b. is a Web-based manager for Web bookmarks. Bookmarks are stored in an XML file. Operations on the data are done with Perl scripts.
A new and powerful feature is the ability to share bookmarks. These shared bookmarks may be publicly viewed by all, while a certain set of users have the ability to add or change them. These users can also add comments to the shared bookmarks, as in a bulletin-board. The display of the shared bookmarks is highly configurable: one can show extra information associated with a bookmark, such as its popularity, when it was last visited, when it was added, etc. With these new features, b. becomes a collaborative space for sharing discoveries of the Web.
Old-style b. functionality is not lost however: one can still maintain a set of private bookmarks just as before. What's new is the option to exchange bookmarks between the private and shared sets.
The main advantage for storing your bookmarks on the Web is to have them accessible from any Web browser. b. produces XHTML 1.0 code, doesn't use any Javascript, and is best viewed with a CSS1-compliant browser such as Netscape 6+ / Mozilla, Internet Explorer 5+, and Opera 5+.
XML has quickly become an acknowledged standard for the management of data transmitted over the Internet. Its foundation as a markup language like HTML gives it a wide base of users, and its precept of separating data from its display provides XML versatility for the many possible uses of the data.
I'm using a DTD for collaborative bookmarks called XBEL-collab. It's a slight modification of the XBEL DTD for bookmarks, to allow for features like comments and hit counts. The original XBEL DTD was created by python.org.
In a themes/ subdirectory, one can determine the look of
b. with CSS stylesheets, custom graphics, and HTML templates.
There are more customization options with this new release.
b. supports multi-user environments. Using basic Web
server user authentication (i.e. by password-protecting the b./
directory), only certain users can have access to b.. Each
user has his/her own bookmarks and optionally can have his/her own theme,
welcome message, etc.
This is a limitation of basic HTTP user authentication: once you have access to a directory, you always have access until your browser session has ended.
Problems can result if one attempts to modify bookmarks from two different machines at the same time. (Viewing and accessing the data from more than one machine is fine.) Although a backup of the XML file is written every time it is modified, something more secure could be implemented.
View an example of shared bookmarks >>. This would be the publicly accessible view open to all.
Also view a version of the same bookmarks from a contributer's perspective >>. This is the same set of bookmarks, but with additional buttons for adding / editing the bookmarks (crippled for this demo). For fun, I've specified a different theme for this view. It is recommended that these pages be viewed with a CSS1-compliant browser like Netscape 6+ / Mozilla, Internet Explorer 5+, or Opera 5+.
Finally, here is a view of an example set of personal bookmarks >>.
Must be able to run Perl scripts on your Web server. For multi-user environments, must be
able to password-protect the b./ directory.
Note: If you have a pre-existing installation of b., save a copy of it so that you don't lose your bookmarks or themes! I would move all existing directories and begin with a fresh installation. After everything's working, you may copy your old b.xml bookmarks and themes back.
new |
upgrade |
password-protect |
customize |
collab |
tips
Beginning with version 1.4.0, CGI scripts have been separated from themes and templates, so hopefully installation will be easier for most users.
Unzipping creates two folders cgi-bin/ and
b.themes/. Copy the contents of cgi-bin/ to your web
server's cgi-bin/ directory, and the b.themes/
directory to where your HTML documents reside, usually
public_html/. For example, a typical directory structure on your
web server would look like
public_html/cgi-bin/b./
public_html/cgi-bin/b.shr/
public_html/b.themes/
. If the Web host is Unix, make sure all of the *.cgi files are executable.
chmod 755 cgi-bin/b./*.cgi
chmod 755 cgi-bin/b.shr/*.cgi
The following files and directories must be writable by the Web server.
cgi-bin/b./b.xml
cgi-bin/b./users/
cgi-bin/b.shr/b.shr.xml
To test that your initial setup is working, go to
http://YOUR.DOMAIN.HERE/cgi-bin/b./index.cgi
Your URL may look slightly different from this one, but you get the idea. You
should see a welcome message and some buttons at the top. Click on
see. If you get an error, then check to make sure you've made
cgi-bin/b./b.xml readable by the web server. If you don't get an
error, then you're at a good place. Next, you'll probably want to
password-protect the cgi-bin/b./ directory. This will allow for
multiple users as well as collaborative bookmarks. To set up
password-protection, see notes
>>.
Once you've done this, b. will create a new starter bookmark
file in the cgi-bin/b./users/ subdirectory, obsoleting the
b.xml bookmark file in the root b./ directory. If
you want to preserve any changes you've made to this file, follow these steps:
1) close your browser; 2) download the bookmark file you wish to save, usually
b./b.xml; 3) upload this file into the
b./users/<user_name>/ directory, overwriting the starter
bookmark file.
To view the publicly accessible collection of bookmarks, go to
http://<some_domain>/b.shr/index.cgi. Note there are no
buttons to add or modify the bookmarks. Also note that the look of
b.shr can be quite different from b.!
It is recommended that you first save a copy of your old installation of
b., especially the b.xml bookmark files, the
b.conf> configuration files, as well as any custom themes. If
you are upgrading from a version prior to 1.1 (eg from 1.0 -> 1.1), don't
bother retaining any b.conf
files, as the format for those files has changed. After archiving, clear out
or delete the b./ folder on the web server to begin fresh. Follow
the New installation instructions above
/\. Once things seem to be working properly,
you may upload your saved b.xml files. If there's a problem,
check that the b.xml files are still writable by the web server.
For user authentication, b. uses the basic HTTP/1.0 security mechanisms standard with most Web servers. So you must set up your Web server to do this in order to take advantage of the multi-user features. I'm not going into how this is done since this differs among Web servers. If you're the admin of your Web server, then you may already know how to do this. If you are setting up b. on a remote server, then your host provider will probably have some Web-based configuration tool which allows you to specify certain directories as accessible to certain users. You'll need to provide a user name and password for each b. user.
Many customization options have been localized in various b.conf
files. The b.conf file in the main b./ directory
provides default options for the private bookmarks. View that file to see what
options are available. Users may override these default options with a
b.conf in his/her own user directory. The
b.conf file in the b.shr/ directory allows many of
the same options as the b./b.conf file, except that they apply to
the b.shr bookmarks.
New themes may be added by adding subdirectories under the themes/
directory. Use the existing themes as examples. You may specify alternate
bookmark and folder icons, as well as custom HTML templates.
The files b.template.xml and b.template.conf in the
b./ directory are the starter files created for new users if they
don't already have those files. You may modify these templates to customize
starter environments for new users.
By default, the collaborative bookmarks feature is off. To turn it on, set
shr_on=1
in your cgi-bin/b./b.conf directory. Now you will have a few more
menu buttons available, all prefixed with shr:. Use
shr:add to move a personal item to the shared file. Click on
shr:see to see your (and other's) changes. From the shared
bookmarks view, you may modify and delete your own contributions, add comments
to any item, and copy any item to your personal file.
Situation: You want to skip the welcome message and go straight to your personal bookmarks.
Link to cgi-bin/b./b.see.cgi instead of
cgi-bin/b./index.cgi.
Situation: You'd like an easier way to add a page to your b. bookmarks.
See the main b. page under User Contributions >>.
Situation: You want to convert b. bookmarks into other formats, or vice versa.
See the main b. page under User Contributions >>.
Situation: You have set up password protection but your private
b.xml is not being written to, although your private directory
inside users/ has correctly been created.
Possibly your Web server is not authenticating POST requests. If you're
running on an Apache server, then check to see that there is not a directive
<limit GET> for your b./ directory. If there
is, change it to <limit GET POST>. Thanks to Wilson Li for
figuring this one out.
Situation: You wish to customize the HTML above and below the bookmarks.
For your theme, create or modify HTML templates in its theme folder. For
example, in the folder b.themes/<theme_name>/, the HTML
template files would be
b.contrib.footer.html
b.contrib.header.html
b.export.footer.html
b.export.header.html
b.mod.footer.html
b.mod.header.html
b.msg.footer.html
b.see.footer.html
b.see.header.html
b.shr.footer.html
b.shr.header.html
b.srch2.footer.html
b.srch2.header.html
b.srch.footer.html
b.srch.header.html
b.usrnfo.footer.html
b.usrnfo.header.html
See the b.themes/blum/ for examples.
Situation: You want to insert the shared bookmarks as a server-side include (SSI).
In the file b.shr/b.conf, look for the two variables
ssi_caller and scripts_path. Set
ssi_caller to the .shtml file which includes
cgi-bin/b.shr/index.cgi as a server-side include. For example,
ssi_caller=/index.shtml
. Then set scripts_path to the web path of the
cgi-bin/b.shr/ directory, such as
scripts_path=/cgi-bin/b.shr/
. The final thing to do is to eliminate the automatic header and footer HTML
which surround the bookmarks. The way to do this is to create empty files named
b.shr.header.html and b.shr.footer.html within the
theme folder you are using. (You may not want them completely empty; if you
wish to include a link to the theme's style sheet, include the line
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="___css_path___"/>
within your b.shr.header.html. Leave ___css_path___
untranslated; the correct substitution will be made.)
Situation: You want to add a charset type to the HTTP
return headers.
Look for the append_to_content_type variable in the conf files.
#' signs and
'%3A' entities. Thanks to f_x for bringing this to my
attention.b.conf.b.mod.cgi to
auto-fill href and title. Useful in conjunction with her bookmarking
JavaScript (see User Contributions > Integration into your
browser on the main b. page
>>) for more on this.
mailto:'
to beginning of URI if an '@' sign is detected. (This
feature may be turned off in the b.conf files.).cgi extension. Allow default view mode for personal
bookmarks. Version 1.3.3 upgraded to stable.http://), then a default protocol of
http:// is prepended automatically. Finally, added a
'Tips and techniques' section /\ to the README.
Thanks for Tomki for pointing out some of these bugs.semaphore-ssi as its presence was purely pedagogical and
furthermore unnecessary since HTML templates are supported. Credit goes
to E. Lev for some of the ideas for this release.b.css style sheets have new rules to
cope with the new add-ons. Finally, added ability to open / close
folders by clicking on the folder name. Thanks to Will Norris for these
ideas and some code.b.link.pl and b.usrnfo2.pl.
These have been cleaned.b.shr/themes/blum/b.css again; there was a problem
with this style sheet in Mozilla / Netscape 6. This is the only file
changed from version 1.1.1. Incidentally, this fix also makes this theme
correctly render for IE5 on Windows.b.display.pl for correctly popping links into new
windows.&,
", <, > in their
titles/descriptions. Other special characters may be inserted by inserting the
appropriate HTML codes (e.g. © for
©).The initial parsing of the XML data was aided by the regular expressions in REX >>, written by Robert D. Cameron. The XML spec for bookmarks, XBEL >>, was created by python.org.
Check for the latest at http://www.n-gon.com/freshmeat/b./. You can also e-mail me at victor@n-gon.com regarding comments, suggestions, bugs, and some assistance.