kat Usage Guide

kat Online Bookmark Manager - Usage Guide

By Mitch Stuart
Copyright © 2005 FullSpan Software - Usage subject to license
Software Version: 1.0 - Document Version: $Revision: 1.1 $, $Date: 2005/07/02 23:43:44 $

Introduction

kat is an online bookmark manager that enables you to organize internet links and other brief snippets of information in a hierarchy of categories.

This document is the Usage Guide for kat. See the Overview for general information and a list of other available kat documentation.

Terminology
To use kat, you need an Account with a Loginid and Password. When you login, you can create kat Entries: Items and Categories.

An Entry is just a generic term for either an Item or a Category.
An Item is a named Entry that can contain a URL and any arbitrary Text content. Both the URL and the Text fields are optional.
A Category is a named Entry that can contain other Entries (either Items, Categories, or both). The maximum "depth" of nested categories is 15 levels. Like an Item, a Category has a field for optional Text content.

Login Page

The kat login page looks like this:

From the login page, you can login, browse, or create a new account.

Create Account

You can create an account by clicking the "Sign up" link on the login page.

Note: Self registration is an optional feature of kat. If the system administrator has not enabled self registration, you will need to contact the administrator for an account. In that case, the administrator will give you a Login ID and Password. The remainder of this section assumes that self registration is enabled.

The account creation screen looks like this:

Create Account

The Login ID and Email fields must be unique. If there is already an existing account with either of these values, you will get an error message and you will need to specify values that are not already in use.

Choose your Login ID carefully; it cannot be changed after your account is created. Also, if you choose to make any of your Entries visible to the public, the Login ID will be part of the URL that you will provide to friends, colleagues, etc. to access your Entries. Public visibility is described in detail later in this document.

Login

Once your account has been created, you can go to the kat login page, and specify your Login ID and Password to login. When you login successfully, you will see the main viewing display for your Entries.

Browse Public Entries

All public Entries in kat are available for browsing without logging in to kat. Public and private visibility are described in detail later.

To browse the entries of another user, enter their Login ID in the "Browse" section of the login page, and click the "Browse" button. You can give your kat Login ID to your friends and colleagues, and tell them to use the "Browse" button like this.

If you want to publish a link to your (or any kat user's) public entries (say, on a web page or in an email), you can use the "Browse" button as above and copy the URL from the web browser's address field. The URL will be of the form:

   kat-base-url/browse/loginid

For example:

   http://www.fullspan.com/kat/browse/jkirk

View Entry

The main viewing display looks like this for the Top (root) Category:

Main Viewing Display

The main viewing display contains the following areas:

Top navigation bar (navbar) with application name/logo and navigation links.
Current entry information.
Child categories list (this is present only if the current entry is a category with child categories).
Child items list (this is present only if the current entry is a category with child items).
Batch actions (this is only present if the current entry is a category with child entries).
Recent and Frequent items lists.

The areas of the main viewing display are described in more detail below.

Application Name/Logo

On the left side of the top navbar is the kat application name:

Application Logo

When you click the app name, you will return to your kat home page: either the "Top" Category display (if you are logged in) or the login page (if you are not logged in).

Current Entry Information

Directly below the navbar is information and links for the current Entry. This consists of:

A line showing the Login ID of the Entry's owner, and the parent Categories of the Entry. For the "Top" Category, there are no parent Categories, so only the owner Login ID is shown. For an entry that is nested several categories deep, all of the parent categories are shown:

Click any of the parent category links to view that category.
A line with the name of the Entry, and icons for actions to perform with the current Entry (export, edit, etc.):

These actions will be described later.
The Text description of the Entry (if any).

Child Categories List

The child Categories of the current Category are listed alphabetically:

Child Category List

Click on a category name to view the child Category.

Child Items List

The child Items of the current Category are listed alphabetically:

Child Item List

Notice that the Item name is a hyperlink, and there is also a "view" icon next to the name. If the Item has a URL, clicking the Item name takes you to that URL. If the Item does not have a URL, clicking the name takes you to the kat view for the Item, where you can view and edit the Item's data. Clicking the view icon always takes you to the kat view for the Item.

Batch Actions

You can use the child Entry checkboxes to select multiple child Entries to delete them, change their visibility, or move them to a different parent Category. Batch Actions are described in more detail later.

Recent and Frequent Item Lists

The Recent Items list shows the top 10 most recently viewed Items, and the elapsed time since the last visit. The Frequent Items list shows the top 10 most frequently viewed Items, and the number of visits.

The Recent/Frequent visit statistics are based only on visits from clicking the item links when you are logged into kat. Visits by a guest or any user other than the owner (even yourself if you are not logged in) are not counted towards the statistics.

Clicking the Item name takes you to that URL. Clicking the "view" icon takes you to the kat view for the Item, where you can view and edit the Item's data.

Create Entry

To create a new Entry, click one of the new Entry icons:

New Category
New Item

The Entry creation and editing screen is the same for Categories and Items, except that for Items, there is a URL field. The screen looks like this:

Edit Item

To add an Entry, select the Parent Category for the new Entry and enter a Name. The remaining fields are optional.

If you wish, you can also quickly create new subcategories. For example, let's say you have the hierarchy:

   Top
      Computing
         Database

And you want to add a new Item for the Oracle 10g SQL Reference manual, like this:

   Top
      Computing
         Database
            Oracle
               10g Documentation
                  SQL Reference

You could do this in three steps:

Add the Category for "Oracle".
Add the Category for "10g Documentation".
Add the Item for "SQL Reference".

However, it is simpler to do this in one step: simply add the Item for "SQL Reference", and specify new Subcategories for "Oracle" and "10g Documentation":

Add Item with Subcategories

Unique Names
Entry names must be unique within the same parent category. For example, this is not allowed:

   Top
      Computing
         XML
         XML

However, this is allowed:

   Top
      Computing
         Java
            XML
         Python
            XML

It is legal to have two Entries with the name "XML", because they have different parents.

Edit Entry

To edit an Entry, go to its view display and click the edit icon:

. The Edit Entry screen is the same as the Create Entry screen described above.

Delete Entry

To delete an Entry, go to its view display and click on the delete icon:

Caution: If you delete a Category, this will also delete all of the child Entries (Categories and Items) of that Category. This includes any Entries that have the deleted Category as a direct or indirect parent. For example, if you delete the "Computing" category:

   Top
      Computing
         Java
            XML
               JDOM
      News and Views
         Salon
         Slate

this will delete "Computing", the child Entry "Java", the grandchild "XML", and the great-grandchild "JDOM". This will continue however deeply the child Entries are nested. The "News and Views" Category (and its children) will not be affected, since "News and Views" is not underneath "Computing".

If you want to delete a Category, but preserve some or all of the child Entries under that category, you can do so by moving the child Entries to another parent Category. To move an Entry, go to the edit screen and change its parent Category. You can also move multiple Entries at one time using a Batch Action, described later.

In addition to deleting Entries one at a time with the delete icon/action, you can also delete multiple entries using a Batch Action, described later.

View Tree

To view the tree of all Entries under a Category, go to the Category's view display and click on the tree icon:

. The tree display looks like this:

Tree

Export

You can export any Category (including the "Top" Category) to a text file in Netscape browser bookmark format. This file can then be imported into any compatible browser, or it can be imported into kat itself (see the section on Import, below).

To export a Category, go to the Category's view display and click on the export icon: . You will see the Export screen:

Export

As described on the screen, depending on your browser, you may need to experiment to get the desired behavior from the export screen. If you just click on the "Click here" link, in many cases the exported bookmarks will be displayed in your browser. In most cases, to save the exported file to your computer you need to right-click on the "Click here" link and select the appropriate option to save the file.

Import

You can import browser bookmarks as Entries into any Category, as long as you have a text file in Netscape browser bookmark format. You can get the bookmark file by exporting from your browser or from the kat application itself (see the section on Export, above).

To import into a Category, go to the Category's view display and click on the import icon: . You will see the Import screen:

Import

You can see that there are three fields for Import Files, so you can import up to three files at a time.

Just as when you are creating a new Entry, you need to select the parent Category for the imported Entries. If you wish, you can also specify new Subcategories as well.

Batch Actions

When you are on a Category display page, you can apply a batch action to multiple Entries. Check one or more of the Entry checkboxes, and then click one of the batch action buttons.

Batch Delete

Click the Delete batch action button to delete all of the checked Entries.

Batch Visibility Change

Click the Go button in the Set Visibility batch action section to set the visibility for all of the checked entries. Public and Private visibility are described in detail later.

Batch Move

Click the Move batch action button to initiate moving the selected Entries. The batch move screen will be displayed:

Batch Move

Select the new parent Category. If you wish, you can also specify new Subcategories that will be created as well.

Edit Account

To view or edit your account settings, click on the My Account link in the top navbar. You will see the edit user screen:

Edit User

The screen shows some basic account information (number of logins, etc.) and allows you to change your name, email address, and password.

Note that you cannot change your Login ID, and you cannot delete your account. Contact the system administrator if you need to do either of these things.

Logout

Click the Logout link in the top navbar to log out of the application.

Automatic Logout
If you are logged in to kat and one hour passes with no activity, you will be automatically logged out. If you return to your kat browser session after this logout happens, and you click a link within kat, you will be taken to the login page with a message that you need to login again. The one hour time for the automatic logout is the default; it can be changed by the system administrator.

Reset Password

If you forget your password, click on the link for "Forgot your password?" on the login page:

Reset Password

A new password will be generated and emailed to you.

Bookmarklet

As you are surfing the web and want to add new Items to kat, you can use the kat bookmarklet to do so quickly, without having to cut and paste the URL or site name. To view information about the bookmarklet and install it, click on the Bookmarklet link in the top navbar:

Bookmarklet

Visibility: Public and Private Data

By default, all of your kat Entries are public: anyone can use the "browse" feature (described earlier) to view your Categories and Items.

kat's visibility feature works as follows:

You can set the "Top" Category to either Public or Private visibility.
You can set every other entry besides the "Top" Category to either Inherit or Private visibility. Inherit means that the visibility will be inherited from the Entry's parent Category.

kat's visibility feature offers the flexibility to share (or not share) your Entries as you wish. Here are some ways that you can use the visibility feature:

All Public. Leave the "Top" Category at its default of Public visibility, and leave all other Entries at their default of Inherit visibility. This means that all of your Entries can be viewed by anyone. This is the default if you do not change any visibility settings.
Partly Public. Leave the "Top" Category at its default of Public visibility. Leave some of your Entries at the default of Inherit visibility, and change others to Private visibility. The ones that you have marked as Private can only be seen by you (the owner), they are not visible to the public.
All Private. Change the "Top" Category to Private visibility, and leave all other entries at their default of Inherit visibility. With this setting, all of your Entries are only visible to you (the owner), they are not visible to the public.

When you set an Entry to Private visibility, you will see the privacy icon when the Entry is displayed: Private icon . For example:

Private Item List

Caution: Even though private entries are not visible to the general public, you must still be cautious about what data you store in kat:

All entries, even private ones, are visible to the kat system administrator.
Even though the general public will not be able to see your private entries using the kat application, your data may still be unencrypted on the internet (depending on the site configuration where that kat software is hosted), and thus vulnerable to snooping.
Like any hosted service, kat may be vulnerable to hackers or other intruders.

Here is an example of how you might want to use private Entries. Let's say you create a private Category called "Finance", that has links to the online sites for your bank and brokerage accounts. You have made the Category private, because the list of your financial institutions is not something that you want to be visible to the public, although in most cases it would not be disastrous if a hacker obtained that list. In contrast to the list of bank names, you must not store highly sensitive data such as account numbers, credit card numbers, PIN numbers, and so on.

kat Online Bookmark Manager - Usage Guide

Introduction

Login Page

Create Account

Login

Browse Public Entries

View Entry

Application Name/Logo

Top Navbar Links

Current Entry Information

Child Categories List

Child Items List

Batch Actions

Recent and Frequent Item Lists

Create Entry

Edit Entry

Delete Entry

View Tree

Export

Import

Batch Actions

Batch Delete

Batch Visibility Change

Batch Move

Edit Account

Logout

Reset Password

Bookmarklet

Visibility: Public and Private Data