Log Page is an AppleScript program for Mac OS X that logs the title and URL of the frontmost web browser window along with the current date and time, a user-definable category, and an optional note to a plain text file. The result is a categorized, chronological, plain text list of bookmarks --- a bookmarks log. Supported browsers: Safari, Google Chrome, Firefox, and WebKit Nightly.
So what purpose does this script serve? Why not use a web browser's built-in bookmarking features? Well, you can still use a browser's built-in bookmarking too (I do), but this script does things a little differently and has a few conveniences that aren't available with browser bookmarks:
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The bookmarks log file is plain text. Plain text files are future-proof and easy to search, read, and edit.
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With this script there's no need to drill down into browser bookmark folders looking for a good place to file a bookmark. Instead of a folder hierarchy, an alphabetical list of sorted categories/subcategories is displayed to choose from.
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The bookmarks are timestamped and organized in chronological order so it's easy to see groups of bookmarks that you saved at around the same time when you were working on a particular project, similar to an activity log.
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The free-form notes field for a bookmark can be any length.
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The bookmarks log file can be stored on a cloud storage service (it's just a simple plain text file) so that it's available to search and edit on mobile devices.
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Edit the web page title before logging the page.
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Edit the URL before logging the page.
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Choose from existing categories/subcategories or define a new one without having to drill down in a browser's bookmark folder hierarchy.
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The chosen category will become the default for next time.
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Add an optional note to the bookmark.
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Choose a location to save your bookmarks log file using the preferences dialog if you don't want to use the default location. (Maybe keep it with your other plain text GTD files.)
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View the bookmarks log file in the viewer of your choice (defined in the preferences).
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Edit the bookmarks log file in the editor of your choice (defined in the preferences).
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Unicode characters in web page titles and the note field are automatically transliterated to ASCII.
The bookmarks log file is a simple plain text file consisting of an optional commented file header plus a list of bookmark records, each record consisting of two columns --- field name (key) and value. The file can optionally include a list of sample categories that will be presented in list dialogs even if they haven't been used in a bookmark record yet. The following is an example bookmarks file that shows a file header, optional sample categories, and a few bookmark records:
################################################################################
#
# Optional file header consisting of lines beginning with a "#" character. This
# section could be used for collecting general notes about the file and is
# populated by default with some help info.
#
# The bookmark records begin with the first "------+----..." record delimiter.
#
# In between the file header and the first bookmark record, some sample
# categories can be defined so that they will be presented in the category list
# dialogs even if they haven't been used yet in a bookmark record.
#
################################################################################
Label | Development
Label | Development:Algorithms
Label | Development:Compilers
Label | Design:Web:CSS
Label | Design:Web:SVG
Label | Productivity:GTD
Label | Apple:Mac OS X
Label | Development:Perl:OOP
------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date | 2013-02-28 20:14:38
Label | Example Category:Subcategory:Another Subcategory
Title | Example Web Page Bookmark Record
URL | http://example.com
Note | An optional note. It will be automatically line-wrapped if it's longer
| than 80 characters.
------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date | 2014-12-23 18:41:17
Label | Development:AppleScript
Title | Log Page - AppleScript for Plain Text, Timestamped, Categorized Web Bookmarks
URL | http://jazzheaddesign.com/work/code/log-page/
------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date | 2014-12-23 18:42:45
Label | Development:AppleScript:Safari
Title | Resize Window - AppleScript for Mac OS X That Quickly Resizes Windows
URL | http://jazzheaddesign.com/work/code/resize-window/
------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date | 2014-12-23 18:43:11
Label | Development:Shell:Bash
Title | shmark - Categorized Shell Directory Bookmarking for Bash
URL | http://jazzheaddesign.com/work/code/shmark/
------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------
To compile and install the script, cd into the directory containing the
source code and run:
$ make
$ make installThat uses osacompile to create a compiled AppleScript named "Log Page.scpt"
from the source file and installs it in a
~/Library/Scripts/Applications/Safari directory. It also installs an alias to
that script in script directories for all of the other supported browsers. To
only install the script for specific web browsers, run any of the following
install commands:
$ make install-safari
$ make install-chrome
$ make install-firefox
$ make install-webkitIf you're not already using a third-party script runner, enable Apple's Script menu. The procedure for enabling the menu is different depending on which version of Mac OS X you're running. For Snow Leopard (10.6) and later, it is a preference setting in the AppleScript Editor app called "Show Script menu in menu bar":
Although the primary function of this script is pretty basic, the user interface consists of many different AppleScript dialog windows (only a couple are shown above) along with full navigation history between those dialogs. To keep everything maintainable, the script was written using Model-View-Controller (MVC) and other object-oriented design patterns such as the Factory Pattern. Additionally, a custom GUI AppleScript test suite is included with the source code for running fully-automated integration tests (over 1,100 currently).
For more developer notes, see the dev/README file.
Please report any bugs using the GitHub issue tracker.
Log Page was written by Steve Wheeler.
Copyright © 2011--2016 Steve Wheeler.
This program is free software available under the terms of a BSD-style (3-clause) open source license. See the LICENSE file for details.