Bookmark Sync

This essay is about a suggested student project in Java programming. This essay gives a rough overview of how it might work. It does not describe an actual complete program. I have no source, object, specifications, file layouts or anything else useful to implementing this project. Everything I have to say to help you with this project is written below. I am not prepared to help you implement it; I have too many other projects of my own.

I do contract work for a living, which could include writing a program such as this. However, I don’t do people’s homework for them. That just robs them of an education.

You have my full permission to implement this project any way you please.

This is a project for someone who enjoys sleuthing. You will have discover for yourself how various browsers store their bookmarks (aka favourites), and ideally how ad-ons work for each browser.

The basic idea is simple. When you add a bookmark to one browser, or change its properties it should as soon as possible be reflected in all your other browsers. Similarly, there should be a way to delete a bookmark from all your browsers, but probably not as a direct side effect of deleting it from one.

How might you implement this? Put all your bookmarks and associated information in an SQL database (or possibly an ordinary ini file, properties file or csv file). Then from that regenerate the bookmarks in the format preferred by each browser and copy that on top of the official bookmark list.

You have to detect changes and merge them into the main database, perhaps using a version control system to help you with the merging.

In an advanced version, you might write ad-ons that run in each browser that instantly propagate bookmark changes to the database and instantly pick up changes from the database, so that when two browsers are running, they stay in sync.

For advanced users you should be able to configure parts of your bookmarks you don’t want propagated or you don’t want to appear in only certain browsers. You might then be able to manage bookmarks for several people, with some parts in common and some parts personal.

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