<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"><title>File formats</title><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.76.1"><link rel="home" href="index.html" title="The ELinks Manual"><link rel="up" href="ch04.html" title="Chapter 4. The Ultimate Bookmarks Guide"><link rel="prev" href="ch04s03.html" title="Searching for a needle in the haystack"><link rel="next" href="ch05.html" title="Chapter 5. The Wonders of Tabbed Browsing"></head><body bgcolor="white" text="black" link="#0000FF" vlink="#840084" alink="#0000FF"><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">File formats</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="ch04s03.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center">Chapter 4. The Ultimate Bookmarks Guide</th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="ch05.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr></div><div class="section" title="File formats"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a name="idp6519760"></a>File formats</h2></div></div></div><p>ELinks supports two bookmark formats: the native format and a generic bookmark
exchange format called XBEL. Each of those formats has its pros and cons,
which we shall discuss below. You can switch between then by changing the
option <span class="emphasis"><em>bookmarks.file_format</em></span>.</p><p>However, first please note that ELinks <span class="emphasis"><em>CANNOT</em></span> read Links bookmarks directly.
Importing Links-0.9x (or Links-1.x) bookmarks is easy - it is just matter of
changing all the <span class="emphasis"><em>|</em></span> (pipe) characters to tabs. There is a script for that in
the contrib/conv/ directory. Importing Links-2.xx bookmarks is not so easy; in
fact, the scribe knows of no way of doing that at the time of writing this, so
this is up to you to figure out (if you do, please tell us so that we can add
it here). Perhaps you might find a way to convert Links2 bookmarks to the
XBEL format, which can then be loaded in ELinks.</p><div class="section" title="Native file format"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a name="idp6523600"></a>Native file format</h3></div></div></div><p>This is the preferred bookmarks format, which is also used by default. The
bookmarks file is <code class="literal">~/.elinks/bookmarks</code>, in a simple format:</p><pre class="literallayout"><name> '\t' <url> [ '\t' <depth> ['\t' <flags>] ] '\n'</pre><p><span class="emphasis"><em>\t</em></span> represents a tab character, <span class="emphasis"><em>\n</em></span> represents a newline character. [Square
brackets] denote optional parts. The <span class="emphasis"><em><name></em></span> and <span class="emphasis"><em><url></em></span> fields should be
obvious. <span class="emphasis"><em><depth></em></span> contains the depth level of the entry - by that, ELinks
can unambiguously figure out the bookmarks hierarchy:</p><pre class="literallayout">Bookmarks structure: Depth:
,-- The Pasky's C Bestiary 0
[-]- Wonderful things 0
| |-- Christmas Carol in l33tsp34k by L.M. 1
| [-]- Beautiful Potato Camera Shots 1
| [-]- Gallery of Scary Images of Jonas Fonseca 1
| |-- Jonas torturing gdb 2
| [-]- Urgh 2
| | `-- Jonas consuming Tofu 3
| `-- Jonas with crashed ELinks 2
|-- Slides from Witek's hack-patch show 0
`-- Miciah's English Grammar Spellbook 0</pre><p><span class="emphasis"><em><flags></em></span> is a string of characters. Currently, two flags are supported:</p><div class="informaltable"><table border="1"><colgroup><col width="43pt" align="left"><col width="380pt" align="left"></colgroup><thead><tr><th align="left">
Flag
</th><th align="left">
Description
</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td align="left">
E
</td><td align="left">
This folder is currently expanded. (No effect for non-folders.)
</td></tr><tr><td align="left">
F
</td><td align="left">
This entry is a folder. The <url> part is usually empty.
</td></tr></tbody></table></div><p>Separators: these are special bookmarks with "-" as title and no url.</p><div class="variablelist"><dl><dt><span class="term">
Pros
</span></dt><dd>
Naturally, ELinks handles the native format the best, easiest and most
reliably.
</dd><dt><span class="term">
Cons
</span></dt><dd>
It is unlikely that you could use the native format anywhere else than
in ELinks.
</dd></dl></div><p>To use the native format, set <span class="emphasis"><em>bookmarks.file_format</em></span> = 0.</p></div><div class="section" title="XBEL file format"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a name="idp6545056"></a>XBEL file format</h3></div></div></div><p>The XBEL file format support was added at some point during the 0.4
development by Fabio Boneli. It has never been complete and has plenty of
troubles, but generally, it works at the basic level. The bookmarks file is
<code class="literal">~/.elinks/bookmarks.xbel</code> (thanks to a different filename, you can have both
XBEL and native bookmarks saved in your <code class="literal">~/.elinks</code> directory).</p><p>We shall not describe the XBEL file format here,</p><pre class="literallayout">http://pyxml.sourceforge.net/topics/xbel/</pre><p>is the authoritative resource on that. It also contains list of some of the
applications supporting the format. Basically, you will be probably able to
convert from/to the XBEL format to/from most of the other widely used formats,
so this way you can import your bookmarks to ELinks from basically anything.</p><div class="variablelist"><dl><dt><span class="term">
Pros
</span></dt><dd>
XBEL is the gateway to the rest of the bookmarks world.
</dd><dt><span class="term">
Cons
</span></dt><dd>
The support for XBEL is incomplete and there are known bugs.
Especially, national character sets are basically not supported, so
ELinks will most likely get it wrong if you have any non-ASCII
characters in your bookmarks. Generally, the XBEL support should be
considered experimental and you shouldn't rely on it. It <span class="strong"><strong>could</strong></span> trash
your XBEL bookmarks file so make regular backups.
</dd></dl></div><p>To use the XBEL format, set <span class="emphasis"><em>bookmarks.file_format</em></span> to 1.</p></div><div class="section" title="Usage hints"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a name="idp6556272"></a>Usage hints</h3></div></div></div><p>As already noted above, probably the best usage pattern is to use XBEL for
importing/exporting your bookmarks to/from ELinks and the native format for
regular operation. Of course, if you want to synchronize your bookmarks in
ELinks and some other XBEL-supporting gadget and you are brave, you can use
XBEL as your exclusive bookmark format - the choice is upon you.</p><p>Regarding the bookmarks synchronization, there is one important note. ELinks
saves your bookmarks each time you added one through the <span class="emphasis"><em>a</em></span> shortcut
(add-bookmark action) or when closing the bookmarks manager if you made any
changes or when quitting ELinks. However, ELinks reads your bookmarks only
<span class="strong"><strong>ONCE</strong></span>, during the startup. This behaviour may change in the future (tell us
if you need a way for ELinks to re-read the bookmarks file), but this is how
it is done now.</p><p>Actually, you may now ask "So how do I convert bookmarks between the two
formats?". It is quite easy. ELinks simply follows the current value of
<span class="emphasis"><em>bookmarks.file_format</em></span> whenever loading/saving the bookmarks.</p><p>So, e.g. if you normally use the native format but you want the bookmarks to
be saved in the XBEL format once, change <span class="emphasis"><em>bookmarks.file_format</em></span> to 1, then
cause the bookmarks to be resaved (e.g. by doing some simple change, like
adding a trailing space to some bookmark's title or so), then change the
<span class="emphasis"><em>bookmarks.file_format</em></span> value back to 0.</p><p>It is a little more complicated if you normally use the native format but you
want to import bookmarks from the XBEL format once. You again change
<span class="emphasis"><em>bookmarks.file_format</em></span> to 1, then cause the bookmarks to be reloaded. That
involves saving the configuration, quitting ELinks _completely_ (that means
closing/killing all instances of it you have running), then restarting it and
changing <span class="emphasis"><em>bookmarks.file_format</em></span> to 0. Then save the configuration again and
cause ELinks to resave the bookmarks.</p><p>Agreed, this all strange dances are quite clumsy, likely some simple
wizard-like interface for switching the bookmarks formats will be introduced
in the future. So far, we have had no reports from our users that anyone wants
to switch their bookmarks format frequently, so this is not too high on our
TODO list. So be sure to tell us if you would like this process to be
simplified rather sooner than later.</p></div></div><div class="navfooter"><hr><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="ch04s03.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="ch04.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="ch05.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">Searching for a needle in the haystack </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> Chapter 5. The Wonders of Tabbed Browsing</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
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