Onfolio organizes Web research

Mark Gibbs' Web site tips, plus network applications news headlines

I've tried many tools to support researching on the Web and I've finally found one that looks very much like it does everything I need. The tool is Onfolio from the company Onfolio (see links below).

What makes Onfolio different from other tools I have used is that it is very easy to use, provides several ways of capturing and organizing research data, and is well integrated into the browser.

Onfolio creates a new browser explorer bar (that's the optional bar down the left hand side of the browser window) that displays a hierarchical view of your named collections of saved Web content. In a separate window, it lists the items in the currently selected collection.

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I've tried many tools to support researching on the Web and I've finally found one that looks very much like it does everything I need. The tool is Onfolio from the company Onfolio (see links below).

What makes Onfolio different from other tools I have used is that it is very easy to use, provides several ways of capturing and organizing research data, and is well integrated into the browser.

Onfolio creates a new browser explorer bar (that's the optional bar down the left hand side of the browser window) that displays a hierarchical view of your named collections of saved Web content. In a separate window, it lists the items in the currently selected collection.

When you find a Web page you want to keep track of, you can select specific content and save that as a "Snippet." Alternatively, you can save the entire page either as a link or by downloading a copy of the page (Onfolio is smart enough to save all related style sheets, images, and other components to ensure that the page's look-and-feel can be reproduced).

You can flag saved items to denote importance, add comments, add author and copyright details, add keywords, and create custom fields for searching or categorizing.

A feature of Onfolio that is really useful is the ability to share and publish your research. You can send single or multiple items as links, attachments, or as a collection. Alternatively, with the Onfolio Publisher utility that is part of the Onfolio Professional Edition you can create reports and publish them as Web pages to a local drive or by FTP to a remote server, and automatically create an RSS feed.

The minimum configuration required to run Onfolio is a Pentium III or greater with 128M byte RAM running Windows XP, 2000 or 2003 with Internet Explorer 5.5 or later and is priced at $29.95 for the Standard Edition, and $79.95 for the Professional Edition.

This is a great tool - highly recommended.

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Mark Gibbs is a consultant, author, journalist, columnist and blogger.