Similar to an entry in a list of bookmarks, URL objects provide direct access to an object not contained in the current folder but located somewhere on the web, on an FTP server, News server etc. A URL object may also be used to access a BSCW object in another folder or workspace on the same server.

A URL object basically consists of its name and its address, e.g., http://bscw.fit.fraunhofer.de/bscw_help-4.1/english/. You may enter these in a form when you create a URL object by clicking  File    New    URL   . URL objects may also be created automatically from the search result page of a Web search: Copy them to your clipboard and then paste them into a folder.

The special action menu entries for URL objects are:
 verify   checks the availability of a URL;
 fetch   stores the (HTML-)contents of a URL in your workspace;
 rate   lets you rate the quality of the document or the object referenced by the URL on a 5-point scale (see 3.3.4.2).

These actions help manage the links within your workspace or across the Web and support their shared utilization.