Bookmark File Location
Bill Martin
where it was easiest for me to share and backup. Now it must live in
the Documents and Settings folder it seems.
Anyhow, I just wanted to comment that it took me an hour to figure
this out. The reason is that FF still has the preference settings in
about:config to allow me to set the location -- but now it ignores
what you tell it.
If Mozilla is going to change the way it works, and ignore
configuration settings, it should at least not show them to you like
it's still using them.
IMHO...
(Now to redesign my entire backup strategy to work around the change.
It was so easy with all my user modified files all in one directory
tree.)
Bill
Fox on the run
> Apparently FF 3 eliminated the ability to put the bookmarks.html file
> where it was easiest for me to share and backup. Now it must live in
> the Documents and Settings folder it seems.
>
> Anyhow, I just wanted to comment that it took me an hour to figure
> this out. The reason is that FF still has the preference settings in
> about:config to allow me to set the location -- but now it ignores
> what you tell it.
>
> If Mozilla is going to change the way it works, and ignore
> configuration settings, it should at least not show them to you like
> it's still using them.
>
> IMHO
>
> It was so easy with all my user modified files all in one directory
> tree.)
>
> Bill
Works here when I tested it. You also have to set the preference
browser.bookmarks.autoExportHTML to True so that FF 3 will
automatically backup your bookmarks to bookmarks.html upon exiting FF
(but not until you exit it). Otherwise it only gets stored in
places.sqlite even if you set your preference. FF 3 does not use
bookmarks.html by default, it stores them in places.sqlite. So FF 3
does not ignore the configuration settings. Unless the setting is not
applicable based on other settings (i.e. exporting to bookmarks.html).
See, you don't have to change your backup strategy. You simply have
to set the other preference. But FF backs up bookmarks anyhow. So
unless you are doing it for reasons beyond redundancy on your local
machine, it's already being done for you and has been the case for
some time now even with version 2.x.
JB
Bill Martin
-----------------------
I did play with that. So far as I could tell, that did indeed export
the bookmarks. However that's useless as it does not automatically
import them. So when I copy them to other computers during backup,
those computers don't actually use those bookmarks unless you manually
import them somehow - that step wasn't clear, but I didn't look at it
very long as that approach was dead on arrival IMHO.
This was reported as a bug on Mozilla and there's a long string of
back and forth argument for months with the final result that the bug
was closed with no intent to fix it as that would slow down the new
method. They would not ever add a parameter to store the new bookmark
DB out to a selected location. (People in universities are desparate
to be able to store their bookmarks on a USB disk, rather than public
machines.)
The solution, so far as I can tell, is to create the entire profile
out on the subdirectory that gets backed up. This now allows me to
remotely access the profile from another computer which is what I was
actually after in the first place. It just carries along 99% junk for
me to get the 1% I wanted.
Bill
Fox on the run
That scenario is a bit different than what I first thought you were
wanting to do.
Do you mean creating a profile on a thumb drive? That would be the
best solution for a student so long as the PC they are using will
permit starting FF with the switch to select the profile on the
removable drive. Then your bookmarks are always with you, as is your
history and all your other personal/private activities that you
wouldn't want to leave on a public computer anyhow. Using this method
you are not having to backup/restore bookmarks as you go from computer
to computer. You simply start FF with the switch to use the profile
on the thumb drive and you are good to go, complete with your
about:config settings as well so that your own preferred settings are
used rather than the one on whatever machine you happen to be using at
the time. With your practice using FF 2 (as far as I can tell), after
you walked away from the public PC, unless you deleted your bookmarks
that you copied over, you left them behind for anyone else to see
them. Not the ideal privacy situation. FF 2 also supported profiles
on removable drives causing all that profile's activity to go to the
removable drive.
JB
Bill Martin
-----------------------------------
All I've been doing is running three computers on a home network. Once
a week I back them up on each other and I expect whatever changes I've
made to my bookmarks on #1 to propagate out to #2 & #3 and be used
automatically.
Very simple to do with FF2. Simple enough on FF3 once one realizes
fundamental changes have been made silently.
Bill
Jay Garcia
--- Original Message ---
The bookmarks are kept in an sql database which is encrypted and cannot
be read. The usual bookmarks.html file will show up as blank if read.
However, to bypass this, do about:config in the address window and then
type: browser.bookmarks.autoExportHTML and then change from "false" to
"true" by double-clicking the line. The bookmarks.html file will now be
always populated.
--
Jay Garcia - Netscape/Flock Champion
www.ufaq.org
Netscape - Flock - Firefox - Thunderbird - Seamonkey Support
Jay Garcia
--- Original Message ---
Yes, I know this was mentioned previously but I just wanted to stress
that it does work after which you can treat the bookmarks.html file as
usual, etc.
Fox on the run
>
> All I've been doing is running three computers on a home network. Once
> a week I back them up on each other and I expect whatever changes I've
> made to my bookmarks on #1 to propagate out to #2 & #3 and be used
> automatically.
>
> Very simple to do with FF2. Simple enough on FF3 once one realizes
> fundamental changes have been made silently.
>
> Bill
I can appreciate that it has been a frustrating experience. But in
all fairness I wouldn't say the changes were done silently. I was
following the coming of FF 3 by reading the changes that were coming.
I do recall noting that everything was going to a sqlite database back
end. So it was not in silence at all. It was openly documented in
the project page. Granted most users likely will never visit those
pages nor would they have to visit them. But if you are tweaking FF
outside of the normal menu preferences (i.e. going into about:config),
you are into the power user realm and therefore should read the
project page of a new release to see how the changes may improve/
hinder your power user experience. That change caused you some grief
because of how you were using it. However for a very large percentage
of users I expect it caused no problems at all. The benefits realized
for the vast majority of users by taking this new approach makes it a
justifiable change in how bookmarks are managed.
As I noted in another posting on this issue, this new way of storing
bookmarks allows FF 3 to not only look at your history when you start
typing something in the address bar in order to present you with a
list of previously visited sites matching your text in the address
bar, but also present you with any bookmarks you have that match that
text. And contrary to before where it only matched from the beginning
of the string, now it matches it anywhere in the string. So if you
previously signed into your bank's login screen (or have it as a
bookmark) and the URL is something like https://www.mybank.com/login/index.asp,
previously you had to start typing https://www.my before you'd hit
that URL, and only if it was previously visited. Now with FF 3 you
can simply type any part of that URL (login, or bank would be two that
would be a bit more unique vs other sites in your list) and it would
provide you with that URL in your list of choices as you are typing.
Now if you want to go to that site and it's bookmarked, you start FF 3
and simply start typing bank and it will show up in your list of
choices. Very convenient once you realize the potential of this
feature. But one of the trade-offs is for someone who was using it
like yourself it changes how you have to do things to achieve your
desired results.
JB
Christian Riechers
> All I've been doing is running three computers on a home network. Once
> a week I back them up on each other and I expect whatever changes I've
> automatically.
>
> Very simple to do with FF2. Simple enough on FF3 once one realizes
> fundamental changes have been made silently.
>
> Bill
To keep bookmarks in sync on different computers or just for different
FF profiles Foxmarks works fine for me:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2410
If you're willing to experiment a little more then you may also try
Weave from Mozilla Labs:
http://labs.mozilla.com/projects/weave/
When it comes to syncing data beyond bookmarks, more information can be
found here:
http://lifehacker.com/software/hack-attack/maintain-a-consistent-workspace-across-multiple-computers-293846.php
--
Christian
Bill Martin
<J...@JayNOSPAMGarcia.com> wrote:
>On 02.08.2008 07:49, Jay Garcia wrote:
>
> --- Original Message ---
>
>> The bookmarks are kept in an sql database which is encrypted and cannot
>> be read. The usual bookmarks.html file will show up as blank if read.
>>
>> However, to bypass this, do about:config in the address window and then
>> type: browser.bookmarks.autoExportHTML and then change from "false" to
>> "true" by double-clicking the line. The bookmarks.html file will now be
>> always populated.
>>
>>
>
>Yes, I know this was mentioned previously but I just wanted to stress
>that it does work after which you can treat the bookmarks.html file as
>usual, etc.
-----------------------------
Automatically saving the bookmarks is only half the problem Jay. The
other half is automatically reading them.
Anyhow, as I mentioned, the solution for me is to store the entire
profile out on the subdirectory I specify rather than just the
bookmark file. It works.
Bill
Bill Martin
--------------------------------------------
Foxmarks is an interesting add-on Christian. Thanks for pointing it
out.
Bill
Ron Hunter
significant update, to those of us with home networks who would like to
be able to use Firefox profiles across the LAN, without going through a
lot of gory details to make this work. I know it can be done, because I
have done it with Thunderbird, but it was so confusing that I gave up
trying to get it working for Firefox.
I, personally, like the 'awesome bar', but I also wish it could pick up
the Google site inquires and reference those as well. Maybe an extension?
Ron Hunter
bookmarks file, but when I rearranged the order of bookmarks, or moved
them to another location on my bookmarks toolbar, it seemed to get lost.
At that point, I gave up on it. Perhaps, someday, I will try, again, to
set Firefox up to share the profile across the LAN, or, somewhat
simpler, just set up a batch file to copy the profile across each time I
start Firefox, IF I can determine which is the latest version with a
batch file....
If anyone has done this, and can tell me how to do it, reliably, then I
would be happy, indeed.
»Q«
Ron Hunter <rphu...@charter.net> wrote:
> I, personally, like the 'awesome bar', but I also wish it could pick
> up the Google site inquires and reference those as well. Maybe an
> extension?
I'm not sure, but I think the Show Keywords extension may do what you
want. It's sandboxed, but I haven't had any trouble with it.
<https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/7755/>
Jay Garcia
--- Original Message ---
> On Sat, 02 Aug 2008 07:53:34 -0500, Jay Garcia
> <J...@JayNOSPAMGarcia.com> wrote:
>
>>On 02.08.2008 07:49, Jay Garcia wrote:
>>
>> --- Original Message ---
>>
>>> The bookmarks are kept in an sql database which is encrypted and cannot
>>> be read. The usual bookmarks.html file will show up as blank if read.
>>>
>>> However, to bypass this, do about:config in the address window and then
>>> type: browser.bookmarks.autoExportHTML and then change from "false" to
>>> "true" by double-clicking the line. The bookmarks.html file will now be
>>> always populated.
>>>
>>>
>>
>>Yes, I know this was mentioned previously but I just wanted to stress
>>that it does work after which you can treat the bookmarks.html file as
>>usual, etc.
> -----------------------------
>
> Automatically saving the bookmarks is only half the problem Jay. The
> other half is automatically reading them.
>
> Anyhow, as I mentioned, the solution for me is to store the entire
> profile out on the subdirectory I specify rather than just the
> bookmark file. It works.
>
> Bill
What do you mean "by reading them"? Once the preference is "true", the
bookmarks.html file is just like it was in previous versions.
Fox on the run
I haven't tested it, but there is a second preference called
browser.places.importBookmarksHTML
that probably also has to be enabled to work both ways. The name of
the other preference suggests that it's only for exporting. Whereas
this one suggests it's for importing. Like I said, I haven't tested
it but the names certainly suggests that behaviour. That could be
easily tested by not enabling the second option I've noted herein, and
then manually editing bookmarks.html while FF is not running and then
restarting FF to see if the manual changes you made are visible in
your bookmarks. I may be wrong but I'm pretty certain that FF3 will
continue to use places.sqlite even with either of these options
enabled. Hence why it would have to both export and import in order
to sync.
JB
Bill Martin
<J...@JayNOSPAMGarcia.com> wrote:
Not true Jay. Try it and you'll see. It saves out the html file each
time it loads the new bookmarks data base file, but it doesn't read
from that html - only from the new data base file.
Set up two FF profiles. Start #1 and bookmark something. Then take
that html file and save it under the #2 profile subdirectory. When
you start up FF#2, you won't see that new bookmark.
Bill
»Q«
Bill Martin <martin_...@verizon.net> wrote:
> >>>> and then type: browser.bookmarks.autoExportHTML and then change
> >>>> from "false" to "true" by double-clicking the line. The
> >>>> bookmarks.html file will now be always populated.
>
> It saves out the html file each time it loads the new bookmarks data
> base file, but it doesn't read from that html - only from the new
> data base file.
>
> Set up two FF profiles. Start #1 and bookmark something. Then take
> that html file and save it under the #2 profile subdirectory. When
> you start up FF#2, you won't see that new bookmark.
reg (squaredancer) said he had gotten Fx to read the bookmarks.html
each startup by setting browser.places.importBookmarksHTML to "true" in
the firefox.js file. I could never get it to work, but you might
search for his posts about it.
Jay Garcia
--- Original Message ---
The .export means that it writes the contents of the places.sqlite to
boomarks.html (exports), which then populates bookmarks.html file and
can be read/exported/written-to, etc.
Jay Garcia
--- Original Message ---
Yes it is "true", tried it many times and it works as intended. What is
meant by "just like in previous versions" is that it populates the
bookmarks.html file which CAN be read by FILE => Open File =>
Bookmarks.html. That's what I mean by " ... previous version", maybe
you're meaning something else. I didn't say that when you click on
"bookmarks" or click on a particular "bookmark" in the toolbar that it
opens from that bookmarks.html file.
Fox on the run
> >>bookmarks.html file is just like it was in previous versions.
>
> > Not true Jay. Try it and you'll see. It saves out the html file each
> > time it loads the new bookmarks data base file, but it doesn't read
> > from that html - only from the new data base file.
>
> > Set up two FF profiles. Start #1 and bookmark something. Then take
> > that html file and save it under the #2 profile subdirectory. When
> > you start up FF#2, you won't see that new bookmark.
>
> > Bill
>
> Yes it is "true", tried it many times and it works as intended. What is
> meant by "just like in previous versions" is that it populates the
> bookmarks.html file which CAN be read by FILE => Open File =>
> Bookmarks.html. That's what I mean by " ... previous version", maybe
> you're meaning something else. I didn't say that when you click on
> "bookmarks" or click on a particular "bookmark" in the toolbar that it
> opens from that bookmarks.html file.
>
> --
> Jay Garcia - Netscape/Flock Championwww.ufaq.org
> Netscape - Flock - Firefox - Thunderbird - Seamonkey Support
Clearly both of you have a different definition of what it means to
work like the old version of FF. The one that matters is the
definition being used by the one who first started the discussion,
Bill. Because if it doesn't work by his standards, then it has not
solved his original problem. The solution that both myself and
someone else suggested setting the import bookmarks about:config entry
will most likely yield the results you seek, Bill. While FF is
running, it will use places.sqlite. And any changes to bookmarks made
during the session will be made to places.sqlite. But upon closing FF
it will write it all to bookmarks.html. When FF starts, if I
understand the preference correctly it will read in bookmarks.html
upon startup (although I don't know if it will overwrite existing
bookmarks in places.sqlite with bookmarks.html, or simply append -
testing required to determine this and to see if it will create
duplicate entries). If it does behave as expected, it should qualify
as "working" according to Bill's expectations.
Bill can you test the import bookmarks preference in addition to the
export one and let us know if it works as expected/desired? With
three machines that you are trying to sync you have a real world
scenario to test this out.
JB
Fox on the run
I decided to give it a test run on a single system. I set both the
export and import preferences. It exports no problem. I went in and
made a change to the bookmarks.html file and restarted FF. It did not
import it automatically. And if I went and manually imported it from
the Organize Bookmarks, it created duplicate entries which is very
undesirable. Fortunately my test machine only had about 5 folders so
cleaning up the problem was easy. Alternatively I could have deleted
all my bookmarks from within FF and re-imported bookmarks.html so that
I would have restored my bookmarks without any duplicates. I'm
wondering if the import preference is something that kicks in when
places.sqlite doesn't exist (i.e. a preference used the first time you
start FF). If so, it could still be accomplished by creating a batch
file to start FF on the other machines that would delete places.sqlite
on startup so that the bookmarks.html would be imported. But if you
are getting into that, probably just as easy to simply copy
places.sqlite recognizing that you are also copying other information
such as the browser history. In such a case it might be desirable to
clear those settings on exist so that your browsing history is not
copied over. Imagine the potential embarrassment if someone on one of
the other machines starts typing the word "title" in the address bar.
After typing the first three letter sites in the history from the
other machine which has been copied to this machine presents a list
of sites in the drop down list that was not meant to be viewed by that
person.
If you are looking at sharing bookmarks, why not use an online system
such as Google Bookmarks or any other such service? This way you can
contribute to the bookmarks from all three machines or any other
machine for that matter, and the latest set of bookmarks will always
be accessible from any of those three machines or any other Internet
machine. Between home and work PCs I've accumulated a mix and match
of bookmarks. I just started looking at online bookmarks after
reading your posting and realized that it made much more sense to drop
my privacy inhibitions and make the jump to online bookmarks. Sure I
may be providing a bit of marketing information to this service by way
of indicating my interests, but I have nothing that would embarrass me
if it was ever inadvertently shared with the world. Take the attitude
that whatever you put there should not embarrass you if some day it
ended up being publicly shared. For things more sensitive (i.e. if
you don't want people to know you are using dating sites, or that you
are reading up on a particular illness you may have) you simply don't
put it online.
JB
Bill Martin
----------------------
---------------------------
I did try all that export/import stuff before originally posting. And
the auto import doesn't work on my system. That's not to say I did
everything right, but I did the obvious things which have been
mentioned.
As said, the solution that works for me is to tell FF to store its
entire profile out in a subdirectory that I can backup, copy to other
systems and use there without manual interventiion. It's not pretty,
but it works transparently and I'm content with it.
The business of putting my personal stuff out on someone else's server
is not a solution which appeals to me. I can see it's value, but I
don't personally like it. If the add-in allowed me to use my own
server that would be an attractive solution to me. Reading through
the comments out on that add-in site though it appears one can't
really make it work that way.
Bill
Fox on the run
> I did try all that export/import stuff before originally posting. And
> the auto import doesn't work on my system. That's not to say I did
> everything right, but I did the obvious things which have been
> mentioned.
>
> As said, the solution that works for me is to tell FF to store its
> entire profile out in a subdirectory that I can backup, copy to other
> systems and use there without manual interventiion. It's not pretty,
> but it works transparently and I'm content with it.
>
> The business of putting my personal stuff out on someone else's server
> is not a solution which appeals to me. I can see it's value, but I
> don't personally like it. If the add-in allowed me to use my own
> server that would be an attractive solution to me. Reading through
> the comments out on that add-in site though it appears one can't
> really make it work that way.
>
> Bill
Are you running Windows or Linux systems? Would it be an option to
set up a shared folder on one of the systems and then set up a task on
the primary system to sync the profile folder to it at a given time,
and 5 minutes later have the two other systems run a task to sync the
content of their local profile folder with the one in the shared
folder? You could set this task daily, hourly, or as you see
appropriate. I know for myself I don't bookmark too frequently unless
I happen to be digging into something new (i.e. develop an interest in
a new hobby or researching something for work or school). Outside of
that my bookmarks are reasonably static on a day to day basis. So
synching them on a daily basis should serve most people's needs.
Alternatively you could set up a web server on your primary machine.
Set up FF to export bookmarks to html to a custom file location. That
location would be the home folder for the web server. So anytime you
access the web server, it opens up bookmarks.html. This way all your
bookmarking is done on one machine, and your other machines access it
via your internal network server. As long as you don't open up
incoming port 80 on your router, you are not vulnerable to connections
to it from the outside world.
For a MS Windows system check out http://www.wampserver.com/en/. I've
tried it and it appears to work well. It's not a big download
either. WAMP of course is Windows Apache MySQL PHP server (vs LAMP in
the Linux world). For Linux systems, it's even easier seeing you can
easily install Apache on any of the common distros out there.
JB
Bill Martin
-----------------
It's windows based, and what you're describing is what I'm already
doing. It used to work because I could set the bookmarks to store out
on a specific subdirectory that I made available to other machines
when I synch. FF3 killed that.
As I've said, the problem is resolved by placing the entire profile
out in that specified subdirectory.
Bill
Jay Garcia
--- Original Message ---
> As I've said, the problem is resolved by placing the entire profile
> out in that specified subdirectory.
>
> Bill
What works best is what works best for you, 'nuff said. What works best
here is the default handling with the prefs addition to export, syncing
and all.