Shouldn't you be looking at the ScrapBook plug-in for FF?  Or, as alternatives, NetSnippets, Evernote or Surfulater, the first two of these having completely free versions, and all mentioned (frequently) elsewhere on DC, notably the General brainstorming for Note-taking software thread?  I see you've posted there, but it's an awful long thread to work through.

-rjbull (July 21, 2006, 04:39 AM)

Yes, a long thread and a lot to think over ...

Thanks for the suggestion for Net Snippets - I'd seen it but not tried it.

But to clarify my point was basically about adding some more functionality to the existing Bookmarks Manager within firefox; in particular the ability to swap quickly between a number of customized bookmark pages -  i.e. manipulating lists of bookmarks. The idea is just an offshoot of the original request ...

The beauty of the bookmark pages in FF (as they are) is that they are very easy to edit in using cut/paste, drag/drop. You can sort through 100s of bookmarks and re-order them into folders, move folders around, insert separators etc in a few minutes. (unlike IE where you are dealing in hundreds of individual link files written to disk)

You can chop a page down as desired to a selected list of URLs and export the page to another folder and later send the page(s) to other FF users. They can be loaded easily into other Gecko based browsers like K-Meleon.

FF also has a nice feature where you can just drag a link from the navigation box straight across to your bookmarks side bar and place it anywhere you wish on the list (which I'm sure most people are aware of).

As I see it, having the ability to simply swap between a number of custom URL lists in FF (in the form of multiple Bookmark pages) would be a real bonus, adding extra goodness to what is already there. Everything stays in FF - no other software required.

A bit OT here but as for web page capture, DL management and archiving I've been using Offline Commander http://www.offline-commander.com/index.shtml for over 4 years now for various research and multimedia projects. It's proved to be the most practical solution I've found. It does the one thing and very well IMO. All your project archives are basically stand alone exe files - all neat and tidy and easy to search.

Andre

As for alternatives, I've been testing Ability Office [ AO ] http://www.ability.com/v4/newv4.php?ln=en for a design firm here who are fed up with all the MS licensing hanky panky and are keen to unhook themselves from the evil clutches of "Them" asap - innovations or no innovations.

But there are risks - many of their clients & consultants are sure to upgrade to MS 2007 to stay in the race. But if we can settle on something that covers the essentials for general business and is reliable then we're more than halfway there. One key issue is and will be compatibility of formatting, templates etc - especilly for docs and reports that use an extended range of circus tricks. This is where MS more or less decides on the rules of the game.

I was a little skeptical about AO given the sometimes disasterous performance of earlier versions, but thus far the latest release looks very solid, each component looks well thought out and it's very pleasant to use. The Pro version comes in at US $ 74.99 - so no complaints there. It certainly loads a lot faster than OO (actually 5 times faster). As much I love OO, AO seems to have a much more efficent engine which is handy if you want to make use of an older computer for WP, accounts or basic DTP work.

Andre