[HN Gopher] Show HN: LinkAce - Your self-hosted, FOSS bookmark a...
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Show HN: LinkAce - Your self-hosted, FOSS bookmark archive
Author : Kovah
Score : 172 points
Date : 2020-12-29 11:03 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.linkace.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.linkace.org)
| joiatu wrote:
| By quickly browsing the demo, I think that it could be nice to be
| able to fold and unfold the links in a list. Like that Lists
| would play the role of quickly accessible bookmark folder which
| is a nice feature.
| lucideer wrote:
| > _After you saved a link, it will automatically saved by the
| Internet Archive. A reliable backup without maintenance._ ~
|
| The wayback machine does require maintenance, by the good people
| who work at archive.org. Might be a nice touch to included a
| Donate link here instead of implying it's somehow magic.
| mattowen_uk wrote:
| Alternatively, add an option into linkace to archive the page
| locally?
| etherio wrote:
| That's the approach https://archivy.github.io takes.
| Kovah wrote:
| I thought a lot about this when I started working on the app.
| I decided against it because the Internet Archive has the
| proper tools, expertise, infrastructure and is - hopefully -
| a long term archive for websites. Maybe an alternative local
| backup is added in some future version, but I have no plans
| for it currently.
| Kovah wrote:
| There is a donation link in the LinkAce settings for the
| archive, but making it more prominent is a good idea. I
| actually donate on a regular base and hope others will do too.
|
| Edit: added a link to the features page.
| axelthegerman wrote:
| Just had a quick look around the demo account. Feels snappy. One
| thing I'm missing (maybe it's the mobile UI layout) is a search.
|
| I'm using pinboard.in for years and the search (either by tag or
| by URL/description) is by far the most useful to find anything
| later on. Nobody wants to click through dozens of pages of tags
| to find the one you're looking for :)
| Kovah wrote:
| I really thought that the search icon to the left of the
| settings is clear enough for users to recognize. Did you
| recognize it as something else?
| rounakdatta wrote:
| There's also a similar project buku
| (https://github.com/jarun/buku). I've been using buku for a while
| given its mature ecosystem around decoupled search-and-viz
| server, fantastic browser extension, easy browser importing, rich
| meta-information management et al. The buku server ideally would
| make sense to be local, and there enters LinkAce.
|
| Although I believe LinkAce has slightly different goals than
| buku, more around preservability and portability :)
| m000 wrote:
| Buku is great, but the browser extension still feels barebones
| (unless I've missed anything). I'm particularly bugged by the
| complete lack of auto-completion. E.g. when I tag a new
| bookmark as #devel, I would like to be offered suggestions for
| additional tags, based on my existing bookmarks. Possible
| suggestions to #devel would be #documentation, #api reference,
| #python, #javascript, #c etc. Similar for searching using tags.
| Moreover, auto-completion suggestions would save you from
| having to define and remember personal tagging conventions.
| E.g. shall I use #recipe or #recipes? Is it #open source or
| #open-source?
|
| I'm also missing the option to somehow create bookmarklets
| based on tags, so I can replace static bookmark folders in the
| browser.
|
| I believe these features would also be relevant for LinkAce (if
| not already implemented). For Buku, adding the functionality is
| in my backburner project list.
| mikewarot wrote:
| Self-hosting apps seem like the way we're going to go in the
| future. I do like the use or Archive.org to help the end user,
| and the rest of us at the same time.
| Kovah wrote:
| I really prefer hosting applications on my own, instead of
| using any third-party service. Sure, the freedom comes at great
| costs (maintenance, updates,...), but I am willing to spend my
| time instead of taking the risk for my data and "critical
| personal infrastructure". The only downside is, and maybe ever
| will be, that self hosting is nothing for the casual user.
| mikewarot wrote:
| What's really needed is an internet that connects everyone,
| where we can all just run our own applications, like it once
| was.
|
| If we get the OS security issue pounded out by adopting
| multilevel security, we could get back to actually freely
| using our computers.
|
| I'm waiting until I can deploy Free Pascal programs under
| Genode, or if it ever surfaces, GNU Hurd.
| buddha420 wrote:
| This is pretty much exactly what Urbit is.
| aitchnyu wrote:
| One of my daydreams is a common self hosting specification and
| server that abstracts AWS, Google Cloud and Azure and hosts
| apps in one click. For example, myflickrr.com/common-host.json
| can specify Docker images for web and workers, provision them
| to AWS ElasticBeanStalk, set up scheduled tasks, create a S3
| bucket, share a relational DB, set up logs and alarms,
| provision wildcard emails and captcha with *.mysite.com etc.
| rakoo wrote:
| I feel like a part of what you want can be attained with
| yunohost (https://yunohost.org/#/): it's like a "web services
| distribution" where packages are complete applications.
| rakoo wrote:
| There's another project that's probably more popular on the
| french-speaking internet: shaarli
| (https://shaarli.readthedocs.io/en/master/). Same as LinkAce, it
| has custom text, tags, full-text search and thus can work as your
| own micro-blogging/blogging/pastebin tool.
|
| I'm looking for a solution in this space and I feel like none are
| really there although I could probably make it work:
|
| - I want input to be absurdly simple. The standard bookmarks are
| perfect, as is a simple bookmarklet but I want the same ease of
| use from my mobile
|
| - I want the content to be easily cacheable on my mobile so I can
| read it later while offline, if possible in a more readable
| rendering
|
| - I want the content of the link to be archived in a reliable
| way; Archive.org is a good way because there's a chance that the
| link is public anyway so it is of potential value to everyone
|
| - I want to have some liberty around the link, like the
| possibility of adding text with a little formatting and the
| possibility to have no link, just text, to act like its own
| article. Full-text search on everything is also important
|
| I think 2) is the most contraining requirement because it
| requires more mobile-specific development (probably an app), the
| rest can be worked around with many solutions already.
| based2 wrote:
| https://github.com/wallabag/wallabag Self-hostable PHP
| application allowing you to not miss any content anymore. Click,
| save and read it when you can. It extracts content so that you
| can read it when you have time.
|
| ref: https://linuxfr.org/news/quatre-annees-de-wallabag-it
| rdschouw wrote:
| Wallabag is closer to Pocket than LinkAce.
|
| Wallabag also offers annotation, search on content and saving
| pay-walled content (with an account).
|
| To me, content search is the killer feature and was the first
| thing I looked for when looking at LinkAce.
| gprasanth wrote:
| These days I just mull over ideas long enough to see them built
| as opensource.
|
| This one, is nice! Long live LinkAce.
| l00sed wrote:
| This looks pretty cool. I'm a bookmarks nerd. I love collecting
| and organizing web resources in a useful way and returning to
| blogs with good content, or a website with nice design or
| accessibility features.
|
| I try to keep my bookmarks page up to date: https://l-o-o-s-
| e-d.net/bookmarks
|
| I wrote a quick script to parse the convenient json export from
| Firefox into collapsible divs for easier browsing.
| l00sed wrote:
| Having something self-hosted would give me a little more
| confidence in the long-term lifespan of my collection and its
| formatting.
| codetrotter wrote:
| Tbh I'd expect any browser plugins to break much much sooner
| than they are ever going to remove or make breaking changes
| to bookmark exports. Especially export bookmarks as HTML.
| Pretty sure that the HTML format that browsers export
| bookmark as has stayed pretty much the same since the days of
| Netscape Navigator.
| etherio wrote:
| I'm exactly the same! I wrote a script [0] to convert the
| firefox json to a markdown file which I filter and put on my
| website [1]
|
| [0]: https://github.com/Uzay-G/garret [1]:
| https://www.uzpg.me/attic.html
| l00sed wrote:
| Haha, awesome. I'll have to sift through this later!
| elric wrote:
| I'm hoping there's a way turning off auto-archiving using
| archive.org? Seems to defeat the purpose of self-hosting to some
| extent, and I'd really prefer hosting my own archive, which would
| allow for interesting search possibilities.
| Kovah wrote:
| You can turn off archiving to the Internet Archive, but there
| is n local archive solution available yet.
| mraza007 wrote:
| Looks great!! I'm about to host this project on my raspberry pi
|
| I love the UI very clean and simple
| bravura wrote:
| I wrote a self-hosted link tool that I can add links from the
| command-line.
|
| I am curious if there is a good Python library for archiving the
| entire page, including assets?
| franky47 wrote:
| One of my goals for 2021 is to record every indie blog post I
| read (most are found here on HN).
|
| Bookmark managers are nice, but I needed additional metadata, and
| in a useable format for later display and analysis, so I ended up
| automating commits to a CSV file on GitHub[1], with a simple web
| UI for submissions.
|
| The REST API in LinkAce looks like a good alternative though.
|
| [1] https://github.com/franky47/post.francoisbest.com
| egeozcan wrote:
| Does it sync with [insert my browser of choice]? (Not a lazy
| question, I did look at the website but found no clues - it seems
| that it does have an API though)
| Kovah wrote:
| No, sync is not available. Browser bookmarks are actually not
| the same as the bookmarks I keep in LinkAce, therefore I do not
| need any sync feature. You can read a bit more on the about
| page how the app is positioned. https://www.linkace.org/about/
| gravitas wrote:
| > _Browser bookmarks are actually not the same as the
| bookmarks I keep in LinkAce_
|
| You are not alone, I currently use Diigo with the same needs;
| the Diigo bookmark list is massive, unwieldy, goes back
| decades - the in-browser bookmarks are slimmmed down to just
| what I use commonly. What we really need is a new RFC
| "LinkDav" which follows in the footsteps of CardDav, CalDav
| and WebDav to round out our data portability lives. Want to
| try your hand at writing a RFC? :-)
|
| On the Import docs section it just says "...in the HTML
| format" - there's a Chrome, Firefox and IE version of HTML
| Export from Diigo, it would be helpful to understand which
| one would be the best for import to LinkAce:
| https://www.diigo.com/tools/export
| rakoo wrote:
| There is a standard already, called OPML that is already
| used in every RSS reader to store a list of feeds. Being
| XML behind, I'm sure it can be adapted to contain
| everything related to a bookmarking service; it's not a
| complete format like CalDAV and friends, but it looks like
| a solid base to build on.
| gravitas wrote:
| OPML (I am familiar) could be used as a basis yep, but
| it's a _file format_ which is more akin to vCard, vCal
| and iCal - CalDav, CardDav and WebDav are the
| transport(?) layers (API layers, operational layers, call
| them what you will) which sit on top of the file format
| standards providing the interoperability.
| egeozcan wrote:
| > I use browser bookmarks for regularly accessed sites and
| have a separate application that takes care of all those
| links I would like to "keep in mind" but don't want to
| pollute my browser bookmarks with
|
| I strongly feel like it could be both. You created something
| that does one thing (I assume) really well. Adding sync may
| sound like too much on top but we already are living in a
| world of isolated data islands, it may be a good idea to
| start building bridges.
|
| Maybe sync browser bookmarks in, mark them with a special
| tag, and only sync those out.
| j45 wrote:
| This looks promising. An extension or bookmark let is critical
| for adoption as it's the easiest way to get bookmarks into the
| system.
|
| I would recommend trying out www.diigo.net to see how well their
| bookmarklet and extension works. It really is a game changer to
| get many more links into the system, combined with the ability to
| annotate individual sentences.
| mjgs wrote:
| Great looking project, are there any real life (i.e. non-demo)
| public instances running?
| Kovah wrote:
| Feel free to browse my own instance, which has guest mode
| enabled. :) https://bookmarks.kovah.de/
| bachmeier wrote:
| This looks nice based on my quick look at the demo and the
| feature list. Seems to be a well-polished project with a good
| design and documentation. The feature list says it does support
| notes (an important thing) but I don't see any other information
| about it or see any notes on the links in the demo. Would be nice
| to see how that works.
| Kovah wrote:
| Oh yes, I created a reminder to extend the documentation about
| notes. Here's a quick summary: they are used to store
| additional text for a link (whatever it might be) and can be
| added / edited from the link detail page, e.g.
| https://demo.linkace.org/links/87. Although I do not use them a
| lot I think they can be used to add more context or details
| about a link without using the description. Like more details
| about why you added the link, how to find more details on that
| said link, and so on. I think this might become more powerful
| and useful when support for multiple users is ready. Notes can
| then be used like a low-level comment system.
| etherio wrote:
| This looks like a cool project. Here's a bit of feedback /
| thoughts I'm having related to a similar project, Archivy [0].
|
| The problem I have with these type of solutions is basically the
| time it takes to just quickly bookmark. Browsers bookmarks are
| built-in, and do this pretty well - it's just one button next to
| the search bar.
|
| Solutions like these are a bit more limited as they aren't
| embedded into your browser UI, so you have to open a new website
| and paste the link in. This mere effort adds a layer of
| complexity which can kind of turn the user off to bookmarking.
|
| I wonder how this issue can be solved, in my project and yours...
| Maybe browser extensions can provide a more native experience
| with less "content to bookmark" time spent.
|
| Sync is another way to kind of counteract this -> people use
| normal browser bookmarks or whatever they prefer - and then there
| are options to sync them to your software for better organization
| / whatever your functionality is.
|
| However, hand-coding all of these integrations is difficult and
| that's why building a framework of plugins [1] so users can work
| and distribute these integrations themselves, is in my opinion,
| essential.
|
| [0]: https://archivy.github.io [1]:
| https://archivy.github.io/plugins
| g_p wrote:
| Wallabag [0] may do what you require, with regard to having a
| browser extension to reduce friction when saving something.
| There's a bit of friction in getting the browser extension set
| up, but once you do so, it's there as a status bar button -
| click to save. Simple! On mobile, it becomes a "share
| destination" for iOS or Android.
|
| [0] https://github.com/wallabag
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| jchook wrote:
| > The problem I have with these type of solutions is basically
| the time it takes to just quickly bookmark.
|
| You can write a browser extension to do this relatively easily.
| Mine is maybe ~200 lines of ES6 with login, bookmark-on-click,
| and ability to update with description + tags after.
|
| Both Pocket and Pinboard have similar solutions.
|
| For iOS/Android you can write a share extension.
| Kovah wrote:
| Thank you so much for the input! Indeed, the process of
| bookmarking can be improved a lot. Browser extensions could be
| a proper solution, but I wanted to publish the app without
| having to build the extensions for various browsers. That's why
| there is a bookmarklet. Will take a look into the plugins,
| maybe they can help making this easier.
| FalconSensei wrote:
| bookmarklets are great, specially for a first version. I
| actually would usually prefer a bookmarklet if it wasn't for
| a lack of keyboard shortcut.
|
| I use raindrop.io and notion, and before seeing the
| shortcuts, I didn't use them much. It was also kind of the
| reason why all my previous tentatives to use a cloud bookmark
| service didn't go well.
|
| The second reason is how accessible it is to click on a
| bookmark. On the browser you have the bookmarks bar, so at
| least for your top bookmarks, there's no way to beat it. But
| for everything else, as long as I can setup the page as my
| new tab page - or the extension having a shortcut to open the
| full page - it's also great
| gravitas wrote:
| +1 to the Bookmarklet, it's what I use now for another
| service and it's simple and works (and can be hotkeyed in
| most browsers); I suspect the GP did not find the docs with
| the bookmarklet option as it's on the User Settings page, not
| the Links page:
| https://www.linkace.org/docs/v1/configuration/user-settings/
| unicornporn wrote:
| Awesome! https://archivebox.io/ should be mentioned in this
| context too.
| yawnxyz wrote:
| I made a thing like this for myself for fun, and I created a
| bookmarklet and hooked it up to Twilio so I can text URLs to
| automatically add links. Not sharing my project on here since
| it doesn't have authentication haha.
| daitangio wrote:
| I developed a solution which worked pretty well and monitored
| my clipoard. When I Ctrl-X the url from the browser and then
| clicked on "new bookmark" link on my app, it magically appear.
| You can also develop a small bookmarklet to do the same trick.
| It was called http://daitanmarks.sourceforge.net/
| mekster wrote:
| Make it PWA and give it a sharing capability.
|
| Check how Unmark does it. https://github.com/cdevroe/unmark
| dspillett wrote:
| _> The problem I have with these type of solutions is basically
| the time it takes to just quickly bookmark._
|
| This is a significant issue. I've been thinking of making my
| own bookmark storage/sorting thing as others didn't quite match
| my exact needs/preferences. But a key problem that I have,
| which I don't think I'm unique in, is that I'm often too lazy
| to even bookmark - I just open things in new tabs and leave
| them there until I get around to going back or forget the
| relevance and close a pile of windows/tabs to save memory...
| bachmeier wrote:
| > Solutions like these are a bit more limited as they aren't
| embedded into your browser UI, so you have to open a new
| website and paste the link in. This mere effort adds a layer of
| complexity which can kind of turn the user off to bookmarking.
|
| That assumes the main goal is quantity of bookmarks. That you
| want to lower the cost of bookmarking as close to zero as
| possible. As someone that has been using bookmarks in the
| browser since the very early days of the WWW, I can't endorse
| that system for most bookmarks. The more important thing is to
| make it easy to add metadata, store the links, and then
| query/browse the information. A low-resistance system is simply
| opening the link in a new tab, and then when you decide it's
| time to clean up your tabs, you store them inside a system that
| holds the metadata necessary to make use of those links in the
| future. Everything is secondary to getting the metadata right.
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(page generated 2020-12-29 23:01 UTC)