- The hotlist (or whatever file containing the bookmarks) will be
transformed to another format that allows to store a virtual tree
structure of links.
Does anybody understand me? Is the problem in my grammar or in my
head?
Less science fiction may be the following idea:
What about making the hotkeys more customizable? There are certainly
more than two Arachne users who do not want the new bookmarks
automatically go add to the main hotlist/bookmark file. Why waste a
hotkey (Shift+F6) if there are four hotkeys related to the same
hotlist? Would it be possible to define two keywords in Arachne.cfg
instead of one? E.g. 'AddBookmark=X.HTM' for hot key A and another
'Hotlist=Y.HTM' for hotkey 'H'. Default value for both may be
hotlist.htm.
With best regards
Christof Lange
_______________________________________________
Christof Lange
Prokopova 4, 130 00 Praha 3, Czech Republic
phone: (+420-2) 22 78 18 00 / 22 78 20 02
fax: (+420-2) 22 78 18 01
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
WWW: http://www.volny.cz/cce.zizkov
