(Guide/Review) Scrapyard is an advanced bookmarks manager for Firefox

[Karlston]

Scrapyard is an advanced bookmarks manager for Firefox

Scrapyard is an open source extension for the Firefox web browser designed to improve bookmarking in Firefox in multiple ways.  Firefox users may use it to bookmark pages but also content on pages, and store the data locally.

 

Firefox's default bookmarks functionality is quite basic. Users may bookmark webpages or sites, add tags to bookmarks, use folders to sort bookmarks, and use Firefox's synchronization feature to sync bookmarks across devices.

 

Firefox users who require more functionality need to rely on add-ons for that. Bookmarks Organizer is a handy extension to find dead or redirecting bookmarks.

 

Tip: check out the Memex extension for better search functionality.

 

Scrapyard is a browser extension for Firefox that improves bookmarking in the browser. The extension integrates well with the native functionality of the browser which means that it will display all existing bookmarks and the bookmark structure.

 

Note: The extension requests lots of permissions which may scare some users away. It is open source and anyone may check the source of the extension to make sure that it is safe to use. A quick glance at important files did not return anything out of the ordinary but someone would need to invest more time for a deeper inspection.

 

 

Scrapyard uses the sidebar to display the bookmarks. It displays Firefox bookmarks in a folder structure by default but it is possible to switch to other bookmark shelves that all act independently from one another.

 

A click on the extension icon displays options to add the page as a bookmark to any of the available shelves. You may change the name, create folders, or add tags during the process.

 

Observant readers may have noticed that the extension displays two buttons in its menu: bookmark and archive. Bookmark functions just like Firefox's bookmarking feature; a link to the page is saved in Firefox so that it can be opened at a later point in time.

 

Archive on the other hand saves a copy of the selected content or the entire page locally. The extension ignores scripts and some file types but will save everything else.

 

Tip: check out the options to enable the "scroll down page to force lazy loads before saving" option to make sure the entire page is saved when archive is selected, and to "allow passive mixed content" as well.

 

Archived copies can be opened locally, even if no Internet connection is available. The extension saves HTML, images and CSS to make sure that the archived page displays fine. It is still possible that some pages may not if they rely on scripts.

 

 

Scrapyard users may attach notes to any saved bookmark or content copy, and use built-in todo functionality next to that.

 

Just right-click on a bookmark in the sidebar and select "open notes" or "todo" to use these options. Open Notes displays a plain text viewer and editor that you may use to add a note to the selected bookmark. Todo on the other hand adds a status to a bookmark, e.g. Waiting, Todo, or Done, and color codes it based on the status.

 

Data may be imported and exported manually but there is also cloud synchronization support if that is preferred. Dropbox is the only supported provider at the time of writing and it needs to be enabled in the settings.

 

Another handy feature is the built-in link checker that you may run from the check links section in the options.

Closing Words

Scrapyard is a powerful bookmark extension for Firefox that adds note taking and basic to-do functionality as well as page and content archiving as extra functionality.

 

 

Source: Scrapyard is an advanced bookmarks manager for Firefox (gHacks - Martin Brinkmann)