Webbla 2 Facts

I have already invested tons of hours working on Webbla 2 since a long time.
As you may know development got stuck and I am currently going to finalise the already existing things. There is still some work to do specially in conjunction with the new Mac OS X Yosemite.

The first release of Webbla was on Monday 21 of July 2008 and it was initially meant to be more a helper for web research and not an bookmark manager for thousands of bookmarks.
There are so many things which have changed in the last 6 years.
Apple added visual bookmarks to Safari in 2010 but in the actual version it’s not available anymore. You can access Safari bookmarks nowadays a lot easier and conformable by typing in the Address field.
Zootool, a visual online bookmark manager some similar to Webbla has been shut down in March 2014 after 6 years.
In the meanwhile there are other bookmark manager available for Mac OS X, following the visual idea of Webbla.
There are also more and more OS X system limitations which are making a prober integration and required features impossible or a lot more difficult.
It also turned out that the API to Delicious and Pinboard, two of the most requested social bookmarking services have there limitations when it comes to editing and updating multiple bookmarks via API. If we are not respecting there rate limits (e.g Pinboard with one submit every 3 seconds or requesting bookmarks once every 5 minutes) Webbla is likely to be banned. Consider how long it will take if you rc3003emove a tag from 1000 bookmarks at the same time (1000 * 3 / 60 = 50 minutes !!!).
I am currently not sure how far I will go in implementing new and cool features and if there is still a request for a visual bookmark manager for Mac OS X. I would not like to invest precious time I could spend with my family in features or a product which don’t have any request.
I would be happy to get some hands up and feedback on what you would like to see in Webbla 2 or not.
But one thing is sure. Webbla 2 as promised will be available later this year.

26 thoughts on Webbla 2 Facts

  1. I have purchased Webbla and would purchase Webbla 2 if it will sync between several macs using dropbox.

  2. I am glad to hear from you.
    Syncing all bookmark informations including the website preview is definitively a feature which you will see in Webbla 2.
    But this is where the problem start. For small libraries no problem, but there are many user with more then 10k of bookmarks.
    With high quality previews a library can take about 1G of your hard drive.
    Our current solution to solve this problem is to allow user to determine bookmarks to sync. Of course there would be also an option to sync all bookmarks automatically.

  3. Been a Webbla user since 2008 and been patiently waiting for 2.0 to come out. I follow some of your comments above and realise the difficulty in implementing a bookmark manager that is truly capable of handling a large amount of URLs.

    Here’re a couple of comments what I’d be looking for in Webbla 2:
    + I use Delibar to search for, add, and access my bookmarks. Webbla is an app that I use to manage my bookmarks. What does this mean: sorting out redundant tags, finding entries without a description, finding broken links, finding duplicates, renaming and changing tags, etc.

    + I’ve been using Delicious for many years and I’m very happy with it. At the moment my library of bookmarks counts 1,500 entries. Too many. Some of these I don’t use or will never use. Others are good to keep for use in the future. It would be great if Webbla could show me which bookmarks have been added and when they were modified last, giving an indication as to whether I should delete them. Clearly it won’t be possible to see when they’re accessed last… as I will be using devices outside Webbla.

    + At the moment Webbla translates tags like “streaming_video” into “streaming video” or “streaming” and “video”. This has caused me a lot of problems along the road. I’d ask for Webbla to respect the formatting of my tags and don’t break them apart.

    + While Delicious can find duplicates it does only so on an entire URL level. I often find myself bookmarking URLs that are already in my library. Especially magazines and the like. Often the top domain would be sufficient. I’d wish for an option, either across the board or on a per-bookmark-level, to tell Webbla that for this URL the top domain is sufficient and for that URL I specifically want to have the article link. Maybe this can be done with a small label on the thumbnail similar to the “new,” “failed,” and “updated” label?

    + When using Webbla I often hear a background music or video starting to play, which is clearly associated with some of the bookmarks. This is annoying. Please make it so that the website content isn’t activated if the bookmark is selected or accessed for verification in Webbla.

    + Nicer tag cloud, similar to the one used in Delicious would be fab.

    + Statistics about my tags and sites. Graphs and charts. As mentioned before: Webbla is a “manager” for me. Not a tool to save and search for bookmarks. I use it to MANAGE bookmarks.

  4. I would like to see more comfortable tools to tag and organize bookmarks.

  5. I’m glad to hear that Webbla 2 will be available soon. I tried many bookmark tools during the last years but none could compete with Webbla. I’d like to see a polished interface and better browser integration. The design of the interface looks dated and the icons are ugly from my point of view. I’d love to see a clean Yosemite look with flat icons. Moreover I think that browser integration could be better. I’m struggling to get my bookmarks from Firefox into Webbla. Drag-and-Drop is great but a browser extension to import with a single click would be nice. Another feature would be to auto-tag the bookmarks based on a websites meta information (like title, keywords). Or even to transfer the websites meta description into the bookmark info in Webbla and make it searchable. If it’s possible I can also imagine to have a true sync between Delicious. Like transferring new bookmarks to Delicious through Webbla – rather than only reading my bookmarks into the app.

    I hope this helps and I’m glad to provide some possible ideas.

  6. I just started using Webbla and i like it, however it feels outdated, but i see you are on a new version there.

    For ppl purchasing a license now or for all license owners, will there be a discount for V2?
    Because im hesitating purchasing Webbla if there is going to be a new Version in a few months.

  7. Thanks for your comment.
    Of cours there will be a discount for previous user and it will be free for user purchasing Webbla during the last view month.

  8. I use Webbla all the time. I depend on it and it is dependable. The only change in Webbla that I personally would like to see is that I want it to work with Yosemite. Other than that I am pleased.

  9. Thanks for your comments so far. It give us an insight of your expectations.

  10. Use your app and hope it continue to work with Yosemite and syncs with dropbox or iCloud. I am happy the way it works. Could use a more elegant way to choose tags (adding and searching).
    Keep up the good work 😉

  11. Now With iCloud Drive we can all have high hopes for a neat sync and optimisation :-).
    Any ETA?

  12. With iCloud Drive it will be possible to share the bookmark library the same way as it was possible with DropBox and MobileMe since long before.
    ( more info ) The new Cloud Kit will be the best way but it will be still limited by performance and storage capacity. Consider if you have 10k bookmarks with previews on your Mac Webbla would take about 50% of your free iCloud account. We think this will not be the right approach for everyone. We will try to come up with a solution for all. ETA: Will not put my hands in fire again but we are doing our best.

  13. Hey there! Having bookmarks visually is nice to have – but honestly speaking: For me the most needed thing is a sync-tool which allows me to have my bookmarks at any time on any type of browser and to be able to add tags. No need for pictures of the pages.

    I higly appreceate a simple app holding all my bookmarks with tags allowing me to tell them each in which browser I like it to open. Saving pictures of a bookmark costs space on my HDD, RAM and also CPU power while running the app. All together simply a mssive lost of ressources. Even if CPU power should not be the problem – saving ressources is a must for any app. A bookmark-app should stay small, simple to use and should use as little ressources as possible – since it is running at most of the time a computer is up.

    IMPORTING-TOOL: For starting with a new tool it is highly needed to add tags while importing/harvesting bookmarks from my browser(s). As many “of us” may do, I organise my bookmarks more or less randomly with different browsers – sry, it’s dumb, but I’m sure I’m not the only one… – and in folders – which I would like change from foldernames to tags while also searching for maybe already added tags that not refer to the URL-name (use foldername and expressions and tags >> compare if found tag/foldername=same >> add tags while import, if there are deep folders, use all names as tags). In addition It would be really great to have a tool for finding and eliminating duplicates of the same site and/or the exact url while simply adding more tags due folder names and use only one of the saved bookmarks. While doing that it may be also make sense to search for nearly same types of tags by adding a type of fuzzy-logic. I’m sure there are a lot of bookmarks at many harddisks collected in the wrong folder oder floating “somewhere” caused by simply “wild clicked to add bookmark” without adding and sorting it to the bookmarks with any kind of sense the User may use at another time. So far: Importing in a good way is highly appreceated and the reeeeeeeeally the most important thing for me. I was searching for a long time for a tool that features a clear importing tool but haven’t found any. Even not that one (and there is one to find) online tool that allows to find duplicates, showing them and let tick the one(s) to be deleted. This One is also able to find empty folders after deleting duplicates. But theres no way to make it any simple with a structure like “if I find a duplicate in this and that folder – which one should I delete and would you rather hold this or that folder if there’s more like this”. With THAT ONE (I don’t want to tell which One as I don’t want to spread WOM for it as it is not a good one) tool there’s a need to compete and tick each single duplicate by hand – otherwise you would end up with lots of folders holding the same kind of interest but fragmented just because you did not use the correct folder while adding the bookmark at the first. Horrible for having thousands of bookmarks harvested over time with different computers and browsers and over time maybe different type of workflow… at the time you may learn and improve skills. Up to a certain time uf orking and using software everyone prooves his very own kind of brainwork – but than it is simply “too late, babe”! The data is there but it’s fragmented all around 🙂

    I do have many Ideas to make it simple and mostly save to find and suggest a good way to make a choice for deleting duplicates – but I’m not able to code it. So far “dear coder” I you like feel free to contact me… or also simply delete this post as I do not want to worry you about your good work you did up to now.

    Dear readers, if you agree simply post and answer to this to show if this feature is also important for you…. and let this app get the best for a users choice. 🙂

    Cheers
    Werner

  14. Hi Werner,

    Thanks for your comment. I think the bookmark manager your are looking for is already existing. Please take a look at http://www.sheepsystems.com.
    Honestly said, we don’t have any intention to copy the functionality of other long existing applications and are respecting the work of other developer.

    Best, Marc

  15. Hey man – can you, until you release version 2.0 – try to fix the problem of the tags being invisible on Yosemite!?
    Or is this something that would take a long time…

  16. Hi Joe,

    I am not aware of a problem concerning tags in Yosemite.
    Please try to download the latest version. If this will not help please send us an email with more details.

    Thanks for your help, Marc

  17. if you select the “Add page to Webbla & modify” button in Safari for example > the pop-up window in Webbla where you enter the information for the new Bookmark shows some weird behaviour! “Title”, “Tags” and “Notes” fields are not legible. Looks like they are negative or something…..

  18. Now I got it. Will see what I can do without dropping compatibility to previous OS X versions. Thanks for your help.

  19. Thanks for sorting this little glitch ..
    Any update or Release date for Version 2.0 -> Do you need any beta testers??

  20. I will setup a page to register for beta testing at the beginning of the next year.
    When there will be the final release will depend on feedback and bug reports during the beta test.
    I will also give more details and regular updates from the beginning of next year.

  21. Hi Joe, I apologise for the delay.
    Unfortunately we are still busy to bring Minco 2 on it’s way.

  22. I’ve tested many other applications (Pins, Stache, Bookmacster, and others), and, despite its interface’s age, Webbla still delivers the best overall functionality when it comes to sorting, searching, tagging, and previewing.

    So, I was wondering if there was any news on your progress towards the next release? And, importantly, if I do opt to purchase your app at this stage, will I again be required to pay for Webbla 2 if it is released not long after?

    I don’t care much for Delicious or other online bookmarking service integration, but if there was one hope I could have for your next release, it would be live website previews through the Spotlight function. Stache for Mac is the only other app that I’ve come across that does this, & it really is amazing for just quickly referencing a bookmark’s contents.

    Thanks,
    AJ

  23. Thanks for your words.
    Our upgrade policy will be very user friendly and we will offer a free upgrade to version 2 for user which have purchased since a long time ago as we are promising a new version since a long time. To deliver a version 2 means for us to create an incredible new product and not only a UI refresh and some performance boots. Creating something new is taking a lot of time and if you come to the point that you are not 100% behind the concept you drop it away. This is what happened already many times during development of Webbla 2. Of course we should have continued to improve Webbla 1 over the years but our initial plan was to be ready with version 2 since long ago. Webbla was always a iLife like Bookmark Manager so we will have to follow this road.

    Thanks, Marc

  24. Hi Joe, of course, it’s unbelievable. As soon I can tell something I will let you know.
    Marc

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