Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Extension data Sync through bookmarks using BSync

I commonly use different computers: two at home and another on the work laptop with different OS. When I want to use some of the extensions shared between these pcs, I must set the same options four times to be updated when I change the machine. This simple task becomes very annoying when you are constantly changing. But imagine that you must bring your full mtg card wishlist (with more than 100 items) from one computer to another...
Fortunately, Google Chrome have a great mechanism to resolve this: Chrome bookmark sync.

I've been looking at the work done by George Papadakis (check it here) and the extension that bringed me to him: All Mangas Reader (by Duhoux Pierre-Louis). They developed the BSync script that I'm using in my own extensions. It allows chrome extensions to sync data helped by Google Chrome Bookmark sync.

To use extension sync you must enable Chrome bookmark synchronization (help here). This feature will create a folder under Other Bookmarks named BSync containing the extension data in files named like "Extension name.xxxxxxxxxxx". Don't delete these generated files!!!
I've taken the All Mangas Reader 5 minutes sync interval (although I'm thinking in make it customizable), that means that the syncing is not instant.

You must know that when the extensions are installed on multiple computers and you enable the sync for the first time, all data on other machines can be overwritten by the newest data. It's recommended to enable sync on one computer only, and when the corresponding file is created under Other Bookmarks -> BSync, enable it on the other computers.

Note that according to the Duhoux Pierre-Louis words, Chrome sync is limited. It allows until 100 updates of bookmarks in a day, so sometimes bookmark sync won't work.

0 comments::

Post a Comment