Clibu V2.00.11 Released, Quick Tour, Click to edit are back

This release brings back a few things we temporarily removed when moving from Clibu V1 to Version 2 .

First of all the Quick Tour has been updated and rejigged to work on Smartphones and Tablets. And first time users prompted to start with the Tour.

Next the ability to commence editing an article by clicking anywhere in an article is back, with a new option to enable it.

The new Click in article to edit it option is enabled by default. The reason this was removed in V2 was it gets in the way on touch screen devices, which is why the new option works on devices with a mouse (Desktop PCs), but not with Smartphones and Tablets.

We’ve also updated aspects of the Clibu Web Clipper so that the “Append Clip to Article” Browser context menu item now always uses the current article in the current Tab instead of the last selected article, which was confusing.

When “Append Clip to Article” is used and the current article is being edited, it is now taken out of edit mode so that the new content is appended correctly.

Various other issues and improvements are outlined as always in the Clibu Release Notes which you can access from the Clibu User menu or this link.

– Neville

Clibu V1.33.10, Clipper V1.0.4 Released

Some users, especially in Corporate environments have had trouble getting Clibu to connect to our Server because of firewall and related lockdown procedures, that they have in place. In this release of Clibu we’ve changed how we connect the Browser to the Server and vice-versa, which should resolve this. If you’ve had this issue please do try the new V1.33.10 release and let us know if it is working for you now – email info@clibu.com

Note that you need to do a Browser Refresh to get this new version.

We changed the Article Panel in this release so that it occupies the full height of the Browser window when it’s content doesn’t fill that space. SImilarly when you create a New Article it fills the full space instead of changing height as new lines of text are added or removed. These changes improve the overall look of articles and improve article editing.

Another new feature in this release is Article Titles, which I know some have found lacking, especially our Surfulater users.

When you create a new article a placeholder title is added as shown above. As soon as you start typing this will be overwritten by the title you enter.

In addition to adding Titles to new articles, we’ve added the capability of creating titles for articles present prior to this Clibu release. This works by analyzing the content at the start of an article and then extracting what best makes sense and converting that into a Title.

These two new features are entirely optional and enabled via. a new Settings dialog accessed from the User menu.

They are turned on by default as seen here.

Also note that the ‘Show Tooltip hints’ option has been moved from the User menu to this new Settings dialog.

The Clibu Web Clipper has also been updated to change the server connection as per the Clibu changes mentioned above.

We’ve also reworked the Clipper code that detects any instances of Clibu which are open in Browser Tabs and displays same when you Login, so you can use the Clipper with Clibu ‘On Premise’ etc.

Chrome will update the Clibu Web Clipper Extension to the new version 1.0.4 automatically at some point. If you don’t want to wait then Uninstall and Reinstall it to get the latest version.

An update to Clibu ‘On Premise’ will be released in due course.

Clibu v1.32.00 Release plus new Web Clipper – it must be Xmas Pt 2

For Part 1 which covers Clibu v1.32.00 see this post.

The Clibu Web Clipper has had a major update to add new functionality and bring it inline with Clibu.

Whenever the Web Clipper needs to Login to a Clibu Server it looks to see if Clibu is open and logged in, in a Browser Tab in the same Web Browser as the Web Clipper. If so it displays this new dialog.

From here you can select from the list of Clibu sessions or Enter your Login Credentials.

This does two things. First it enables the Web Clipper to login without you having to enter any credentials and second it enables it to login into a Clibu Server other than the server at myclibu.com. More specifically this now enables users of Clibu ‘On Premise’ to use the Web Clipper with their Clibu Server.

If Clibu isn’t open and logged in you are prompted to enter your login credentials.

You can now enter the name of Knowledge Base you want to use with auto suggest simplifying selection.

Knowledge Bases that are shared with you include an icon beside their name as shown above.

Tags selection has been updated to the same user interface as in Clibu.

The Web Clipper uses native OS Desktop Notifications to keep you informed. We’ve updated these notifications to include more detailed information.

This example is the result of clicking ‘Add Article’ and includes the article title and the name of the Knowledge Base the article was added to.

Similarly the associated notifications in Clibu itself have been updated.

If you are new to the Clibu Web Clipper note that it can also be used from the Browser context menu.

If no content is selected on the Web page you get ‘Bookmark’ items on the Clibu sub-menu.

And when content is selected you can either create a New Clibu Article with it or append it to an existing article.

For more information on the Web Clipper see this post and this one.

In addition to the new features described above we’ve put considerable time and effort into developing a version of the Clibu Web Clipper for Mozilla Firefox and now have this working. I’ll write more about this in the next Blog post so stay tuned.

That’s it for this release of the Clibu Web Clipper. Just like Clibu we’ll keep on making it even better and welcome your suggestions.

– Neville

New Web Clipper functionality & New Clibu Release

The Clibu Web Clipper has been enhanced to enable you to both add and append Web page content from the Browser right click context menu.

Clibu Web Clipper on Browser Context Menu

In addition to creating new Articles from clipped content you can now append content to an existing article. This is extremely useful  when you want to keep adding bits of information to an article.

The context menu items come in two flavours, depending on whether any content is selected on the Web page or not. If content is selected the menu items above are available and the selected content, along with the web page title linked to the page url, plus the page description (if any) are either used to create a New Article or appended to the current article.

If no web page content is selected then this menu is shown.

In this case the web page title linked to the page url, plus the page description (if any) are either used to create a New Article or appended to the current article.

Clibu and the Clibu Web Clipper are now at Version 0.71.0. Click Browser Refresh in Clibu to get the latest release. And in Google Chrome use Tools | Extension | Update Extensions Now.

Before you can use the Context menu items you need to Login to Clibu using the Clibu Web Clipper Browser button.

Both New Article from Clip and New Article from Bookmark create the article in the Knowledge Base selected in the main popup window accessed via the Clibu Web Clipper Browser button.

Choose the Knowledge Base from the dropdown list and then click anywhere on the web page to close the popup window.

Append Clip to Article and Append Bookmark to Article append  content to the current article. The current article is set in one of two ways. The first way is selecting the article in Clibu using the checkbox beside each article. Whichever article has been selected most recently is the one the web clipper uses.

Clibu Article selection checkbox

The second way an article is treated as selected is whenever you use the context menu items New Article from Clip/Bookmark or Add Article in the web clipper popup window. This enables you to create a new article and then append content to it which is a fairly common task.

If you want to add Tags and edit the page description for New Articles then use the full featured Web Clipper popup.

An issue with selected content in the Web Clipper Popup window has been fixed and links and images in selected content which are relative to the page the content came are now processed correctly.

Clibu itself has been updated to cater for these new Web Clipper capabilities and the Clibu start screen is now displayed when new users access Clibu for the first time and when logging in fails. Links to sign up to the Beta program have been added to the start screen and to the Login dialog. See the Release notes for further details.

I hope you find these new Web Clipper features as useful as I do and look forward to your feedback.

-Neville

The Clibu Web Clipper has landed

It has been a bit of a journey and took a bit longer than planned, however I’m excited to announce the initial release of the Clibu Web Clipper, Browser Extension.

The Web Clipper makes it quick and easy to capture information from any Web page. This includes the page URL, Title, Description and any content you select on the page. You can also add your own Notes and Tags.

Once installed, you open the Web Clipper by clicking on it’s button on the Browser Toolbar.

Once you’ve logged in you will see the ‘Add Selected Content’ window.

From this window you can select the Clibu Knowledge Base that you want the article added to, add Tags to identify the article and edit or add a Note.

You can also edit the Web Page Title and URL if you want to.

Tags utilize the same auto-suggest capability as Clibu, along with the ability to create new Tags.

One thing I love about the Clibu Web Clipper is that if you have Clibu open, it is automagically updated. Any Tags you create in the Web Clipper will instantly be displayed in the Clibu Tags Tree, and new articles are likewise instantly available.

And this applies to any Clibu’s that are running with your account, be they on your PC or a colleague on the other side of the planet, they are all automagically updated.

Of course this automagic updating is built-into Clibu’s core, so that all instances of Clibu that are open, as well as Clibu Extensions, regardless of where they are, are always up to date and in sync with each other. This is a breath of fresh air compared to the way applications used to work and most still do.

I started development with the expectation we’d have the Web Clipper available for Chrome, Firefox, IE & Safari from day one, however this proved too ambitious and unfortunately the cross-browser extension framework we were using fell short of our expectations. So at the last minute I made the decision to discard the framework and resort to native browser development.

The easiest and best Web Browser to develop extensions for, is by far Chrome, so this first release of the Web Clipper is for Chrome.

To install the Web Clipper select it from the ‘User Menu’ as shown above. If you can’t see ‘Web Clipper’ on the menu then you need to do a Browser Refresh to get the latest version of Clibu.

This is the first release of the Clibu Web Clipper and further capabilities such as capturing entire web pages and adding content to existing articles is planned. If you have other ideas to make an even better web clipper, do let us know.

-Neville

Clibu V0.65.04 Released

A new version of Clibu V0.65.04 has been released today. It includes enhancements such as improved word matching in Tags auto-suggest lists, clicking on a link now opens the link when you aren’t editing an article, plus with various other User Interface updates. See the Release Notes for complete details.

Log into Clibu and use Browser Refresh to get the new release.

The bulk of our recent development effort has been focused on the new Clibu Web Browser Extension, which enables you to add Web content, along with Tags to a selected Clibu Knowledge Base, all from within the Extension’s popup window.

I’m pleased to say the Extension is working very well, is quick and easy to use and looks good. We’ve got a bit more work to do on the User Interface, packaging and testing and expect to have a release available in the coming weeks.

Our Clibu Community forums are a great place for you to create and participate in discussions about Clibu, including features you would like to see in the future. So do join in and help us move Clibu forward to meet both your needs and those of the wider community.

Finally if you’ve recently signed up to participate in our Beta program, we plan to approve the next batch of people today.

– Neville