(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

When I have several puppies installed frugally I find that each distro ends up with different bookmarks depending on what I was researching at the time.

I would really like the ability to have a "global bookmarks list" so that all my bookmarks (from all of my frugal installs and different browsers) get stored on my data partition so that when I corrupt a particular savefile I won't lose access to my vital bookmarks.

Yes, I can export the bookmarks, but how do I combine the various exports from a variety of frugal installs?

I would really like to have a sort of browser plugin that enabled the bookmarks to be saved "live" to a separate partition. If it isn't a browser plugin, maybe there is some method that could be grafted into Puppy itself since many people must have multiple frugal installs and encounter the same problem.

hi greengeek

if your using firefox, you can move the hidden mozilla folder '/root/.mozilla' onto your harddrive/usb and then symlink it back to root (drag and drop and choose link relative) eg..http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkvXafoP ... fvXoLCq23c

it is easy then symlink it into root on all your puppy's or other linux distros, and they will all share the same bookmarks and settings, and changes.

the same should work for other browsers, i believe chrome has settings in /root/.cache/chromium and /root/.config/chromium, opera will probably have a settings folder in root also.

I've read the FireFox bookmarks can put in a truecrypt volume and symlinked ...

http://rayli.net/blog/2010/10/chrome-pr ... truecrypt/

http://freeandsafe.blogspot.com/2005/09 ... le-to.html

But I've yet to try it.

Barkin wrote:I've read the FireFox bookmarks can put in a truecrypt volume and symlinked ...

But I've yet to try it.

Update:

trying it now.
Symlinking to a copy of the firefox directory put in a truecrypt volume seems to do the job: keeps passwords, bookmarks and browsing history secure. Browsing may be slowed by the encryption-decryption.

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Please bear with me while I work through this guys...

Philb, I think I have done the .mozilla move/symlink correctly, and it seems to be working fine so far; but what happens when I try the symlink on other frugals aswell? Presumably those browsers will only see the bookmarks from the .mozilla/donor distro, rather than their own bookmarks.

Which means that I should have moved the .mozilla from the distro that has the fullest bookmarks folder doesn't it.

Hmmm, better go back and do it again.

Barkin: I think I will do some reading about truecrypt before I commit to that method. Do you think it will work across several frugal distros?

greengeek wrote:...I think I have done the .mozilla move/symlink correctly, and it seems to be working fine so far

for some reason symlinking the .mozilla directory did not survive reboot: a new .mozilla directory appeared after the reboot, (lupu 525 running from USB).

Symlinking the .firefox directory within the .mozilla directory does survive rebooting, (I’m using it to write this and have rebooted about 4 times).

The .firefox directory contains the firefox profiles: which includes firefox passwords, bookmarks, cookies, add-ons, and browsing history.

[ do backup your bookmarks and passwords before experimenting ]

Barkin wrote: The .firefox directory contains the firefox profiles: which includes firefox passwords, bookmarks, cookies, add-ons, and browsing history.

Yes, I was researching exactly where these things were kept and it seems to vary between versions of Firefox too. I think this is going to cause me problems, as I use varying versions of Firefox, Seamonkey and Opera on my different frugals.

I was hoping that there might be reasonable compatibility between these browsers, given that they are based on Mozilla, but it's looking like the bookmarks are stored in different ways.

I suspect this will be more difficult than I first thought.

666philb wrote: it is easy then symlink it into root on all your puppy's or other linux distros, and they will all share the same bookmarks and settings, and changes.

I tried this and had mixed success. It seemed to work ok for the first browser, but the second browser (on another frugal) did not pick up the alternative bookmarks. Instead it went into it's "first run" homepage. It had no bookmarks at all. I double checked that I had done the symlinking correctly (and I'm pretty sure I did..) but no joy.

I did notice after I had been playing around a bit that the second browser had multiple session folders inside the .mozilla folder. Almost like the browser had some way of synching its "profile" and would start from first-run if things were not right.

I tried various folder renames and moves and I get the impression that I can manipulate the browser on the second frugal - deleting then reinstalling the .mozilla folder successfully and getting back to a working condition (when I backed it up from it's own .mozilla), but couldn't achieve the same thing when trying to add in the .mozilla from the first browser.

It is as if the bookmarks (or other factor within the .mozilla) are not quite compatible.

Possibly this works fine if identical versions of the browser are used on each frugal, but the main reason I have multiple frugals is to utilise the different performance of the different browsers, for different functions. ie: the best browser/distro for viewing/saving youtube vids is not the same as the best browser/distro for doing my word processing and googling.

I also found a blog entry that talks about GBookmarks - a global bookmarks plugin for Firefox. Trouble is it is tied to Google and I really wanted my bookmarks on the hard drive rather than online (although online would be useful I guess...but I don't trust the privacy policies of Google etc).

http://leosblog.de/how-to-configure-glo ... in-firefox

Also found a very interesting blog about a true global bookmarks concept. Much more involved than I was wanting, but it reflects on the difficulties of handling different methodologies of bookmarking.

http://mail.gnome.org/archives/usabilit ... 00000.html

yeah it will only work for the same browsers..... firefox works with different versions of firefox, i know that

if you're using different browser, one solution is to export your bookmarks as html. save it on the harddrive and then load them into whichever browser you're using. also remembering to save to html again when you change/add anything

Thanks. That looks like it will be useful. I'm surprised though how complex that exported file is. I just viewed it as text and I wonder why it can't be as simple as having a collection of URL hyperlinks?

If it was just hyperlinks I could easily add/combine exported files into a single unit.

It's all so hard!

Oooh, here's something:

http://bookmarkbridge.sourceforge.net/

EDIT:

Nope. Looks like that is not a current solution.

I will try using one browser to import the other browsers exported html files and re-export a (hopefully) blended file.

greengeek wrote: It's all so hard!

An easier way might be to use an online sync service, like Xmarks (browser add-on)

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Yes, I originally liked the sound of xmarks, but then decided I really would prefer an offline store of bookmarks. I'm not sure xmarks support SeaMonkey or Sulfur either. (I did like the name though - "xmarks the spot"

I think an online solution like xmarks or Gbookmarks is probably the only way to achieve my original goal, but now I am going to see what offline methods I can find.

I've just experimented with philb's method of exporting html bookmarks. I exported the bookmarks from Firefox on one distro, then imported them into a different version of Firefox (with completely different bookmarks) on another distro and it worked. I ended up with a bookmarks list that blended both previous lists.

Then I exported that blended list and imported it into a Sulfur browser (also mozilla based) which had no previous bookmarks at all. So now I have all the bookmarks from 2 other frugal distros all transferred across to my new frugal.

Also, I am going to start carrying a copy of those exported html bookmarks on my usb stick so I can reimport them wherever I happen to be browsing.

It's not the realtime solution I would really prefer, but it's ok for now.

Thanks all for the help.

I'm curious greengeek when you said the following

different performance of the different browsers, for different functions. ie: the best browser/distro for viewing/saving youtube vids is not the same as the best browser/distro for doing my word processing and googling.

What versions do you use / recommend for these functions?


Also, speaking of bookmarks, my html bookmarks file seems to be too big for Iron to import (about 1mb). I seem to recall having this same problem with other browsers in the past. What browser I should be using?

TIA

canbyte wrote:speaking of bookmarks, my html bookmarks file seems to be too big for Iron to import (about 1mb). I seem to recall having this same problem with other browsers in the past. What browser I should be using?

Unfortunately I don't have any experience of that issue at all. Hopefully one of the more experienced guys will have some suggestion about that. I wonder if it is a size limit, or a limit on the number of entries, or number of folders perhaps?

canbyte wrote:What versions do you use / recommend for these functions?

OK, please forgive the long post, but here's what I like to use:

Firstly – I prefer to use Puppies in their “Live CD

If you do not mind backing up to the cloud, I use xmarks. It allows me to grab my bookmarks and install them to any machine I choose to. I use it to keep my bookmarks on different machines, as well as to insure that firefox and chrome have identical bookmarks. Xmarks will even work with internet exploiter, so you can sync bookmarks in Windows, Mac and Linux .....

I use an portable browser like opera on an thumbdrive.
just have an desktop link to were the browser is.

Thanks very much for these suggestions.

Greengeek, that was a nice summary (you should submit to wiki or version spec pages) and since I already had a 511 disk, I ran it, loaded Seamonkey (2.0.5) and found that Seamonkey imported all bookmarks successfully. I like Seamonkey although I am missing the wheel click function that allows scrolling without incessant clicking or wheeling. Anybody know how to set that up or is it only available in Windoz or other browsers???



Linuxbear - I browsed some xmark download sites. It looks like one has to install / attach it as an extension to the browsers one is using so I'm confused by your reference to the cloud. Don't think 'cloud' was mentioned on the pages I saw (briefly!) ????