Enhancement: BSP2 adding bookmark button in Address bar with folder search capability -> Reqs for a Bookmark Manager extension

[brain8891]

description:

Currently adding a new bookmark to a specific deeply nested folder, take these steps:

Steps:
1- Ctrl+Q to Open BSP2 sidebar.
2- Click on the search bookmark filed.
3- Search for the folder, and click on it.
4- Then drag the tab to that folder.

My suggestion:
A button in the Address bar when clicked it show a panel with two options a drop list of most recently saved to folder, or more frequently save to folder, and a search filed to find a specific folder to save at that path.

Steps:
1-click on the BSP2 icon in the address bar.
2- either search for the folder, or click on the most recent Saved to folder, or more frequently saved to folder.

something like this:

Reasons:

1- The default Firefox solution do offer "most recent" folders, but I think you have to find that folder and save it within the star button panel in order for FF to suggest it which is cumbersome.
3- there is no option to search for a folder unless if you go to the sidebar and the result will be a mix of folders and bookmarks, having that option will reduce the steps that the user have to take in order to save a bookmark at a specific location.

Thank you for your hard work

[aaFn]

Hello @brain8891 , interesting idea, but that would be a lot of new development : BSP2 is currently not a panel add-on, only a sidebar one.
In terms of click / user effort savings, the gain I understand would really be on search which would be focused only on folders, simplifying the task, correct ? Maybe there can be another way, using only the sidebar (e.g. a kind of shortcut for the "Show folders only" filter maybe ? ) ?

[brain8891]

s currently not a panel add-on, only a sidebar one.

I am not a developer, I didn't realize it is more work to add the address bar panel, I assumed you just simply copy the back end code, and the panel is using the webextention API

the gain I understand would really be on search

Not just search if you have access to numbers such as how many times a folder is saved to already, then suggesting the most save to folder, will help users because most users more frequently save to a certain folder and at a certain time. And Firefox builtin list of "frequent" or "most recent" folder is not accurate, I am not sure how it works, I tried to figure it out, but the list of "frequent folder is random, here is a screenshot of what I am talking about:

personally, I would add two sectioned list, on top is the last 2 folders that the user saved to the last two times they bookmarked,
and at the bottom a list of 5 most saved to folders, for example:

1- Saved to: Folder A last time
2- saved to: folder D before last time
.-----------------------------------.
1- save to: folder A 50 times
2- saved to: folder B 45 times
3- saved to: folder C 40times
4- saved to: folder D 20 times
5- saved to: folder E 5 times

This is the best way which will work for all users.

(PS: I am giving this information just for reference in future if you have time or decided to add it)

Maybe there can be another way, using only the sidebar (e.g. a kind of shortcut for the "Show folders only" filter maybe ? ) ?

I wanted to suggest having a button in the address bar beside the Star button:

When clicked it would open the sidebar with folder filter (and that filter is temporary meaning when you close the sidebar and open it using Ctrl+Q it would be on the filter settings that you used last time)
but it is not that much difference so waste of your effort, it will help me a little, but will not help BSP2 as an add-on, I don't think it is worth the effort

Plus currently there is an add-on that does that:
default-bookmark-folder

it has an address bar button to save directly to a user defined folder:

and a sidebar button that does what I asked for, except for frequent/recent folders list:

And the search algorithm can be better:

And mainly the downside is that you have two add-ons consuming more resources instead of one add-on that do everything bookmark related.

lastly, sorry if this was long, and if it had some grammar or misspelling mistakes I am short on time. SO, close this, or keep it open if in future you might want to add this.

As always, thank you for your hard work <3

[aaFn]

Hello @brain8891, excellent, so there is already a solution 😀 !
And no need for BSP2 to extend on this domain and redo the work of another ! BSP2 domain is more for search, as its title says, and not for bookmark creation, which DBF seems to do very well 👍.

On a general stance, I am not in favor of add-on competition, and more in favor of integration and collaboration.

=> If you want to ask Teddy Gustiaux if he would like to consider collaboration with BSP2 to address the known issue he has https://github.com/teddy-gustiaux/default-bookmark-folder/wiki/Known-issues,
I will gladly discuss directly with him to find a way when BSP2 sidebar is used for drag and drop (in the same spirit of when I tried integration with TST and its API to share the same sidebar, but eventually meeting too many restrictions from FF so we couldn't continue).

Point him to this thread, or point me to a thread on his GitHub https://github.com/teddy-gustiaux/default-bookmark-folder/issues
if he is favorable to that, and we'll continue there,

Cheers, aaFn.

[brain8891]

Hello @aaFn I didn't think much about competition, and I found out about DBF, while I was typing that report, and I still wish BSP2 to have that because it is not hard to implement and maintain, but I get your point, I want so many things in bookmark management, and installing tens of add-ons to reach there is not attractive, and they may conflict with each other, and from experience some developers are not cooperative or active, and most importantly having many add-ons would reduce FF performance.

I was intending to open an issue at DBF, and point to this thread because I thought @teddy-gustiaux users would benefit from some of what I proposed.

I guess you should close this, but more add-ons sharing some functionality is not competition, in fact it should be welcomed by @teddy-gustiaux.

The later is just a rant, don't read it:
For me I would dream of a full fledged bookmark manager, There is online paid solutions but nothing local and integrated within Firefox. I came to the conclusion that Zotero is the only option I have even though it is not intended for that use. so I will try to test it, but the idea of having another separate software to manage bookmarks is not attractive.
Also, the interface for BSP2 is designed for searching bookmarks, but not browsing, managing, and organizing them.

As always thank you for your hard work.

[aaFn]

Hello @brain8891, indeed, I prefer to keep BSP2 focused on its subject, as it was meant to replace the old BSP from alice0775.

Now, bookmark management is another domain, and it could be that one day I create another add-on to do that and then it could do also what you ask for here., and which would collaborate internally with BSP2.

However, to be frank, I am not really clear on what a bookmark manager should do. As you seem to have a view on it and on your need, I'd welcome a list of requirements if you have one, to start thinking about it at least.

[brain8891]

Hello @aaFn I agree BSP2 should be strictly a bookmark search utility, I am just desperate :) and if you or even someone else created a bookmark manager, it would be great if it collaborate with BSP2 internally, only, meaning the user should not click a button taking them to BSP2 Sidebar; that is in my opinion bad UX. having said that, I think, most casual users, would just need BSP2 or/and DBF, but for the rest 20% or even maybe 10% AKA the advanced users, or researchers, people working in companies, I think they would prefer an all-in-one solution.

what a bookmark manager do?

A- Bookmarking URLs to a folder and tag and organize them in few quick short convenient steps.
B- advance search engine AKA BSP2+.
C- Easy navigation and browsing of bookmarks, which neither FF nor Chrome have, you need a file explore like navigation interface, with easy drag and drop, quick selection etc. THIS IS FROM MY SCRATCH NOTE where I list features I want for a product which is a bookmark manager, Wow, I have a lot of free time, Anyway.. let me give you something I envision, opening the bookmark manager, going to a folder with many sub-folders and just go on the top right corner and type a keyword and it automatically search within that root folder.

when creating a product we tend to think of our own need first, and forget to have something that works for everyone, and I tired to not be like that with this, so the following list is what an all-in-one URL manager would be, but again! It is just what I jot quickly while I am frustrated because I cant find a a website, service, a utility app, that I used once. it is not a complete list, and it is random, just a scratch note that i tend to go back to and jot ideas:

1- a button to create qr code for urls

2- description/ note field

3- custom folder icon: I am a visual person, I notice icons faster than text, and most are like me, but most users don't have time nor are willing to set time to create custom Icons, so that why, I believe in color and Letters coding, meaning a folder named Artificial intelligence would be signed a custom color with two letters AA inside the folder icon, and the user should have the option to disable this and be able to turn it on for each folder separately. having more of these gradual customization options will help users set the URL manager ton set their need.

4- BSP2 search capability

5- a setting in options to by select by default the last saved to folder instead of Other bookmarks. When you click the star button instead of the "other bookmark" the last saved to folder would be selected by default
I like the "other bookmark" folder idea too, you save to it and then move it to another, but for me I think it is more practical to choose the last folder you saved to. For example: let say you have a folder "employment website" and you are searching for good website in your region to find employment, you would probably save in that folder.
5.1- I think these kind of features should be voted on, to see what is the most popular and faster approach.
5.2 and the user should have the choice to either select other bookmarks approach or the last saved to approach

6- Auto Taging: most website have keywords, an advanced bookmark manager should fetch them and present the user to either remove or keep the, and I believe these tags should be separated from the user entered tags

7- URLs are not clean, and sometimes the query parameters would make the user think that they didn't bookmark that page, hence the idea of different stars meaning

  1- If you bookmarked the domain name`example.com` but not at that path `example.com/something/books?harrypoter=blahblah` , you would see a golden star when you are at `example.com/something/books?harrypoter=blahblah`
  2- if you bookmarked `example.com/something/books?harrypoter=blahblah`  and you are on, it ]would show the Blue star.
  3- If subdomain is saved, it would show a different icon etc., (ps this is scratch note, I had many different types of stars, and didn't really contemplate on how useful they would be, but the first two I think is neat.) 

8- Bookmark webpage content search, I didn't think of the technical aspect, but simply the idea is you would search your bookmark not just by their url/title/search tag/ description content, but the content of that page. THIS I think is something that most casual users need from a BSP2+ utility, imagine you wont have to tag your bookmark or organize them, basically your own google index.

9- Duplicate finder.

10- Similar to what DBF does, including my suggestion above, but even faster and more convenient, way to bookmark.
For example, when you are searching for a job, or doing a project, you don't want to waste time on bookmarking something that might be useful later, hence faster bookmarking, meaning, easy accessible fast bookmark with automatic tagging, and the ability to add your custom keywords without clicking another button etc.

• all of these are not detailed because I am just painting a picture to generally explain a URL manager.

11- Saving the data in an open format, and be able to export in case the bookmark manager software or add-on stop being maintained.

12-whethere a separate application or an add-on with custom database, then it would sync with FF but of course description, icons, etc wont be synced

13- context menu option to go to the parent folder

14- Property window to show full path with folder Icon.

15- Lastly, this is new, I didn't fully research this yet and I assume there is some standards already out there to classify websites and software/applications.. So let me jump to the point, having an automatic smart classification of websites, that is opensource, community driven AKA voted for each new entry.

I bookmark software homepages, companies, services, online app/utilities, search engines, and news sources etc. and one thing I liked about Gmail, is the label feature, kinda like a smart folder where you can have one bookmark in many folders.
For example, if you click the "label" or in another word "search tag" software and photo editing you would see Photoshop.com
And I envision this to be automatic by a set of standards as explained above.

For example there would be language, location, and type of website labels, like type:e-commerce Language:English Location:USA.

Years ago I thought the best way to save bookmarks was using Windows Favorite folder and creating URL shortcuts with search tags and description organized in folders, and there was an add-on on Firefox that could view/edit these "Favorites", and relying on "Favorites" was stupid

first, there is this windows bug, not fixed even on windows 10

Second, never rely on Windows or anything proprietary unless they provide open format (that why I liked the idea of URL shortctuts)... Anyway, no more internet explorer.... AND, Edge uses a different way to manage bookmarks or favorites

lastly, internet changes too quickly to relay on template of folder structure. To elaborate, I was younger, I had a folder for forums' and streaming sites and because I am multilingual, I made 4 root folders for each language and shared the same structure of folders and sub folders: There would be Search engine forums' and streaming sites for example

the problem with organizing in folders, is that some type of website cease to exist, and you might want a different structure for these folders in future, but it would be laborious to change the structure manually, and when data grows the best thing is a good search engine, with good labeling/keywords.

that why I think automatic categorization of websites, and softwares will make big database of bookmark easy to manage and search.

Sorry, I really don't have time to go through what I wrote, usually I revise it several time, I find it easier to verbally and visually explain ideas(this took me more than 3 hours) . My apologies if this was too rough.

Lastly, In future if you or someone coming across this want to verbally discuss it in details and want me to contribute, I would be honored.

Edit: One more thing, if you decided to make such thing, I think you should sit and draw the idea on paper and contemplate on it and focus only on this concept, that why I stopped self thinking about this project because I want to focus only on this, and as someone who gave support, I truly see how users don't know what they want you just have to observe and present the solution to them in a way that is simple and intuitive.

[aaFn]

Great input thank you !

Clearly, if FF would give us access to keywords and tags
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1225916 (also some discussion about them here https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1225916)
that would facilitate things above, since they could be shared between FF and diverse add-ons, and could be used to present as you want in "multiple folders".
On this topic, note that it seems that the native FF Bookmark Library (Ctrl+Shift+B) now presents tags as "folders" or views when they exist on URLs, allowing "multi-folders" presence. And by the way, tags are on URL,s not on bookmarks ... (see https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1636755).

I'll think more about it. That would probably be an add-on requiring BSP2 and extending it, to rely on its main bookmark processing and store/cache, and being client of its API, in the same way Piro has been extending Tree Style Tab https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-tab/

[brain8891]

Just here to thank you, for your amazing effort ♥️ 😊 🥇
And sorry for replying so late:

On this topic, note that it seems that the native FF Bookmark Library (Ctrl+Shift+B) now presents tags as "folders

Not really because you can't nest a tag inside another one, similar to how "labels" work in Gmail. I can have a label inside another label, and assign one email to many labels, it is kinda like a smart folder thing, very cool idea.

So, tags or search tags are different than labels, and I like that Firefox shows tags kinda like folder in a list, but I don't use that that list because it is half baked:

• I have thousands of tags, and I can't search for a tag specifically, I know I can type that tags inside the search bar and find Bookmarks assigned with that tag, but I don't to find the bookmark, rather the tag it self.
  WHY? Because let say I have a tag called "Anome" and 100 of "bookmarks" or better said URL's have that tag assigned to it, right now I can go to the Tags list and find "Anome" and change it to "Anime"
  
  so it would change for all URL's with "anome" tag, but finding that tag in a list of Hundred thousand of tags is not easy.... and this happened to me before, so that why bookmarking is something I stopped using as much.

• as you see in the screenshot, I have "Anime" and "anime" combining them is something I avoid, but wish if it was possible to do automatically. like ".PSD" with "photoshop" file, you sometimes change your tagging system.

I need a bookmarking system, SO BAD

[peter-lyons-kehl]

1. To keep BSP2's scope, may I suggest https://addons.mozilla.org/en-CA/firefox/addon/bookmarks-commander. Using it, in parallel with BSP2, is a life saver.

2. For anyone attempting to use the separate "Bookmark tab here" extension (addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/bookmark-tab-here- not the same as the popup menu "Bookmark Tab Here" from Bookmark Search Plus 2): That other extension doesn't & can't work anymore (whether with BSP2or without), unfortunately. See Firefox "2020H2 bookmarks improvements" project teddy-gustiaux/default-bookmark-folder#399 for an explanation.

[aaFn]

Bookmarks-commander = interesting suggestion, thank you @peter-kehl !

In fact, looking at that extension, I believe Bookmarks-commander is more to be taken as a Bookmark Library replacement.
And so indeed, it is a very good complement to BSP2, : BSP2 intent is not to extend its scope to the library, but to remain on the sidebar side of things, therefore combining the two add-ons should provide a very good complementarity and I hope value !

[peter-lyons-kehl]

Instead of default-bookmark-folder, for now I suggest https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/quick-bookmarking
= https://github.com/teddy-gustiaux/quick-bookmarking (by Teddy, the same author).