Hi Marcel
I guess this app is for saving web-adresses and adding tags to them. I think it would be useful. I have not used this app previously. I installed it but could not find out what to do with it. The user interface was not intuitive. Is there a manual somewhere?
I don’t know if it makes sense for me to fill out the survey, since I have the app installed though but hardly ever use it. The main reason for this is that I can’t sync the tags with Firefox, so I have everything organized in folders anyway. Also, I always found it a bit “clunky” UI wise, but as I said, haven’t really used it for a while, so can’t really say anything well founded about it!
What I do appreciate very much though, is Floccus! I use it on multiple devices with Firefox and the Android app on my mobile phone. Finally an app that is decent to use on a phone! A big Thank You to @marcelklehr for making that possible!
I tried to install it on my two servers. (both NC21.0.8 - one is Ubuntu18, php7.3 , the other Ubuntu20 php8.0). On both servers I just get a blank page. At one moment I got some menue-items but missed a button for adding new Bookmarks. Sorry. It does not work for me.
So, let me sum up the feedback gathered in these surveys here a bit.
Nextcloud Bookmarks
78% of participants use the app at least once a month. 38% at least once a week. 67% of participants are expert users.
Praise
85% would recommend the app to a friend.
“I can easily keep everything in one place and in sync across multiple devices” (13x)
“Easy to sort, better interface than the native browser, long descriptions and notes, appears in my unified search.”
“Import of my existing bookmarks was easy. Simply works and does what it should in Nextcloud”
Selfhosted and central
“The content fetching is great.” (2x)
“Tags + folders helps me organize the way I want”
“Ease of use, accessible in all environments”
“public sharing of a folder”
“Tags” (3x)
“Ping for older bookmarks is pretty good - Broken links.” (2x)
“Having it on Nextcloud environment”
“Most importantly: it just works and requires literally zero maintenance! I love it!”
"It was easy to import my existing bookmarks (I have a lot). "
Criticism
Bugs
“after having imported my bookmarks into Nextcloud, the ordering of my bookmarks has been lost. That’s very frustrating. Please add this feature and allow me to order bookmarks with right click menu options to “Move Up” and “Move Down” the list.”
“Sorting by date. It doesn’t work for me.”
I will investigate these reports and try to fix them if I can replicate them.
Missing Features
“Another feature that would be very handy is to have a rolling snapshot backup so that I import my bookmarks from a previous period in time. This was a great feature in EverSync especially in the event something goes wrong with sync and as a result I lose some bookmarks.”
Given the problems some people have with syncing, I’m reconsider implementing a built-in backup functionality.
“Lack of easy integration into Android Chrome browser”
"The phone app space is confusing I admit. Options and inconsistent ones across Android and iOS. "
“I’d love to see a better integration in browsers (Safari, Firefox, Chrome)”
“Ich würde die Ordner gerne in der Navi Leiste links sehen” (transl. “I’d like to see the folders in the left navigation bar”)
That’s also something I’m looking into.
“Share individual bookmarks”
I’m not sure how useful this would be. Maybe you could elaborate more on why you need this? Wouldn’t simply sharing the bookmarked link directly e.g. via copy paste be easier?
Tags
“Tags are hard to find, (in the Nextcloud Web interface)”
This has been improved in recent versions. There’s now a “New Tag” menu entry prominently displayed and tags can be added to bookmarks via drag and drop.
“Tags? Are they meant to be like folders?”
Well, I’m not sure how to tackle this one.
UX
"did not find the feature that allowed me to scan all my bookmarks for 404s. "
Fixed and pending release, menu entries will now always be visible, even if there’s no bookmarks for that view.
“it’s not clear how to use the various options to have the preview!”
I’ll try to improve this.
“Bookmarks & bookmark folders in nextcloud usually have no title or thumbnail, just blank, or a number. I really can’t browse them.”
This is likely a case of disabled Network access. I’m open for suggestions on how to make this more obvious.
“The nextcloud requirement. Such a large beast for only a few features I use.”
C’est la vie.
“When I add a bookmark it opens the righthand side panel, which makes adding several bookmarks in a row very cumbersome.”
Fixed in the latest versions.
“It’s very clunky to manage bookmarks using the bookmarks app. i have almost no reason to manage my bookmarks with the app. However it’s very handy when used with Floccus and browser’s native bookmark management.”
I’ve been trying to improve user experience recently.
“Changing the url of a bookmark needs many clicks”
" If the web app UI would be a little bit more intuitive I might use it more often - but the main point here rather is: I don’t really need it…"
“Storing a copy of the page like wallabag, so i have a copy when the website is taken down”
Already built-in, network access is required, though.
“Pocket-like ease of use.”
Well, that’s what I’m aiming for, but help is always appreciated!
Data corruption
“There was one bug which led to the deletion of all bookmarks. That was very frustrating.”
Yes, there was once a faulty update that corrupted bookmarks. Very regrettable, especially for the person responsible. Measures have been taken to prevent this in the future.
“Floccus often doesn’t work with it, and has corrupted my entire bookmarks folder (ZFS backed, restored from snapshot) and has failed to sync many times.”
A small minority of users is reporting syncing problems that I haven’t been able to reproduce sp far. I’d be happy about collaborating with someone on fixing this.
"The fact that is doesn’t work. Floccus get confused and duplicates folders/bookmarks, missing bookmarks adding duplicates. "
See above.
Performance
“The CPU/dB runaway which can only be eliminated bt deleting all bookmarks form the Bookmarks app and disabling the Nexcloud Bookmarks app.”
Similarly, a small minority is reporting performance issues that I’ve been unable to replicate, but am working to figure out.
Feedback that was unintelligable, had unclear wording or out of scope was not considered.
Floccus
74% of participants have installed floccus on between 2 and 5 devices.
70% have installed the floccus on firefox, 40% on chrome, and 30% are testing the Android app.
93% are using Nextcloud Bookmarks to sync floccus.
76% are mostly satisfied with the graphical user interface.
63% are satisfied with the syncing experience.
Praise
“Its core function to keep bookmarks in multiple systems up to date” (9x)
“Easy and reliable” (5x)
“Tabs feature”
“Regular improvements to functionality”
“Works with Nextcloud, setup once forget it.”
Criticism
Bugs
“Order of bookmark is not synced and so floccus is not usable for me”
I’ve heard this from some people but cannot replicate it, I’m happy to take a look if someone wants to cooperate.
“It tends to delete new folders. Sometimes it duplicates them. I cannot find a pattern to reproduce.”
I’ve since identified an edge case that can produce duplicates when closing the browser while syncing. This will be fixed in the next release.
"Frequent sync errors cancelling sync. At least once per week. "
This can happen after closing the browser while syncing. This will be fixed in the next release.
“Fails and then never works again.”
That’s regrettable, I can’t do much without proper bug reports, though.
“Frustrated by losing bookmarks, when moving them between folders. Also always hoping that the sync of fresh added bookmarks will not instead overwrite them with the former list of bookmarks (removing them)”
“I’ve encountered a number of times when Floccus fails to sync correctly.”
UX
“It wiped several folders of bookmarks in the past due to unclear wording - it’s better now, but I’m always nervous.”
I’ve been approached with regards to a few wording issues and have fixed them since. As always: If you have a suggestion, feel free to send me a mail or open an issue on github. <3
“User interface wasn’t intuitive on Firefox”
Sorry to hear that, I’ve worked quite hard to make it more intuitive, I’d love more detailed feedback on how it’s unintuitive.
“error messages are not often helpful.”
This is indeed a problem. In general when the error message is not helpful to you, this is an indicator that a bug report is in order. I’ll try to make this more clear going forward.
“There was one bookmark version which lead to a total lost of all bookmarks. That lost was also synced by floccus.”
Yes. Very regrettable outcome. There has since been implemented a failsafe that prevents this from happening again.
“I feel there are more features, but I’m not clear on what they are”
Are there?
New Features
“easier method to choose wich folder to exclude”
“I would love to see more syncing options like Firefox Sync.”
Android App
“Android app doesn’t feel ready for primetime”
Indeed, that’s why it’s set to open beta testing.
“Browser extensions work with selfsigned SSL certs, but android app refuses to sync at all.”
That is indeed a known issue, which I’ll work on.
All in all, I’m thankful for everyone’s feedback. The results have been quite illuminating and I hope to improve on the points that were mentioned under criticism.
I’m happy you find the App useful even though it’s quite young. Thanks for the feedback!