Importing a raw places.sqlite file from Fx 3.5

[Raymie]

I switched to Camino 2.0rc1 from Firefox 3.5 because even though the places.sqlite file is in place, it will not read it because it is "in use by another application", which I have determined to not be the case.

How do I import my places.sqlite file from Firefox to Camino? I read the Firefox migration guide and it said that 2.0.x could read certain newer versions of the sqlite files in some cases but places.sqlite was not mentioned. I can't export to HTML because of the issue (Firefox starts fresh when it comes to history now each time I load it).

Camino seems to be much snappier at launching than Firefox, though. The only other thing I can't figure out is making Snow Leopard Substitutions work in situations like the "Post a New Topic" text box. I am an admin for a Mario Kart tournament and set shortcuts for esoteric characters, such as *lambda and *openstar with λ☆, so I can type them easier - thus why I'd want Substitutions.

[phiw13]

You can't import the places.sqlite file directly at this point. Have you considered creating a new profile for Firefox (after moving your existing profile to the desktop, or use the profile manager) and work from there ? (or, if that fails, creating a new user account on your Mac, and work from it ?).

I don't know the answer on your second question, as I don't have 10.6. yet.

[Uncle Asad]

Have you tried another app that can read sqlite files to see if it can access it? It sounds like there's some lock internal to the file itself that hasn't been cleared, and it's possible that some apps can allow you to ignore the lock (or it's a Places-specific "lock" that only the Places code would enforce) and dump the database tables or something.

As for the Substitutions, it's probably because Gecko doesn't implement whatever methods are required in the text fields. I don't think anyone's looked into what portions of the text system's internals Substitutions needs yet. (This is similar to why hover+Cmd-Ctrl-D shortcut for dictionary lookup doesn't work in the content area; that feature depends on having an NSTextInput protocol implementation, and Gecko's implementation of it is missing whatever bits the hover+Cmd-Ctrl-D feature requires.)

[phiw13]

Isn't CoreText required for those Substitutions to work ? I remember reading something about it but can't find it right away (in the John Siracusa article maybe ?). If so, that would only work -assuming no other API, etc is needed- in Gecko 1.9.3a + (Minefield nightlies, what will be Fx 3.7).

[Raymie]

Uncle Asad, I could read the sqlite file in TextEdit - I wouldn't know what else I could do.

[cflawson]

Sounds like the lock is specific to Firefox (or Places) code, then, so you should be able to use something like SQLite Database Browser:

http://sqlitebrowser.sourceforge.net/

to do the necessary work. (That assumes there's a way to get from Places to raw SQLite back to Places somehow, which I don't know.)

cl

[Raymie]

I'm new to this and not too skilled, so how would I go about with this?