WebQuick

I first learned of WebQuick's existence through Don Crabb's column in MacWeek; he considers it to be the one "must-have" internet utility. WebQuick is being developed by Europa Software, which was formed by the Now Utilities 5.0 development team. I quickly downloaded it from Europa Software's site. After using it for only two days, I have to agree that it is very, very useful. Like CyberFinder, it too comes in the form of an extension that integrates the utility into the Mac's interface (but not just the Finder). However, WebQuick is more like a URL Manager Pro which is always running and is always available in any application through a menu icon, automatically keeping track of sites you've visited, facilitating the categorization of those sites into what are called "topics," and allowing you to go to any of these places with merely a wave of your finger. It also appends its menu items to those of the pop-up menu in your favorite web browser. People familiar with Now Menus 4 and 5 will instantly see resemblances. Because of its greater integration into the Mac's interface, WebQuick is easier to use than URL Manager Pro, but this comes at the expense of some RAM (256K to 500K) and compatibility (I quickly discovered that pulling down the WebQuick menu in Eudora Pro 3 causes an "unknown mailbox" error). Unlike URL Manager Pro and CyberFinder, it is exclusively web-oriented: it will not store URLs for ftp sites, e-mail addresses, gopher locations, etc.

How it works:

As mentioned before, WebQuick installs a menu instantly available from any application. The program will automatically track all of your activities on the WorldWideWeb without any intervention required on your part.

The interface:

The WebQuick menu is divided into different sections: there is a "a recent web pages" submenu which lists up to 1000 sites or "pagemarks" visited by you (this number is specified by you in the "Preferences." Like URL Manager Pro, WebQuick provides you with a certain number of permanent pagemarks, for searches, guides, computing, people lookup, etc. The next section specifies, depending on what you choose in the preferences, "Topics" or "Sites."

Sites

Topics are categories (established by you) for the sites you visit. Sites is a unique feature of WebQuick: let's say that you visit the MacWeek site every once in a while. One page may be the reviews index and have a URL of http://www.macweek.com/reviews.html, while the features can be found at http://www.macweek.com/features.html. While both will be listed under "recent web pages" in the exact order in which you visited them (most recent first), sites will arrange them by site.

Topics

WebQuick probably offers the easiest way for you to categorize the world wide web sites that you have visited. Browsing through your "recent web pages" menu, you simply highlight the site that you wish to categorize and press the letter "t" on your keyboard. Up pops a dialog box offering you your pre-configured choice of topics. You choose one, and the site is automatically added to that topic. As the web advertisement for WebQuick says, this takes about 3 seconds.

Browser

Everyone should be familiar with the popup menu available in one's web browser: holding down the mouse button will cause a menu to appear which allows one to navigate, copy a link to the clipboard, download the link, etc. As if having its menu in the menu bar were too far away, WebQuick modifies your browser's popup menu so that topics, sites, and recently visited pagemarks are available here too.

General

Pagemarks can be removed from anywhere by highlighting them and hitting the delete key; similarly, holding down the "s" will show you when you last visited the site, and "p" will give you the URL. Under "recent web pages," hitting the spacebar will transform these transient pagemarks into permanent ones and place them at the top of the list. Here is a summary .

Conclusion

WebQuick is indeed a very useful utility-- one that makes the cataloguing of bookmarks easier than with any other program. It is available for a short time for $19 directly from Europa Software. I'm still not sure that it's a "must-have," however. For one, it currently has a significant disadvantage: it cannot import Netscape bookmarks, so that its "topics" list must be constructed from scratch. The designers say that this feature is high on their list to be implemented. Secondly, WebQuick, as the name indicates, is only oriented toward the web, and thus ignores ftp and telnet (the two most significant omission in my opinion). If these shortcomings seem serious to you, yet you still the tight integration offered by an extension, I would recommend Aladdin's CyberFinder. I remain partial to URL Manager Pro because of its more general abilities and lower risk of causing system crashes through conflicts.