Creating Bookends References from Firefox or Safari

[mrob]

Does anybody know of a Firefox add-on and/or Safari extension that I can use to create a reference for a web page in Bookends?

I.e., something that can actually send the reference to Bookends, rather than requiring that I save a file (RIS, etc.), then move to Bookends, import a reference, etc.

It would also be cool if I could select some text on a web page, and that got added to the reference as a note.

Thanks,

mrob

[Jon]

You know about the Bookends bookmarklet, right?

http://www.sonnysoftware.com/bookmarkle ... rklet.html

Depending on the contents of the web page, you may be able to import the reference. But you can always import the web page as a .webarchive with a click on the pdf proxy icon (here a web page proxy icon) or a drag and drop.

Jon
Sonny Software

[mrob]

Hi Jon,

Yes, I tried that. I see that the bookmarklet recognizes metadata in the web page (e.g., like if I'm browsing WorldCat) — which is cool —, but what if I'm just browsing a random web page and I want to create a reference to that?

It looks like I have to Ctrl-click on the attachment proxy icon and select Attach Web Page to New Internet Reference inside Bookends. There are a few problems with this.

First, using the bookmarklet, I have to wait for the page to re-load inside the Bookends browser, which is often painfully slow as it doesn't include the ad blockers that I use in my web browsers. Also, it seems(?) like the progress bar restarts for each iframe on the web page. A page that loads in less than a second in Safari takes 25 seconds in the Bookends browser. I get the spinning beachball icon, etc.

Then, once the Internet Reference is created, I don't see a title in the list view of references. If I switch the Groups view between Hits and All, the title does appear, so maybe(?) there is some kind of update problem in Bookends after the new reference is created.

Finally, I don't see any simple way to capture a quotation from the web page I was browsing and add it to the reference as a note.

Maybe I'm not understanding the workflow, but for this use case the UX seems pretty awkward.

In any case, I don't expect Bookends to provide the same experience as a web browser. Ideally, I wouldn't even have to use the browser inside Bookends.

What I am imagining is a browser extension or some way of going through another service (maybe something like Evernote), where I can select some text on a web page, as I am browsing with Firefox/Safari, and then hit a shortcut key or pick a popup menu item and Bookends is instructed to create a reference and add the selected text as a note.

Question: I see that the bookmarklet invokes Bookends via the "bookends:" scheme, plus the "beurl" query parameter. Does bookends recognize any other query parameters? I.e., if somebody wrote an extension to do what I'm describing, could it feed some more information to Bookends via other query parameters?

Thanks,

mrob

[Jon]

Then, once the Internet Reference is created, I don't see a title in the list view of references. If I switch the Groups view between Hits and All, the title does appear, so maybe(?) there is some kind of update problem in Bookends after the new reference is created.

I suspect you're adding directly to a group. Yes, it's not refreshing immediately. I'll fix that.

Finally, I don't see any simple way to capture a quotation from the web page I was browsing and add it to the reference as a note.

Select the text you want and drop and drop it onto the note stream in Bookends. It's added immediately as a notecard that you can edit (or press Enter to accept as is).

Question: I see that the bookmarklet invokes Bookends via the "bookends:" scheme, plus the "beurl" query parameter. Does bookends recognize any other query parameters? I.e., if somebody wrote an extension to do what I'm describing, could it feed some more information to Bookends via other query parameters?

I suppose that's possible. But I would suggest that if anyone were to write extensions that they look into using JavaScript to send the AppleEvents that Bookends already supports.

Jon
Sonny Software

[mrob]

Interesting. I didn't know it was possible to invoke AppleEvents from JavaScript. Looks like a new-ish feature.

Thanks for the tip!

Edit: for anybody else reading this thread, I gather what Jon suggests has been detailed here:

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4017