Bookmark Resolver

Open new Bookmark Resolver windows using the Open Resolver command in the Window menu.

Paste a Base-64-encoded Bookmark into the upper text view of the Bookmark Resolver, then click on the Analyse button or press Return to see its contents in the lowest text view. To resolve the Bookmark as well, click on the Resolve button instead. If Precize can resolve the Bookmark data, the middle text box will then display its regular and volfs paths , which you can copy to Terminal or elsewhere. To locate that item after it has been resolved, click on the Reveal in Finder button after resolving the Bookmark, and to preview the document using QuickLook, click on the Preview button.

Bookmarks which are saved in .sfl and .sfl2 files in ~/Library/Application Support/com.apple.sharedfilelist pad the Base-64 data with superfluous spaces, newlines, and tabs. Precize tries to strip those characters from the text pasted in before trying to use it as a Bookmark. It replaces the text that you pasted into the box with the cleaned-up text, so that you can save that as a more concise Bookmark if you wish.

To analyse a Finder Alias file rather than a pasted-in Bookmark, click on the Open file as Base-64 button, select the Alias you want to study and click Open . The contents of the Alias will be converted into Base-64 form and displayed in the top text view, and its contents will be shown in the lowest text view. You don’t need to click on the Analyse button to see this for Aliases. Click on the Resolve button for that Alias to be resolved if possible, and made available for Preview and to Reveal in Finder .

When you Analyse or Resolve a Bookmark or Alias, the lowest text view displays the entire contents of that Bookmark in two formats: first as structured information, and second as the data broken down into its components. These contain a great deal of information beyond the path and volfs paths shown above, and are invaluable for exploring Bookmarks fully. Even when a Bookmark cannot now be resolved (for example, if the path no longer exists and volfs path cannot be found either), this enables you to extract information about the Bookmark when it was created. Change the size of the text used in this view between 4 and 24 points, with the ⌘ + keys to enlarge it, and the ⌘ – keys to reduce it.

When resolving an Alias, if the Refresh data box is ticked, the action of resolving it will update the data in the Alias. If that box is not ticked (default), then the action of resolving it will not update data in the Alias. This allows you to preserve its contents even when the item an Alias points to has moved. It doesn’t of course change any original Bookmark data already saved in a file.

The Reveal in Finder button runs an AppleScript to do its work. If you have disabled AppleScript for any reason, that is not likely to work.

The Preview button has one unexpected side-effect: because of a bug (I think in QuickLook support libraries), it also selects all the text in the lower text window. This is a workaround which I had to introduce, or QuickLook proved unable to find the document.

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