Show HN: Bort.io – Web application for website bookmarks and search | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Bort.io – Web application for website bookmarks and search

bort.io

105 pointsotsaloma38 comments

Hello. Bort is a web application I made for website bookmarks and search. It's fully client-side JavaScript with bookmarks saved in browser's local database (IndexedDB or WebSQL via PouchDB) and synced via a JSON file in user's own Dropbox across both devices and browsers.

Any feedback is welcome. In particular, since I don't have a Mac at hand, I'd like to know if it works on Safari, and if so, which version. Unlike other tested browsers, PouchDB uses WebSQL instead of IndexedDB on Safari.

+500 internet points to Bort for providing import & export options out of the box :-)

For navigation within the app, consider using links with URL fragments and listening for the hashChange event. This will allow back and forward navigation, as well as the ability to bookmark or link to a tag.

Thanks. I didn't know about this. I'll look into it.

Linking to a tag or several tags is already possible though. It's just not obvious since you don't see those URLs in normal use.

https://bort.io/about.html#faq-url-tags

Seems functional in Safari Version 8.0.8 (10600.8.9).

I wish it would auto-determine bookmark titles. Unless that is a Safari-only issue, I guess that is due to its client-side nature?

Also: Why not remoteStorage.js ? Not that I particularly care for that over dropbox.

Thanks for checking Safari.

Technically it should be possible to fetch the page and parse the title tag. It's hard to know when to do that if there's an editable URL field. With a browser extension and a "?add=URL" parameter (see the question from g4k) it would work better.

I'm not familiar with remoteStorage.js. Dropbox I chose simply because it's popular, many people already have an account and trust them, so it's a low barrier to use something that uses Dropbox.

remoteStorage.js is a library for implementing applications similar to yours, where the backend storage is separate from the application provider.

The library primarily supports 'remoteStorage' providers but apparently now supports google drive and dropbox experimentally.[1]

All the apps using remoteStorage that I've checked out don't seem to have dropbox as an option though, and only some have google drive.

[1] https://unhosted.org/adventures/7/Adding-remote-storage-to-u...

Forgot about CORS regarding those titles, so I guess a bookmarket or browser extension is required that passes the title along with the URL as a parameter. Or like with favicons, a separate service that parses titles.

Thank goodness for being client-side! It's a refreshing change almost every other web app.

It looks really well. I've also been building a bookmarking system over the last while, it's not yet released though, so I love to see other stuff in this area coming out.

We need more Bort license plates in the gift shop. Repeat, we are sold out of Bort license plates.

Context: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K99OWlAWeN4

My project is also named Bort.

Very similar to http://bookmarked.us but instead of storing your bookmarks in Evernote it uses Dropbox. I like it.

I'd really like to see an app/extension/browser that just lets me search my history by the content of every page I've ever visited. I feel like I'd find that more useful than bookmarking. If I could add tags and/or an "important mark" to the pages that seems like it would be enough for me as far as bookmarks go and far more useful

You might like Fetching (http://fetching.io/). It has a hosted and offline only version, and does full text snapshot/indexing of everything you browse.

Firefox bookmarks have tags, you just need to click twice on the Star and it'll show a dialog where you can insert them.

And yes, they are searchable: just type the tag in the Awesome Bar.

It's difficult to build an extension like that, I think, you'd need a search server. If there was an extension that would offload the heavy lifting, say, to my a local installation of elastic search or something like that I'd install it in the blink of an eye. The data would be right there, you could search, organize, backup any way you wished.

The problem (of course) is discovery and availability of the search server.

A "local" installation is no good for most people, because they use multiple web browsers in across multiple networks.

So you do cloud, and then you have to deal with security and authentication and admin etc. Meh :(

Sandstorm.io is the last, best hope.

Cloudron is also attempting to make cloud installations simple - https://cloudron.io

disclaimer: co-founder of Cloudron

I've put much thought into this, implemented something like it, and then decided it was currently a lost cause because google does a good enough job re-finding what you are looking for. It sounds convenient, but google is more convenient.

My google skills fail because I try to find stuff all the time I read before and I can't find it.

Not quite what you're asking for, but have you checked out Pinboard (https://pinboard.in)?

There don't not seem to be browser extensions for bookmarking yet.

For adding bookmarks? No, not yet, but I figured if it get's popular I'd add a URL parameter, e.g. "?add=URL", document that, provide a bookmarklet and maybe let others write browser-specific extensions.

For it to get popular I think a friction-less way of adding bookmarks is a key requirement (I'd very likely use it then - have been looking for something like this)

I own the domain name bookmark.org

Contact me by email (in profile) if you'd like to partner in some way.

I've actually moved all my bookmarks from Firefox to Workflowy recently (and pop it open in the side-bar). That way they live where I actually USE the information: in some type of context in a project. This has forced me to do something with my bookmarks and delete the ones I don't need instead of just store them.

Nice to see someone putting some effort in customising how Bootstrap looks. It's not the flashiest front-end framework but that's half the point of it: it is a solid base that can be made quite pretty if not avant-garde. It depresses me when a fair proportion of websites are too obviously Bootstrap.

Looks like a nice app.

It is really cool. I am now in a bind because I kind of stopped using Dropbox a while back and use BitorrentSync which is pretty much awesome, but I can see how this can't really work with that. Anyhow, really nice effort, congrats!

Great work, I really like this. Maybe allow other ways to sync JSON file OneDrive, GoogleDrive etc.?

What do you mean by search your bookmarks? Does it index the content and search through it?

It doesn't seem to, but https://historio.us/ does.

No, not content, just the titles of bookmarks. If you have a lot of bookmarks, it might be faster to use the search box. It's search-as-you-type, e.g. if you have a bookmark titled "Hacker News", you can probably just type "hac" and press Enter.

How does one use this web application without dropbox?

A better UI for bookmarks would be cool.

If it truly is client-side only, it won't strain resources to render the static files, so it doesn't really need a dropbox login-barrier.

Without a dropbox login, syncing between devices wouldn't be possible (for this app). To sync you need some central storage online (which would probably involve some login) and dropbox has been a good resource for these kinds of applications. Wouldn't mind seeing a google drive integration though.

Even if you don't use multiple devices or browsers, browser databases are too mysterious for regular users -- too easy to accidentally delete along with history and too difficult maintain up-to-date backups of.

FYI - Loads a blank (white) pages on iOS 9.1 beta 4

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