Chain

Introduction

A "chain" is what you have if you have several links - in this case, hyperlinks, i.e. URLs.

Chain consists of:

• some Perl classes for managing chains - i.e. categorised and annotated collections of hyperlinks;
• utility programs to translate Netscape bookmark files to chains and back again, and a tool to generate HTML output [recent additions];
• a primitive tool for checking and updating redirected links;
• a Perl/Tk program to provide a graphical interface to edit chains.

Possible applications might include:

• sharing bookmarks between web browsers running on a variety of separate systems, with additions made on one merged into the bookmarks as seen by the others;
• maintaining a collection of hyperlinks independently of a web browser;
• merging bookmarks (or other collections of hyperlinks) from multiple sources, e.g. a group of people with similar interests.

The properties of hyperlinks and categories that you can edit in the editor program are modelled on those of Netscape bookmarks. However, the underlying classes can support arbitrary attributes. Also, a chain is not constrained to have tree structure; a category or hyperlink (generally, any node) can appear in one or more categories.

The design is not suited to extremely large collections of links, as you might find in a web directory; it is more targeted at individuals or small groups.

Chain is not finished yet.

Installation and Setup

You will need Perl (at least 5.004_04) to run any of the software, and Perl/Tk to run the editor. It is assumed that you have all this already installed.

The latest version of Chain is available at this URL:

http://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/2000/08/07/Chain-0.6.1.tar.gz

The tarball unpacks into its own directory. CD into that directory and type:

perl Makefile.PL
make

Then as root type:

make install

The modules, the programs and the man pages will be installed.

My CVS tree is exported at http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/ucgi/~richardk/cvsweb/webtools/chain/. You can find the latest version there, though it may not work properly and will have a misleading version number. Releases are tagged Chain-VERSION, where VERSION is the version number with "." replaced by "_".

The change history can be found at http://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/2000/08/07/chain.html.

Images

There are four image files associated with this package, intended to be used as logos or icons or whatever.

chain2.gif and chain2.png - chain logo with transparent background

chainblack.gif and chainblack.png - chain logo with black background

Bugs

Please report any bugs to:

rjk+chain-bugs@sfere.greenend.org.uk

Please check this page for any updates or known bugs first. The canonical URL for this page is:

http://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/2000/08/07/chain.html

If you send patches, please make it clear what version they are against, and use "diff -u" output - I find it easier to read than the alternatives.

Copyright

Chain is copyright © 2000 Richard Kettlewell. You may redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA

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