Closed Bug 52431 Opened 24 years ago Closed 13 years ago

Optionally synchronize bookmarks with bookmarks/favorites of another browser

Categories

(SeaMonkey :: Bookmarks & History, enhancement, P3)

enhancement

Tracking

(Not tracked)

RESOLVED WORKSFORME
Future

People

(Reporter: mpt, Unassigned)

References

Details

This came out of bug 22642. Mozilla should provide the option of synchronizing its bookmarks with the bookmarks/favorites/hotlist/whatever of another browser. This would be an improvement over the compulsory `Imported [sic] IE Favorites' folder which currently exists in the Bookmarks list. Assuming that one day Mozilla is going to be stable enough to run forever, this means the following things. * There should be stuff in the prefs dialog which looks something like this: [*] Synchronize Mozilla bookmarks with: [Netscape Communicator (bob) :^] (where `Bob' is the name of the Netscape Communicator profile) * When Mozilla starts up, if the pref is turned on, it should: - read the bookmarks of the other browser - if the other-browser bookmarks were not able to be read, show a warning dialog and continue without changing the Mozilla bookmarks - if the other-browser bookmarks were empty and the Mozilla bookmarks list is not, ask whether the user wants to clear their Mozilla bookmarks too, or continue with their current Mozilla bookmarks - update the Mozilla bookmarks to reflect the other-browser bookmarks (without losing Mozilla-specific information such as encoding, style sheet, etc). * Whenever a change is made to Mozilla bookmarks, Mozilla should make equivalent changes to the other-browser bookmarks. * On OSes which support listening to files/folders, Mozilla should listen for changes to the other-browser bookmarks, and immediately update the Mozilla bookmarks to match. On OSes which don't support such listening, Mozilla should check for changes every x minutes, where x is roughly 5. The exact protocols here would need to be fine-tuned so that it is possible for Mozilla and another browser to synchronize with each other in the same way, without causing undesirable results (such as unexpectedly empty bookmarks, or a dining philosophers problem).
The obvious first option for this would be to synchronize with the OS's own favorites folder (e.g. C:\Windows\Favorites\ or Macintosh HD:System Folder:Favorites).
Reassigning 79 Bookmarks bugs to Ben. I was told this was going to be done shortly about two months ago, but it clearly hasn't been. I think that's long enough for all these bugs to remain assigned to nobody. Feel free to filter all this spam into the trashcan by looking for this string in the message body: ducksgoquack
Assignee: slamm → ben
i think this would be a valuable feature. Particulaly the ability to syncronize bookmarks within Mozilla/Netscape itself. There must be many people who wished they could syncronize the collected bookmarks at home and at work on a weekly/monthly basis. This may be going too far, but it would be even better if one could selct which bookmarks folders where synchrinized. That way, one could select to synchronize bookmark folders like "Computers", "Search Engines" and "General"; and exclude things like: "Family", "Private/Secret", MyCompanie's Confidential Stuff", etc. This needn't be limited to bookmarks, it could apply to Mozilla/Netscape address books too. This is a feature that is sorely missing from ANY browser.
Netscape Nav triage team: this is not a Netscape beta stopper.
Keywords: nsbeta1-
Marking nsbeta1- bugs as future to get off the radar.
Target Milestone: --- → Future
Paul Chen is now taking Bookmarks bugs. For your convenience, you can filter email notifications caused by this by searching for 'ilikegoats'.
Assignee: ben → pchen
mass reassign of pchen bookmark bugs to ben
Assignee: pchen → ben
Blocks: 120814
*** Bug 177860 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Why make it optional, users see favorites or bockmarks as system whide so mozilla / firebird should always be synchronize. I acidental deleted my latest favorites (deleted the profile to have a clean install) becouse i forgot that mozilla didn't use the favorites folder :(
And please make it generic enough so that it also works with KDE and Gnome bookmarks :)
Take it simple! Give the user a switch to use the IE bookmarks. Because IE bookmarks are one file for each bookmark. So it's very simple to synchronize between many computers (I use 3, Windows and Mac OS X) by use of Offline Folders (Windows) or sync tools (on Mac). If you have one file with all bookmarks it's very hard to synchronise many computers if the file has changed on more then one computer! Import of bookmarks sucks.
Mass reassign of my non-Firefox bugs to ben_seamonkey@hotmail.com
Assignee: bugs → ben_seamonkey
*** Bug 250203 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Product: Browser → Seamonkey
Another thing is why not implement a method for doing bookmarks synchronization via http or ftp? I am aware there are addons for this, but they are a bit unstable. Of course the synchronization with files or folders would be enough for this functionality, then you need only a memory stick and you are ok.
Assignee: ben_seamonkey → nobody
QA Contact: claudius → bookmarks
I'm going to close this as WORKSFORME now that we have the Firefox Sync service, users can sync bookmarks, history, tabs, passwords with other SeaMonkey, Firefox, Firefox Mobile, and Firefox Home installations. For Sync with other browsers you'd have to write a Sync engine for those browsers to make use of the Mozilla Sync Service and Sync Servers.
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 13 years ago
Resolution: --- → WORKSFORME
Oh and for sync with non-gecko browsers, you can use Xmarks Sync: <https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/seamonkey/addon/xmarks-sync/> <http://www.xmarks.com/>
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