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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

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Clibu V2.00.09, Web Clipper V2, Clibu On Premise V2 – 2018 here we come.

We’ve been very busy working on Clibu over the Christmas New Year break.  Since the initial V2.00.0 release on Dec 5. 2017 and the last Blog post we’ve released six Clibu V2 versions with a range of updates, fixes and new capabilities.

One of the more important and complex updates was moving Clibu from using insecure http to fully secure https, wss and ssl connections to the Clibu server.

We’ve also updated the Clibu Web Clipper to use https, wss so the whole Clibu stack now uses end-to-end secure connections.

Besides enabling Web Clipper https support, we’ve updated it to match the new Clibu V2 look and feel and streamline its user interface.

The new information button displays the url of the server that the Web Clipper is  connected to. This is particular useful if you are using the ‘On Premise’ version of Clibu as you can see whether you are connected to the local On Premise server or our cloud server.

The Web Browser context menu item ‘Append Clip to Article’ shown above  now appends the selected content to the article displayed in the current Clibu KB/Tab.

If Clibu is open in multiple Browser Windows then the most recently displayed article is used for the clip. Previously the currently selected Clibu Article was used, except when the Web Clipper had created a New Article, however this was confusing. and not very intuitive.

Talking of Clibu ‘On Premise’ we’ve now completed upgrading it to Clibu Version 2, or more precisely the V2.00.09 release. So if you are using Clibu On Premise you now get all the new Clibu V2 look, feel and capabilities.

In case you haven’t heard of Clibu ‘On Premise’ it enables you to use Clibu installed on your own PC or Server with all data stored locally and completely in your control. See Clibu – Install and Run Locally for details.

For complete release notes either click on the Clibu User menu and select ‘Release Notes’ or click here.

I think you’ll agree we are off to a good start for 2018 with lots more to come.

All the best for the year ahead.

– Neville

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Firefox Extensions, herein lies a big problem!

The great news in the past year or so is that Chrome, Firefox and MS Edge now implement the same Browser Extension framework. This means that for the first time we can (theoretically) develop Extensions that work across all three Browsers, with only minimal changes – hoorah!

I mentioned in my last article that we now have the Clibu Web Clipper Browser Extension working for Firefox.  It’s development was rather painstaking, primarily because finding and fixing issues in Browser Extensions in Firefox is really hard work.

Firefox makes you use different debuggers (apps that help locate problems) depending on which of the three components that make up an extension you are working in. And much of the time I couldn’t get them to do what they are supposed to do, debug! Now this may be partly due to the way I develop, writing es6 code and transpiling, however I’m not doing anything all that unusual. And often times Firefox would just crash when it was trying to load Node.js modules it shouldn’t have had any interest in, in the first place.

To complicate matters further there are Browser functions such as being notified when the user selects some content, which aren’t available in Firefox. This quite basic, yet important capability is mentioned in Bug 1242718 posted Dec 2015 and seems to be going nowhere in a hurry.  Desktop notifications can’t be updated in Firefox and Bug 1215025 – Popup size does not respond to content change, reported Oct 2015 is still waiting to be fixed.

None of these issues are show stoppers, however they do impinge on the functionality we need to deliver to our users.

But there is a show stopper, a very big one, which prevents us from making the Clibu Web Clipper available for Firefox. Let me rewind a step.

Once you have a fully debugged and working Browser extension, you need to go through a series of steps before it can get published in Firefox Add-ons, which is where you get to download extensions from.

First you have to submit the extension, then in 5-7 days someone will get in touch with you with further instructions. Specifically they require the developer provide full source code for the extension along with complete instructions on how to build the extension from the source code, so they can verify it compares exactly with the compiled extension you upload.

The “Source Code Submission” section of the Review Policies states:

This code will be reviewed by an administrator and will not be shared or redistributed in any way. The code will only be used for the purpose of reviewing the add-on.

There are multiple fundamental issues here.

First the build process for the Clibu Web Clipper is a complex one requiring installation and setup of various development and build tools. We would need to provide detailed documentation in order for them to accomplish the build and it would take them a fair amount of time and expertise to set this up.

Second they want access to our intellectual property without offering to sign a NDA as part of the process. Saying that I’m reluctant to do this, is an understatement.

Third the entire process is onerous, costly and time consuming. And is one I assume needs to be repeated each time we update the extension.

Now let me contrast this to getting the Clibu Web Clipper published in the Chrome Store.  Step one, upload the extension, wait up to 60 minutes and if there are no issues the extension is live and available for download. So far we’ve had three releases of the Chrome Web Clipper and each one has gone off without a hitch and has been live in around 30 minutes.

You simply need to look around and you will see lots and lots of Browser Extensions that are available for Chrome that should also be available for Firefox, but aren’t. It’s not hard to see why.

Besides making it quick and simple to publish to the Chrome Store, development of Browser Extensions using the Chrome Developer Tools is also a breeze, with none of the issues seen in Firefox.

Unfortunately these issues aren’t limited to just developing Browser Extensions for Firefox, but impinge on overall development of Web applications using the Firefox Browser and it’s development tooling.

I’ve been holding off writing this rant, but I’m sorry Firefox folks, but I’m simply not prepared to jump through these hoops.

I read a few months back that Firefox’s plans for 2017 are to develop a faster, better browser. According to the Firefox 2016/17 Strategy & Roadmap

Firefox will deliver a rock solid browsing experience with world-beating customization and a first of its kind recommendation engine that gets you the content you want when you want it, whether at home or on the go.  ….

Firefox will deliver the best of the web in a way that is more useful and navigable than on any other browser. With great new features like Activity Stream and Recommender, the Firefox Context Graph will deliver the right web page, always.

Well that has a nice warm and fuzzy ring, but maybe they’d be better devoting resources elsewhere. Improve the developer experience, fix long outstanding bugs , get as close as possible to the latest Web standards and give us the new Javascript, HTML and CSS capabilities present in other Browsers.

As of this writing Firefox usage is down around 12%. Given that and the issues raised above, it is hard to see why folks like me should keep on devoting precious resources to support Firefox.

Neville

 

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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

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Clibu v1.32.00 Release plus new Web Clipper – it must be Xmas Pt 1

Well it has clearly been too long between Blog posts, in fact way too long. The good news is, this in no way reflects on Clibu development or releases. In fact it is simply because we’ve been so busy on development that allocating time for blogging has sadly not happened.

Our regular Clibu users will have seen we’ve had several releases since the last blog post and I’m sure are wondering what we’ve been up to, so let’s get to it.

V1.32.0.0 sees a long list of enhancements and new features and the Clibu Web Clipper has had a major update with new functionality. Let’s start with Clibu itself.

For a while now you’ve been asking for a quicker way to get back to seeing ‘All Articles’ once you’ve done a search. Our simple solution was to include an x button in search as shown here.

We’ve also rearranged the Tags Filter button so it stays in the same place after adding a filter. We’re also continuing to think about ways to somehow combine Search and Tags Filtering into one unified widget. If you have any suggestions we’d love to hear them.

Next we’ve added a ‘New Article’ button to the ‘Articles List’ header which brings it in line with the ‘New Tag’ and ‘New Knowledge Base’ buttons on their panels.

The Article editor has been updated with new capabilities including:-

‘Code Inline’ lets you style selected inline text as in this example:and is available on the editor toolbar Styles menu:Also note ‘Code’ has been renamed to ‘Code Block’.

The editor Styles button now reflects the style the cursor is on:

In this example the cursor is in a Quote. We’ve also improved the styling used for Quotes.

The new Horizontal Rule button adds, guess what, a horizontal rule.

The behaviour of the indent and outdent toolbar buttons has changed to only work inside lists. This fixes issues with the previous implementation and brings their behaviour into line with best practice.

The image above shows indent list disabled, even though we are inside a list. This is because the cursor is in the very first item in a list, which can’t be indented.

For the final editor toolbar improvement, we’ve made the buttons a little bit narrower, so more fit on a row.

Knowledge Base collaboration and sharing is the next area we’ve been working on. You can now Move articles to a Knowledge Base that is shared with you, as long as you have been granted full access by its owner. Similarly you can Merge a Knowledge Base of yours into a KB that is shared with you, given the appropriate permission.

We’ve updated all Clibu Web components, updated several third party libraries, further improved overall performance, optimised code both in the Browser and on the Server and fixed a variety of colorful bugs. For complete details see the Release Notes.

This post is long enough, so I’ll leave the Web Clipper enhancements to the next post.

As always we look forward to and welcome your feedback.

Neville

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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

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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