Using the extension
The extension includes three buttons -- one which opens GiveALink in the current browser tab, one which opens the sidebar for using most of the extension's functionality, and one for opening a popup for adding or editing the information for the current page in your bookmarks.
Logging in
If you haven't logged in to GiveALink since opening Firefox, opening the sidebar or popup will prompt you to log in and open the login page in a new tab (or refocus a tab if the login page is already open).
After a successful login, the extension will download your GiveALink bookmarks and update the sidebar (if open) based on those bookmarks. The download works even if you navigate to GiveALink and log in on your own before opening the sidebar.
Sidebar
The sidebar contains a text box for typing tags to search your own bookmarks or all of GiveALink's data. (More on the latter later.) It also contains a tag cloud that starts by showing a list of the top tags in your bookmarks, and a visualization showing the network of relationships among those tags, based on how you use them.
To search through your own bookmarks (and similarly for when you search GiveALink), you can either type and delete tags in the text box, or you can click on the tags in the tag cloud or in the network visualization to toggle them. Adding a tag to the search terms filters the results to include only those which include the new tag. To see the list of results for the current search, click on the "Show results list" button at the bottom of the sidebar. For more about this and the other buttons found in the sidebar, see "What do the buttons ... do?" below.
Add/edit popup
When you choose the add/edit button from the toolbar for editing the current page in your bookmarks, or click "Add" or "Edit" next to a result in the results list, a popup will open, showing the information available in your bookmarks for the current page -- your title, if you have one for it, or its own, if it's the current page and your tags, if any.
A tag cloud and visualization show the tags for this page, plus others, such as your top tags. If you click "Show social context" in the popup, the tag cloud will include tags GiveALink recommends for you for this page, based on a combination of the tags other people have used and what tags you have used in your own bookmarks. Click on any of these tags to include them in your own tags for the page.
A "Cancel" and an "Update" button allow you to either revert to the title and tags you already have saved in your bookmarks (Cancel) or save the current title and tags (Update). For pages in your bookmarks, these start greyed out because they wouldn't make any difference. Once you click one or the other, they get greyed out again, as the data shown will once again match your bookmarks.
Other functionality
Drag and Drop
Tags and pages are draggable in the extension. Dragging a page from the results list to any of the tags in the results list or in the tag cloud adds that page to that tag. Dragging the tag to the page in the results list does the same.
Dragging a tag to a second tag makes the first a "subtag" of the second, adding the second tag to every bookmark that has the dragged tag. (This is similar to dragging a folder to another folder. Everything that was in the dragged folder is now inside the second folder.) This only affects bookmarks that already have the dragged tag; the extension and GiveALink do not store any information about explicit relationships among tags. If you use the tag again, you have to add the second tag yourself. Or drag and drop again. You will be prompted to confirm the change, as it is not automatically reversable.
Inside the visualization, tags and pages can be dragged to each other just like in the rest of the extension. Dragging pages to tags, tags to page, or tags to tags works just like described above. You just can't drag from inside the visualization to outside or vice versa (yet).
Context menus
Right-clicking on tags anywhere in the extension, or on pages in the visualization, activates a context menu specific for that tag or page, allowing additional functionality, such as:
- Changing a tag -- allows you to rename a tag, changing all bookmarks that use that tag at once
- Add a new tag to a tag -- make the right-clicked tag a subfolder of a new or already existing tag that you type (also prompts for confirmation)
- Deleting a tag -- removes the tag from your bookmarks (prompts for confirmation)
- Adding a tag to a page
- Deleting a page -- removes the page and all its tags from your bookmarks (prompts for confirmation)
- Hiding a node in the visualization -- Removes a node and the edges connecting it from the visualization; does not change your bookmarks
What can I do with tags?
All tags in the GiveALink extension are clickable and draggable. This is true for the tag clouds in the sidebar and the bookmark-editing popup, the network visualizations, and for the tags associated with the links in the list of search results.
Mouse click (left button)
Clicking a tag toggles the selection of that tag. For the sidebar and the list of search results, this changes whether the tag is included in the search terms. For the bookmark-editing popup, this changes whether that bookmark is labeled with that tag.
Drag-and-drop
Tags can be dragged between different parts of the extension. (At this time, tag nodes in the visualization cannot be dragged out of the visualization, and tags from outside cannot be dragged in. However, tags in the tag clouds and search results can be dragged to each other and to the links in the results list.)
Tag dropped on tag
Dropping one tag on another is similar to dragging a folder to another folder in Windows, OS X, and similar GUIs. All bookmarks that currently have the dragged tag applied will have the second tag added to them -- the dragged tag becomes a sort of "subtag" of the other. This only applies at the time of the drag and drop -- future uses of the dragged tag will not automatically get the second tag.
Tag dropped on link
Tags can also be dragged onto links in the search results list. (Tag nodes in the visualization can be dragged onto page nodes if pages are shown in the visualization.) This applies the dragged tag to the link in your bookmarks. The local copy of bookmarks and the server copy located at GiveALink.org will be automatically updated to reflect this change.
Right-click context menu
Tags also have context menus found by right-clicking on the tag. The options available in the context menu depend on whether the tag is one used in your own bookmarks or one suggested by GiveALink that you do not already use. This is because some of the options, such as deleting a tag from your bookmarks, only make sense if the tag is already found in your bookmarks.
What can I do with links in the results list?
All links in found in the search results list are clickable and draggable.Mouse click (left button)
Clicking a link in the results list opens that page in the current window and tab of the browser. If the sidebar is focused on the current page (see below about the focus button), the sidebar will update based on the new page, as will the search results list. If the extension is not focused on the current page, the new url will be opened, but the sidebar and search results will not change.Drag-and-drop
Links can be dragged between different parts of the extension. (At this time, links cannot be dragged into the visualization from outside and vice versa. However, links from the results list can be dragged to the sidebar or the popup window.)Link dropped on tag
This applies the tag to the link in your bookmarks. The local copy of bookmarks and the server copy located at GiveALink.org will be automatically updated to reflect this change.Link dropped in address bar
This is equivalent to clicking on the link. The url will be opened in the current browser tab.What can I do with the network visualization?
Tag nodes
(See "What can I do with tags?" above.)Page nodes
All links in found in the visualization are clickable and draggable.Mouse click (left button)
Clicking a url node in the network visualization opens that page in the current window and tab of the browser. If the sidebar is focused on the current page (see below about the focus button), the sidebar will update based on the new page, as will the search results list. If the extension is not focused on the current page, the new url will be opened, but the sidebar and search results will not change.Drag-and-drop
Links in the visualization can be dragged onto tag nodes in the visualization. This applies the tag to the link in your bookmarks. The local copy of bookmarks and the server copy located at GiveALink.org will be automatically updated to reflect this change.Right-click context menu
Link nodes also have context menus found by right-clicking on the tag. The options available in the context menu depend on whether the visualization is showing or hiding the social context. This is because some of the options, such as deleting a tag from your bookmarks, only make sense if the tag is already found in your bookmarks.Control buttons
(See "What do the buttons ... do?" below.)What do the buttons at the bottom of the sidebar and popup do?
Focus on/Unfocus from current page
This button is found on the sidebar only. (It is not found on the popup because the popup deals with only a single page.) Focusing the extension makes the sidebar and search results change whenever you open a new page or switch tabs in the browser. If the page is found in your bookmarks, the tags you used to label that page will be used as the search terms, to find other pages with the same tags. The tags found in the tag cloud may also change, since they are selected based on what tags are searched.
Show/Hide social context
This button selects whether to show just your own tags and pages (the default, "Hide social context") or to query GiveALink for suggested tags and related pages ("Show social context"). This affects the visualization, the tag cloud, and the search results list. Showing social context in the popup allows the GiveALink server to recommend tags for pages you bookmark. Showing social context in the sidebar allows you to query GiveALink in the extension.
Show/Hide pages
This button only affects the visualization. It toggles between the tag-tag relationship network (which only shows tags, and edges relate to the similarity between those tags) and the tag-page network, which shows a few tags and a set of pages related to one or more of those tags. The latter can be used as an alternative way to navigate the web, by providing links not necessarily found on a given page.
Show/Hide results list
This toggles whether you can see the results list. This allows the sidebar to be open but still allow the full height of the browser window for viewing the current page when browsing.
