URLfriend 1.0: What it Does; Background Remarks

What URLfriend Does
2003-03-12; updated 2006-03-23

URLfriend is a HyperCard stack, for Mac computers up to OS 9. With one full-page, full-screen card for each URL, it:

Opens any URL in any browser, and enables instant switching among browsers;
Helps you keep very detailed notes on each URL;
Generates a clickable category list, showing number of URLs in each category, and then sublists of each URL therein, clickable to the URL card itself;
Enables easy massaging of outdated URLs without losing the original, needed for archival search in "The Wayback Machine";
Can create cross referenced links between duplicate or separate URL cards;
Can sort URL cards:

by title,
by URL,
by category,
by first visit,
by last visit,
by web-page date,
by browser,
by your "star" rating,
by "who": author, webmaster, etc.

Plus other tweaks and knacks:

6 specialized "Find" buttons for the stack, besides HyperCard's own cmd-F;
Toggle button (back and forth between 2 cards);
Special button to launch the "Wayback Machine" with automatic copy-paste of a card's old URL, for quick retrieval of defunct websites;
Button for automatic date plus note-entry position at start or end of Notes field;
Automatic re-formatting hot-key for copy-pasted material (ever try to copy white type from a web page?);
Any card can include other hotlinks to Web besides its main URL;
Has a large-format design (7 1/2 x 10 3/4") with vivid user-friendly lettering and buttons;
Stack window is slightly smaller than screen; remains always open for instant switching between it and one or more open browsers;
Slow-or-fast "skim-card" options, for the whole stack, or given category;
Choice of browser on every card, independent of any other card's existing or re-chosen browser;
Can import a categorized [stack] of URLs from an HTML list of your existing "bookmarks" or "favorites";
Can export URLs to a 2-column HTML list: category titles, and URLs themselves by category;
Automatic back-up prompt when quitting;

—and all this in less than two megabytes, for 2,800+ URL-cards in my current stack.

Screen shot of URLfriend 1.0:
[original is 424 x 608 pixels, or 7 1/2 x 10 3/4"on a Mac]

To download URLfriend 1.0, click icon above. The compressed file is 195 k; the unstuffed URLfriend folder is 520 k, comprising the Stack (163 k), two Read-me's (65 k each), and the Bookman font (228 k). My 1,500 URLs not included ...

BACKGROUND REMARKS:
Why URLfriend? Why HyperCard?
2003-01-01; updated 2006-03-23

As a heavy duty surfer, I found the bookmark managers of Netscape and Explorer to be small, slow, clumsy, hard to use, and memory-hogs as well. At 30-60k each, my 2,800 bookmarks would become a 160 megabyte monstrosity—for only one browser. Worse still, each browser required its own bookmark format; meanwhile, I frequently switch among browsers, depending on which can better handle a given task or website. (As of now, I use iCab 2.9.8, iCab 3, Explorer 5.0, Netscape 4.75, Netscape 7.0, and Mozilla 1.2.1.)
By putting all the bookmarks in HyperCard, I was able to achieve great flexibility in handling a huge number of URLs in about two megabytes: having a full-screen, full-page card for each URL; making copious notes as I go; sorting and finding to a fare-thee-well; and instantly switching URLs into any browser I want, launched or opened right from the stack.
As well, URLs change so often, and web-pages die out so quickly, that it is a great convenience to use a unique feature in URLfriend: to keep the original URL while I try to update it, or else recycle it to find an old page in "The Wayback Machine" of The Internet Archive—with its own special button in URLfriend.
What's the catch? Well, Mac is a small niche in cyberspace, and HyperCard has been killed off by Steve Jobs. Apple's hara-kiri of HyperCard is reviled as one of its worst mistakes ever. OS X could only reach HyperCard in its so-called "Classic Environment" of OS 9. Mac's new Intel chips prevent even that last gasp. But I feel naked if I'm surfing on a computer without URLfriend. If the newest Macs can't run HyperCard or OS 9, I'll stick with Macs which can. HyperCard is a do-it-yourself magic carpet, and luckily, this genie is out of the bottle.
URLfriend was co-produced by Gene Keyes and Mary Jo Graça. Neither of us could have accomplished this project without the other, because I'm not much of a programmer, and she's not much of a surfer. But she did the heavy lifting on the script; I did the requisites and much of the design work. We used HyperCard 2.4.1, a PowerMac 7300/200, OS 9.1 (and also a 68040 LC630, OS 8.1, but slower, of course).

So, if you still have a Mac that can run OS 9, feel free to download this stack. If you need to get a HyperCard reader, or HyperCard itself, contact me below. If you can read the script and improve upon it, be our guest; send suggestions and comments and scripts and bug reports to:

gene.keyes AT gmail DOT com

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