Improved session timeout handling

Today's update contains changes that will improve session timeout handling in desktop browsers:

• The "Session Timeout. Please click on OK to reload the page." message typically came up after a while when the user opened and used Bookmark Ninja parallel in several browser tabs. From now in desktop browsers if page refresh is required the page will automatically reload (without showing any message) when the browser tab gets the focus.
• The "Session Timeout" message has been renamed to "Page Expired" because it describes the situation more precisely (page can expire not just because of session timeout).
• "Page Expired" ("Session Timeout") message will be still displayed when
1. the user leaves Bookmark Ninja open in a browser window for a long time (e.g. Dashboard for 12 hours) without any interaction.
2. a new build is rolled out to the server and the user has Bookmark Ninja open in their browser window.

Minor bug fixes

Today's update contains 2 minor bug fixes:

(1) The width of the tag autocomplete drop-down list (on the dialog boxes opened from the My Bookmarks page) was too wide. Now it has the correct width.

(2) The Category selection drop-down lists (when you add a bookmark or move a bookmark) contains the category names in alphabetical order. If you had category names starting with both lowercase and uppercase characters, they were sorted case-sensitive (lower case characters came after the upper case characters in the list). It has been fixed, category names are now sorted case-insensitive.

New Feature: Alphabetical Sorting of Tabs

To sort the tabs alphabetically in desktop browsers please follow the steps below:

1. Make sure you are on the Dashboard.
2. Click on "Tabs" under the tab titles.
3. Select either "Sort A-Z" or "Sort Z-A".

In mobile browsers:

1. Make sure you are on the Dashboard.
2. Tap on "Turn ON Tab and Category Editor" at the bottom of the page.
3. Tap on either "Sort Tabs A-Z" or "Sort Tabs Z-A".
4. Tap on "Turn OFF Tab and Category Editor" at the bottom of the page.

Fixed bug: After typing space in tag input field autocomplete panel closed

When you start typing a tag in the tag input field the autocomplete panel pops up if the typed text matches any of the already used tags.

If you typed a space (because the tag contained a space) the autocomplete panel closed. This was a bug that has been fixed in the latest update. Now after the space you can continue typing the rest of the tag and the autocomplete panel will show the suggestions as expected.

User Guide update

The below 2 topics have been updated in the User Guide because of the UI changes in the browsers:

How to install the bookmarklet in your mobile browser?

How to export your bookmarks from your desktop browser?

Improvement: Automatic refresh of the Dashboard and My Bookmarks pages

Let's suppose you regularly use Bookmark Ninja on 2 or more devices (notebook, desktop computer, smart phone, tablet). It may happen that you leave your Dashboard or My Bookmarks page open on device A while you make changes on device B (add, delete, rearrange bookmarks/categories etc.). When you return to device A (when the browser window gets the focus), Ninja will automatically reload the page if it detects that any changes have been made. This way all the changes made on device B will be immediately visible on device A without having to reload the page manually.

New Feature: Copy Bookmark URL

To copy the URL of a bookmark to the Clipboard please follow the steps below.

In desktop browsers:

1. On the Dashboard right mouse click on a bookmark to bring up the context menu. On the My Bookmarks page click on the menu icon (3 blue vertical lines) next to a bookmark.
2. Click on "Copy URL".
3. * The "Copy URL" dialog will come up, click on the "Copy URL" button.
4. The dialog box will be closed and the URL will be copied to the Clipboard.

In mobile browsers:

1. On the Dashboard tap and hold on a bookmark to bring up the context menu. On the My Bookmarks page tap on the menu icon (3 blue vertical lines) next to a bookmark.
2. Tap on "Copy URL".
3. * The "Copy URL" dialog will come up, tap on the "Copy URL" button.
4. The dialog will be closed and the URL will be copied to the Clipboard.

*The usage of the "Copy URL" dialog is required because of browser security reasons.

Renaming tags

Until now renaming a tag was possible with the trick of adding the new tag and removing the old tag on the selected bookmarks. But it was pretty tedious and it was not a "real" rename although it delivered the same result.

From now you can do a "real" tag rename in a very simple way with much less steps:

In desktop browsers:

1. On the My Bookmarks page right mouse click on a tag in the Available tags list on the right side of the page.
2. Select "Rename tag" in the context menu.
3. On the "Rename tag" dialog box enter the new tag name and click on "Rename".

In mobile browsers:

1. On the My Bookmarks page tap and hold on a tag in the Available tags list.
2. Select "Rename tag" in the context menu.
3. On the "Rename tag" page enter the new tag name and tap on "Rename".

Please note that when you rename a tag, all the instances of the selected tag will be renamed in your account, regardless of what bookmarks are currently listed on the My Bookmarks page.

Improvement: "Show more tags" on the My Bookmarks page

On the My Bookmarks page until now all the used tags were listed by default under "Available tags" when the page loaded. This could have been inconvenient if the user had many tags (several thousands), which had impact on the page load time. From now only the first 50 tags are displayed at page load. If there are more than 50 tags you can click on "Show more tags..." under the list to display all the tags.

When you use the Tag Quick Finder (the input text field above the "Available tags" list) and start typing characters the result list will not be limited, all the tags that meet the criteria will be displayed immediately.

The improvement is available in the mobile view, too, in the mobile browsers.

Performance improvement on the My Bookmarks page

Today we rolled out the second biggest update this year. With this we accomplished a general performance improvement in Bookmark Ninja we planned for this year. July's update was about the Dashboard performance improvement, this update is about improving the My Bookmarks page performance.

Similar to the Dashboard the My Bookmarks's code has been re-architected, too and we achieved significant performance improvement (now 40K bookmarks load 3.5 times faster on the My Bookmarks page). Especially users who have a large number of bookmarks (over 10K) will feel this improvement.

New Feature: 4 and 5 column Dashboard layout

From now other than the default 3 column layout you can also set 4 and 5 column layouts for the Dashboard.

To change the number of columns:

1. Select “Settings” in the main menu.
2. Under the “Dashboard settings” section change the “Layout - number of columns” by clicking on one of the radio buttons.

If you increase the number of columns a dialog box will come up where you have to choose one of the following options:

“I will move the categories manually to the new columns”
The arrangements of the categories in the current columns will be unchanged. The extra column(s) will be added on each tab and will be empty. You have to move the categories manually to the new column(s). Rearranging the categories manually is easier if you collapse all the categories first.

“Let Bookmark Ninja move and arrange categories (in alphabetical order) across all the columns on all tabs”
The new column(s) will be added to each tab and all the categories will be automatically arranged (in alphabetical order) across all the columns on all tabs.

If you decrease the number of columns and you don’t have any category in the columns that will be removed then the number of columns will be simply changed. If there is any category in any of the column(s) that will be removed then the below dialog box will come and you will have 2 options:

Option 1: Click on Cancel then rearrange the categories on the Dashboard by moving them manually from the columns to be deleted to the remaining columns. Make sure that all the column(s) that will be deleted will be empty. Rearranging the categories manually is easier if you collapse all the categories first.

Option 2: Check the “Let Bookmark Ninja move and arrange categories (in alphabetical order) across all the columns on all tabs” checkbox then click on the “Apply” button.

Please note that when you change the number of columns, the new layout will be applied on the shared tabs, too.

Tip of the day: Recommended Dashboard settings

If you have a large number of bookmarks on a tab the browser will need more time to render the page. What a "large number" is depends on the browser you use and what hardware configuration your computer has.

Here are some tips that will significantly speed up the Dashboard, both the loading time and the speed of the different bookmark operations.

#1 Turn off the bookmark drag and drop

By default bookmark drag and drop is turned on. To turn it off:

1. Select "Settings" in the main menu
2. Under "Dashboard settings" uncheck the "Enable bookmark drag and drop" checkbox

It is recommended to keep it turned off and to turn it on only for the time when you rearrange your bookmarks on the Dashboard.

#2 Keep the categories collapsed that have many bookmarks

The bookmarks of collapsed categories are not rendered when the Dashboard loads. The bookmarks of these categories will be rendered only when you expand a category. So keeping the categories collapsed that have many bookmarks will speed up the page loading.

#3 Turn off the favicons

We use a Google service to display the favicons of the bookmarked pages. If you have a large number of bookmarks on a tab, the loading of the favicons may impact the overall page loading speed.

To turn off the favicons:

1. Select "Settings" in the main menu
2. Under "Dashboard settings" uncheck the "Show favicons of bookmarks" checkbox

If favicons are turned on, after the Dashboard has been loaded you may see the "Waiting for www.google.com..." text in the browser's bottom status bar for awhile. This means that Google hasn't sent all of the favicons yet. This doesn't affect the operation of Bookmark Ninja, the Dashboard is already fully functional when the favicons are still being loaded.

Performance Improvement on the Dashboard

Today we rolled out the biggest update that we have ever had since the launch of Bookmark Ninja. The update significantly improves the Dashboard performance. The improvements have been made in the following 3 areas:

(1) The entire Dashboard code has been re-architected, some of the code have been rewritten from scratch. From now the tabs will load much faster and all the operations on the Dashboard (move, edit, add, duplicate, drag and drop etc.) will be faster, too.

(2) A new switch has been added to the Settings page under the Dashboard section: “Enable drag and drop”. By default the switch is turned on. If you turn it off the bookmark drag and drop will be disabled, but the loading speed of the Dashboard (and the operations on the Dashboard) will be significantly faster, especially if you have a large number of bookmarks on a tab.

(3) From now the bookmarks of the collapsed categories are not rendered when the Dashboard loads. The content of a collapsed category will be rendered only when you expand the category. This new feature can be useful if you have categories with a large number of bookmarks. Keeping these categories collapsed will increase the page loading speed.

New Feature: Dark Mode

Many users have requested this feature, dark mode is available now in Bookmark Ninja.

By default dark mode is turned off. You can turn it on or off on the Setting page:

1. Select Settings in the main menu.
2. On the Settings page under the “Global settings” section check or uncheck the “Dark mode” checkbox.
3. After you turned on or off dark mode, the new setting will take effect at the next page load.

Dark mode can be also set individually for the shared tabs on the “Tab sharing settings” dialog box. Please click here if you want to learn more about tab sharing.

Settings page improvement

The "Save Settings" button has been removed from the Settings page. From now when you change a setting, it will be saved automatically, you don't need to make an extra step by clicking on a button. A "Setting saved" message will also show up for 1 second next to the setting.

This improvement was necessary to introduce because the upcoming developments will require additional settings to be added. The new implementation will help to change settings more quickly and easily.

Desktop view:

Mobile view:

Customer feedback survey

Last week we sent out a survey to the Bookmark Ninja customers. There were questions about the usage habits and also about what new features/improvements the customers would like to see in Bookmark Ninja.

We would like to thank those ones who submitted the survey!

All the feedback we received will definitely help us to plan the upcoming developments more efficiently.

Since we received so much feedback, it will take one or two weeks to review and evaluate them. I also saw some questions in the feedback, I'm going to answer them if email address was submitted.

The "Add to Ninja" pop-up is blocked in Firefox's latest update

The latest Firefox update (version 66) has come with some "surprise" again.

If you click on the "Add to Ninja" add-on button you will get the "Firefox prevented this site from opening a pop-up window" message even if you already have the Bookmark Ninja website in the exception list of the pop-up blocker. This worked fine in version 65 but not in version 66.

I have contacted the Firefox support forum, I will post if I have any updates on this.

There are 2 workarounds to fix the issue:

Turn off the pop-up blocker completely in Firefox (under Options/Privacy & Security/Permissions)

or

Use the "Add to Ninja" bookmarklet instead of the Firefox add-on (you can install it from this page with a simple drag and drop)

Please contact me at support@bookmarkninja.com if you have any questions.

Fixing the "Ninja extensions can't be installed in Firefox" issue

Some users complained about that they couldn't install the Bookmark Ninja extensions in Firefox.

It seems that the latest Firefox update (v65) broke something. Please follow the below steps to fix the problem:

• Uninstall Firefox (Add or Remove Programs in Windows 10)
• Reinstall Firefox from https://www.mozilla.org
• Now you will be able to add the Ninja extensions

Please contact me at support@bookmarkninja.com if you have any questions.