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- TidBITS#326/29-Apr-96
- =====================
-
- If you're planning to buy a Mac just to prepare for Copland, you
- might want to think twice: word on the street is that Copland
- has once again been delayed. Also this week, everything you
- could want to know about table tools for HTML, info on ShrinkWrap
- 2.0, news on a flurry of Web browser releases (including Netscape
- 3.0 and Microsoft Internet Explorer), and the conclusion of
- Adam's overview of Internet bookmark management utilities.
-
- This issue of TidBITS sponsored in part by:
- * APS Technologies -- 800/443-4199 -- <sales@apstech.com>
- Makers of hard drives, tape drives, and neat SCSI accessories.
- For APS price lists, email: <aps-prices@tidbits.com>
- * Northwest Nexus -- 206/455-3505 -- <http://www.halcyon.com/>
- Providing access to the global Internet. <info@halcyon.com>
- * Power Computing -- 800/375-7693 -- <info@powercc.com>
- Now shipping... The Award-Winning First MacOS Compatible!
- Press comments! <http://www.powercc.com/News/quotes.html>
- * America Online -- 800/827-6364 -- <http://www.aol.com/>
- The world's largest provider of online services.
- Give Back to the Net -- <http://www.aol.com/give/>
- * EarthLink Network -- 800/395-8425 -- <sales@earthlink.net>
- Providers of direct Internet access for Macintosh users.
- For eWorld refugees: no setup fee! <http://www.earthlink.net/>
- * DealBITS: Macintosh and Internet deals galore.
- <http://www.tidbits.com/dealbits/> -- <dealbits@tidbits.com>
-
- Copyright 1990-1996 Adam & Tonya Engst. Details at end of issue.
- Information: <info@tidbits.com> Comments: <editors@tidbits.com>
- ---------------------------------------------------------------
-
- Topics:
- MailBITS/29-Apr-96
- Taming Your Tables
- Excel, HTML Tables, and You
- Browsers on the Brain
- More Bookmarks than Books, Part III
-
- <ftp://ftp.tidbits.com/pub/tidbits/issues/1996/TidBITS#326_29-Apr-96.etx>
-
-
- MailBITS/29-Apr-96
- ------------------
-
- **Portuguese and French Translators Needed** -- After the success
- of our call for help translating TidBITS into Dutch, we'd like to
- see if anyone wishes to help translate TidBITS into Portuguese. We
- have a few volunteers, but not enough to start the translations.
- If you're interested in translating some of TidBITS into
- Portuguese each week, let me know. Also, the French team could use
- more volunteers, so if you're interested in helping with the
- French translation, drop me and Seth Theriault
- <sltheria@artsci.wustl.edu> a note. The more people who help, the
- less work it is. [ACE]
-
-
- **Holding Your Breath?** Apple is expected to announce this week
- that Copland (the codename for the next major version of the Mac
- OS) will not ship until mid-1997, some six months after the
- previous estimate. Apple also will not release Copland Developer
- Release 1 (DR1) to developers at the World Wide Developer's
- Conference (WWDC) next month. Although Copland DR0 has been
- available to selected developers since January, DR1 is to be a
- significantly wider release with a near-finalized API for managing
- backward compatibility with existing applications, a crucial
- component. Though this delay is not expected to impact third-party
- development significantly (it's too soon for products to be tied
- tightly to Copland), this is disappointing news. In the words of
- one Mac programmer, "Copland had better be cooler than hydrogen
- ice cubes if Apple expects me to wait any longer." For those
- keeping track, Apple originally announced plans in early 1994 to
- ship Copland at the end of 1995. [GD]
-
-
- **ShrinkWrap 2.0** -- Chad Magendanz has released a major upgrade
- to his popular disk image utility ShrinkWrap. ShrinkWrap 2.0
- supports large volumes (such as CD-ROMs, hard disks, and removable
- media), self-mounting disk images, and new image formats
- (including DiskDup+, Apple Drive Containers, and PC disk image
- files). Version 2.0 also offers improved scripting, a log, and
- native performance for both 68K and Power Mac users. ShrinkWrap
- should appear on Info-Mac and UMich sites shortly; for now it's at
- the URLs below. ShrinkWrap remains free for non-commercial
- individual use; commercial users can register through Kagi
- Shareware. [GD]
-
- <http://www.halcyon.com/shrinkwrap/>
- <ftp://ftp.halcyon.com/local/chad/release/shrinkwrap-2.0.hqx>
-
-
- Taming Your Tables
- ------------------
- by Tonya Engst <tonya@tidbits.com>
-
- If you've ever played around with HTML, you know that typing HTML
- is a picky, but usually straightforward process. HTML tables can
- be far more complex than normal HTML. You start a table with a
- <TABLE> tag and - as you might guess - you end a table with a
- </TABLE> tag. But, when it comes to specifying where rows and
- cells start, text alignment, how many columns or rows a given cell
- spans, and so on, setting up tables turns complicated. Try
- converting a ten-page spreadsheet with oodles of formatting into
- an HTML table, and you'll turn into a whimpering mass of
- protoplasm, begging for a magic wand to simplify the process.
-
- Although a number of full-blown Web authoring programs help you
- create tables, few convert existing tables into HTML (the main
- exception is the $5 shareware BBEdit HTML Tables, a BBEdit
- extension).
-
- <ftp://mirrors.aol.com/pub/info-mac/text/bbe/bbedit-html-tables-101.hqx>
-
- Fortunately, help is at hand through a number of non-commercial
- programs that convert tab-delimited text files into HTML tables.
- (For those of you who tuned in recently to the world of computers,
- you can save most any spreadsheet, database, or word processor
- table in tab-delimited format. As always, test this on your data
- before depending on it!) This article won't cover everything
- available, so I apologize in advance if I missed your personal
- favorite. Instead, I'm going to mention a few tools I consider to
- be the most valuable. All of these tools are available in the HTML
- directory at any Info-Mac mirror.
-
- <ftp://mirrors.aol.com/pub/info-mac/text/html/>
-
-
- **TableMaker** -- If you don't mind a small learning curve and
- crave sophistication and flexibility, I recommend Sam Choukri's $5
- shareware TableMaker 1.0.1, which converts a tab- or comma-
- delimited text file into an HTML document containing the file in
- table format. TableMaker's documentation clearly explains how to
- tweak the application via a text-based settings file, where it
- enables you to set a caption, custom alignment, cellspacing and
- cellpadding, border thickness, and so on. If you insert special
- codes into the text file, you can create cells that span more than
- one row or column, using the HTML attributes rowspan and colspan.
-
- If I could change one thing about TableMaker, I'd change the way
- it makes me navigate an Open dialog to open my TableMaker Settings
- file each time I do a conversion, especially since the dialog
- contains no directions and I occasionally become confused and
- re-open the text file instead.
-
- Interestingly, the TableMaker Web site has an interactive version
- of TableMaker for use over the Web.
-
- <http://www.missouri.edu/~c588349/tablemaker.html>
-
-
- **HTML TableTool** -- For ease of use and converting upper-ASCII
- characters (but not reserved characters) to entities, try HTML
- TableTool 1.1.2, a freeware utility by Bertil Holmberg that
- requires HyperCard or HyperCard Player. Unlike most table-making
- utilities, TableTool presents users with a console-like interface
- for setting up some aspects of how you want to create a table. You
- then use the Open button to open a tab-delimited text file, and
- HTML TableTool responds by putting its HTML output in an editable
- field within HyperCard. You can tweak the output (if you like) and
- copy the text into another application; you can also save the code
- as a text file. Unlike TableMaker, which exports complete HTML
- documents, HTML TableTool outputs only the HTML needed to create
- the table. HTML Table Tool's upper-ASCII conversion can be turned
- off for long files.
-
-
- **Text->Table** -- Nathan Cook's Text->Table 1.1 is a freeware
- utility that pops up a dialog box in response to you using it to
- open a tab-delimited text file. The dialog box offers a few
- options: you can enter a caption, specify whether the resulting
- file should have just the table tags or also have the necessary
- tags to create an HTML document. You can also set a few options,
- like whether it will have a border and whether the first row
- should have header-style cells or data-style cells.
-
-
- **TableCloth** -- TableCloth 1.5.2, an AppleScript emailware
- applet by Ben Elroy, converts tab-delimited text to tables. To use
- it, you drop a text file on the applet's icon and then work your
- way through a few dialog boxes that let you set some aspects of
- your soon-to-be exported table. You can set any attributes you
- like within the <TABLE> tag (such as border thickness and cell
- padding) as well as any attributes inside all row tags and all
- data cell tags. TableCloth outputs tables as complete HTML
- documents.
-
- <http://pinky.istore.com/tc/index.html>
-
-
- **Speed** -- For the smallish tables typically found on the Web,
- all four utilities create the necessary HTML within just a second
- or two. If you need to generate big tables, you might be concerned
- about speed, so I tested all four utilities with a 13,500
- character, tab-delimited text file. The ten by fifty cell table
- had a few empty cells, some cells slightly populated, and a few
- cells filled with large paragraphs of text.
-
- TableMaker flew through the sample file in about two seconds. HTML
- TableTool took about five seconds with high-ASCII conversion off,
- and a bit over a minute with conversion on. Text->Table took about
- 30 seconds, and I kept my fingers crossed the entire time because
- the application gave no indication it was working and displayed a
- white area on my monitor where its dialog box had been. TableCloth
- was the slowest of the lot. The first time I tried TableCloth, it
- churned away for about three minutes and then complained about
- being out of memory. I quit TableCloth, increased its preferred
- size from 200K to 1000K, and tried again. On my second try,
- TableCloth still took three minutes, but completed the job with no
- problem.
-
-
- **What to Use** -- Each application works differently and has its
- own set of pluses and minuses. Generally speaking, for the best
- marriage of ease of use with flexibility and friendliness, go with
- HTML TableTool. It's also the only program converts high-ASCII
- characters to entities.
-
- Text->Table is perhaps the simplest utility of them all, so if it
- provides the features you need, you might find it a good choice.
- Text->Table is also perhaps the fastest to interface with for
- small tables - it puts up one dialog box that offers a few basic
- options and then it gets out of your way and does its thing.
- TableCloth is easy to use, it does give you a little more
- flexibility in a few instances, and - because it's an AppleScript
- - script-savvy HTML authors may be able to incorporate it into a
- larger sequence of events. TableMaker is perhaps the most
- sophisticated and was by far the fastest on my speed test, but it
- requires you to edit a text file.
-
- Also, if you own Excel, you may find it more efficient to import
- your text file into Excel. You can do visual formatting within
- Excel and then use Excel to create an HTML table, as explained in
- the next article, "Excel, HTML Tables, and You."
-
-
- Excel, HTML Tables, and You
- ---------------------------
- by Geoffrey V. Bronner <geoffrey.bronner@dartmouth.edu>
-
- One of the basic tools most HTML authors look for is a simple
- table editor to spare them the annoying task of constructing HTML
- tables by hand. Since I generally handle the data I use for HTML
- tables in Excel spreadsheets, I find an Excel add-in to be a great
- solution, and this article looks at two commonly available tools
- that work with any version of Microsoft Excel 5.0 (or Excel 7.0
- for Windows 95). The first is the shareware eXcel Table Markup
- Language (XTML) 1.3 by Ken Sayward; the second is Internet
- Assistant for Microsoft Excel, a free add-in wizard from
- Microsoft.
-
- <http://users.aol.com/ksayward/XTML/>
- <http://www.microsoft.com/msexcel/internet/ia/>
-
- Neither of these add-ins does everything, but both work with a
- minimum of fuss. You get what you pay for: Microsoft's free
- solution provides some interesting options, but the $7 shareware
- fee for XTML provides a fast-evolving product that's more
- compatible with non-Microsoft Web browsers. I looked at an older
- version of XTML some time ago and discarded it, but now that I
- have taken a second look I'll be registering my copy.
-
- Both add-ins work the same way: you select a range of cells and
- then use the Tools menu to access the add-in. The add-in then uses
- the range to create an HTML table. I won't go into a blow-by-blow
- comparison of every feature, but here's an overview of some key
- differences:
-
- * Internet Assistant can write the results to a new file or
- combine the results with an existing HTML file by using a special
- HTML tag. XTML only creates a new file.
-
- * XTML has a Preferences submenu that the user can invoke in
- advance to set up some basic preferences. Internet Assistant, like
- typical Excel wizards, requires you to verify the preferences
- within a series of dialog boxes each time it's used. XTML's
- preferences dialog box lets you enable and disable features as you
- like; with Internet Assistant, it's basically all or nothing.
-
- * Because you can define basic preferences, XTML is faster to use
- and more suited to exporting multiple tables quickly.
-
- * Internet Assistant adds typeface and font color tags to your
- output, but they (currently) only work with Microsoft Internet
- Explorer.
-
- * Both add-ins try to preserve basic formatting like horizontal
- alignment, boldface and italicized text, but XTML's preferences
- enable you to choose which HTML tags are used in each case (or if
- they are used at all). Internet Assistant decides for you and uses
- only the most basic <B> and <I> tags. XTML also offers additional
- features such as settings for table and column width, and border
- thickness.
-
- * Both add-ins let you define titles and headings for exported
- documents; Internet Assistant can also insert the author's name
- and email address at the bottom of exported HTML documents.
-
- I started this article as a review of Internet Assistant for
- Microsoft Excel and only later looked at the most recent release
- of XTML. Microsoft released Internet Assistant with almost no
- fanfare; I found out about it when I saw a brief mention of it in
- MacWEEK. It looked like (and is) a good way to generate HTML
- tables without buying an expensive special purpose application.
-
- What I wanted was a simple way to keep table data in Excel, create
- HTML from that on demand, and then copy and paste it into existing
- HTML files in BBEdit. This means I don't care if I can define
- custom titles, headers and footers. Internet Assistant can combine
- the exported table with an existing HTML file by using a special
- HTML tag, which seems like a great feature, but I found it of no
- particular value in my work.
-
- In my opinion, XTML does the job best because it exports cleaner
- HTML. Not only does it avoid proprietary HTML tags, but the
- preferences let me make the exported HTML look like the stuff I
- write myself. I spend little or no time altering its exported
- HTML.
-
- If you use Excel and need to generate HTML tables once in a while,
- get Internet Assistant for free from Microsoft's Web site and
- you'll be all set. But if you need a tool you can use regularly,
- the $7 for XTML is money well spent. The products happily coexist,
- so don't hesitate to make your own comparison.
-
-
- Browsers on the Brain
- ---------------------
- by Geoff Duncan <geoff@tidbits.com>
-
- Just when you thought it was safe to go back on the Web, there's a
- flare-up in the mind-share wars between Web browsers. Here's a
- quick run-down of some recent forays.
-
-
- **NCSA Mosaic 3.0b1** -- Remember Mosaic, the program that started
- the avalanche of enthusiasm for the Web? NCSA has released a beta
- of Mosaic 3.0 for Macintosh, featuring support for Internet
- Config, Open Transport, and a variety of HTML 3.0 tags. This
- release supports text-to-speech via MacinTalk, an interface for
- handing other protocols (like FTP) to different applications (like
- Anarchie), balloon help, the ability to customize the display
- characteristics of HTML elements (so headings can be in purple
- Helvetica, and body text in green Geneva, if you like), and
- support for Netscape frames. Although this release isn't
- particularly stable and is still slower than most other browsers
- over a dial-up connection, it's a good step forward. The download
- is about 2 MB.
-
- <ftp://ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Mosaic/Mac/NCSAMosaic30b1.hqx>
-
-
- **NetManage WebSurfer** -- NetManage, the company that produces
- the Chameleon Internet package for Windows, has unveiled the
- Macintosh version of its Web browser WebSurfer. WebSurfer 3.0 is a
- bare-bones browser with some performance and interface quirks that
- wants 4 MB of RAM. Though it doesn't support all the features of
- its Windows cousin, it does support a variety of HTML 3.0 tags and
- Internet Config. This version of WebSurfer can be freely
- downloaded; the archive is a little over 1 MB.
-
- <http://www.netmanage.com/netmanage/products/macapps.html>
-
-
- **Netscape Atlas & Atlas Gold PR2** -- Last week, Netscape
- released its second preview release (PR2) of Netscape Navigator
- 3.0 and Netscape Navigator Gold 3.0. Codenamed Atlas, these
- releases are intended to show technology Netscape plans to
- incorporate in future versions, although many of those features
- are still unavailable for the Mac. Atlas PR2 supports Internet
- Config, is Open Transport native, supports Java on Power Macs, and
- is supposed to have better features for managing helper
- applications and plug-ins, though that preferences panel refuses
- to open on my Mac.
-
- <http://home.netscape.com/eng/mozilla/3.0/relnotes/mac-3.0b3.html>
- <ftp://ftp.netscape.com/pub/navigator/atlas/pr2/mac/>
-
- The Atlas PR2 download is about 3 MB, and separate versions are
- available for 68K and PowerPC-based Macs. The application has a
- _minimum_ RAM allocation of 8 MB, with a suggested allocation of
- 10 MB. Netscape says that was a mistake, and the minimum should be
- 7 MB, with a suggested partition of 9 MB, and will update the
- installer to reflect those changes; somehow, I don't feel
- relieved. Response to Atlas PR2 has been mixed, and I cannot
- report it was stable (or even usable) in my tests. The release
- expires 31-Jul-96.
-
- Netscape has also released PR2 of Atlas Gold for Power Mac only.
- Atlas Gold reportedly adds table editing and other HTML authoring
- tools, but I can't say more, not having a Power Mac.
-
- <ftp://ftp.netscape.com/pub/navigator/gold/atlas/pr2/mac/
- Atlas-Gold-PR2-Installer.hqx>
-
-
- **Microsoft Internet Explorer 2.0** -- Last week, Microsoft
- released the final version of Internet Explorer 2.0 for the
- Macintosh. Though Internet Explorer supports neither Netscape
- frames nor JavaScript, it does offer support for Netscape plug-
- ins, HTML 3.0 (plus a variety of Netscape and Microsoft-specific
- extensions), drag & drop, inline media (including VRML on Power
- Macs), Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) security, and includes a basic
- newsreading capability. The release version of Internet Explorer
- ships with a set of HTML help files and Eudora Light. Internet
- Explorer requires 4 MB of RAM (though it's still caching pages
- elsewhere in memory - see TidBITS-311_); the download ranges from
- 1.5 to 2 MB in size.
-
- <http://www.microsoft.com/ie/platform/macdl.htm>
-
- If you're among the many Mac users of Internet Explorer who aren't
- amused by its "Homage to Windows 95" animation, check out Matthew
- McRae's irreverent Internet Explorer Sanitizer. [GD]
-
- <http://homepage.seas.upenn.edu/~mcrae/macevan/nowin.html>
-
-
- More Bookmarks than Books, Part III
- -----------------------------------
- by Adam C. Engst <ace@tidbits.com>
-
- When we publish articles that attempt to review a comprehensive
- collection of a certain type of product, we sometimes miss a few
- products for one reason or another. Here then, are the products
- that didn't make it into the previous two parts of this article,
- which began in TidBITS-323_.
-
-
- **Clay Basket** -- Dave Winer's Clay Basket, now at 1.0b8, was one
- of the first bookmark managers, but in its second major
- incarnation added Web site management features that drove its
- bookmark management features into the background. Dave tells us
- Clay Basket's third incarnation will reverse direction.
-
- Clay Basket only works with Netscape Navigator and is essentially
- an outliner, like Frontier's, that displays bookmarks
- hierarchically. Although you can drag links from Netscape into
- Clay Basket's outline window, that merely creates a new outline
- item with the URL as the name; it doesn't make the item hot (you
- must manually copy the URL into the item's Location window to make
- it hot). You can launch the URLs associated with normal hot items
- by double-clicking their outline triangles. However, if you make
- an item with a URL into a topic heading, you can only launch its
- URL by opening its Location window and clicking the Send to
- Netscape button. Clay Basket can import and edit a Netscape
- bookmarks file, and it offers a Netscape recording mode. Clay
- Basket supports non-Web URLs, but only through Netscape. Clay
- Basket is not so much of a bookmark manager but an alternate
- editor for Netscape's bookmarks file (making it unnecessary with
- Netscape 2.0.x).
-
- <http://www.hotwired.com/staff/userland/yabbadabba/>
-
-
- **In Control 4.0** -- Attain's $85 In Control information manager
- (with a free limited demo) recently added support for URLs. Like
- WebArranger, In Control enables you to snag URLs at any time
- (thanks to an extension) and you can drag & drop URLs into In
- Control. Also like WebArranger, you can organize bookmarks any way
- you like (thanks to In Control's database capabilities). In
- Control uses Internet Config, can import bookmarks, and can
- extract URLs from HTML files. Most interestingly, In Control can
- identify URLs even in other text that you grab, giving you the
- context of the surrounding text and the capability to launch the
- related URL. Tim Stein <tstein@ultranet.com>, who told me about In
- Control's new capabilities, feels that In Control is faster and
- easier to use than WebArranger.
-
- <http://www.attain.com/ic40mac.htm>
-
-
- **InfoDepot 2.5** -- Chena Software's $189 information management
- program, InfoDepot, now supports URLs in version 2.5, which is a
- free upgrade for registered users of 2.4. You can drag URLs into
- InfoDepot from Web browsers that support drag & drop, and once you
- have the URLs in InfoDepot, you organize them with InfoDepot's
- outlining capabilities. Launching URLs is done via a script, or
- you can use ICeTEe to Command-click the URLs to launch them via
- your preferred helper application. InfoDepot supports three URL
- schemes (http, ftp, and gopher) but doesn't use Internet Config;
- instead it routes all URLs through Netscape Navigator. Although it
- lacks the URL features, Chena offers a free outliner based on
- InfoDepot 2.4.
-
- <http://www.chena.com/chever25.htm>
-
-
- **SurfBoard 1.0b1** -- Abbott Systems' $39 SurfBoard is perhaps
- the most attractive of the bookmark managers I've seen, featuring
- an interface reminiscent of a futuristic TV remote control. A tall
- vertical green button opens the display screen to show your
- current list of URLs (you can have more than one list). The main
- list is likely to be long and hard to navigate (although you can
- sort by name or last access time), so nine "fast dial" buttons in
- the main screen provide quick access to URLs in categories you
- set. A blue triangle button at the top of the window lists the
- last 15 URLs you've visited, and a blue "plus" button grabs the
- current URL from your Web browser (either Netscape Navigator or
- Internet Explorer). You can drag links into SurfBoard from
- Netscape, and SurfBoard can import bookmark lists from both
- browsers. I haven't used SurfBoard for long, but it looks like a
- great effort. I'd worry about it bogging down with too many URLs,
- but its features for making recently accessed URLs available will
- help a great deal.
-
- <http://www.abbottsys.com/surf.html>
-
-
- **URLs R Us** -- There are a ton of HyperCard stacks that track
- URLs, and most of these stacks, useful as they may be for their
- creators, generally aren't good general purpose solutions.
- However, Jon Pugh's URLs R Us stack goes beyond most other
- HyperCard URL managers because it uses AppleScript to grab URLs
- from Netscape Navigator or the clipboard, can launch them easily,
- and has various sorting and finding features. Even more unusual
- are its features to check Web pages, updating a "Date visited"
- field and "Title" field. Jon's stack has a variety of other
- features as well, so be sure to turn on balloon help when
- exploring its interface. If you use HyperCard all the time anyway,
- Jon's stack is worth a look.
-
- <http://iw.cts.com/~jonpugh/hyperstuff.html>
-
-
- **WebPinMaker 1.2.4** -- Hisashi Hoda's free WebPinMaker is an
- interesting program. At first blush it's just a way of snagging
- URLs, and then only from Netscape Navigator. WebPinMaker creates a
- small windoid that is always available, floating over all other
- applications. Clicking the push pin icon in that windoid snags the
- current URLs in one of three formats. You set the formats by
- zooming the windoid and selecting Pin File (a format that
- CyberFinder will take over if loaded), Netscape URL, or Self
- Launch. A Pin file is a WebPinMaker file that launches its URL by
- launching WebPinMaker first. A Netscape URL is the same as what
- you'd get by dragging a bookmark out of Netscape 2.0's bookmark
- list. A Self Launch file is the self-extracting version of a URL:
- double-click it and it launches the URL itself without needing
- WebPinMaker around (which is true of the Netscape URL file as
- well, and they're smaller).
-
- <http://atom.co.jp/VOYAGER/WebTools/WebPin/WebPinMaker-E.html>
-
-
- **Other Comments** -- Readers always send in lots of tips when we
- publish articles of short reviews, and I wanted to share a few of
- the more interesting ones. First off, Mel Patrick, author of
- WabbitDA, wrote to pass on a correct email address:
- <mpatrick@express.ca>.
-
-
- **Alco Blom** <alco@xs4all.nl>, author of URL Manager, writes:
- I'd like to mention one powerful feature of URL Manager (that you
- indeed included in your review) that I use frequently in
- combination with TidBITS - the Scan Text command. Drop a TidBITS
- issue on URL Manager's window (or use drag & drop with a whole
- chunk of TidBITS text), and voila, you have imported all hypertext
- links mentioned in that issue.
-
-
- **Aleks Totic** <atotic@netscape.com> wrote to tell us that if you
- drag bookmarks or folders from Netscape's bookmarks window to the
- Finder while CyberFinder is loaded, you get CyberFinder bookmarks.
- The reverse is true as well, so dragging CyberFinder bookmarks or
- folders from the Finder to Netscape's bookmarks window creates
- Netscape bookmarks.
-
-
- **Outliners** -- A number of people mentioned using other
- outliners, specifically Acta and Frontier, to store URLs. Although
- getting URLs into these programs isn't generally easy, launching
- URLs via ICeTEe is trivial.
-
-
- **Finding in the Finder** -- A criticism of bookmark managers that
- rely on the Finder (like CyberFinder) is that they don't seem to
- have sophisticated searching capabilities. You can search for the
- name of a bookmark file, but what if you want to search for text
- that appears in the URL itself? You can if you have System 7.5's
- Find File program.
-
- Open Find File and select the disk(s) in which you want to search.
- Click the More Choices button to reveal a second set of menus.
- From the first pop-up menu, choose "creator," and in the text
- entry field to its right, enter "URL1" (sans quotes). That limits
- the search to files created by CyberFinder (though you could enter
- the creator for any bookmark manager). Now, press Option while
- choosing contents from the second pop-up menu (contents won't
- appear unless you hold down Option). Then, type the text you want
- to find in the text entry field to the right, say "apple" to find
- all sites whose URLs contain the string "apple". Finally, click
- the Find button.
-
-
- $$
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