Please tell me how to MIRROR my detailed Bookmarks in/out

[Flashlight]

I am using Firefox 57.0.4 on my Win10 Desktop. I have developed a HIGHLY structured bookmark (prints out over 30 pages) that includes SHORT KEY WORD DESCRIPTIONS of what is in each URL. This allows me to word-search my large bookmark to find exactly what I need fast (I'm involved in disaster volunteer work). For the past decade I've used XMARKS to backup and then download the DETAILED bookmarks I can carry on a thumbdrive or even iPhone or other digital cloud site in full detail. Xmarks has some bugs that include occasional stripping my bookmarks down to 'Just the URLs ... NO descriptions' that I can download. Not good. I tried EVERSYNC bookmark Add on aka 'FVD Synchronizer' and it also sends me a stripped down - no descriptors - downloadable, and even comes up with junk under 'current interests'.... I tried native FireFox TAB: Bookmarks / Show All bookmarks / Export bookmarks ... and what I get is again the thin, stripped down URL list without any descriptive words.

What I need is the ability to
a) use Firefox to maintain / edit the most current & best structured detailed and described bookmark I use daily, and
b) ability to EXPORT it in full detailed precision ... a MIRROR copy of that bookmark, as an HTML file, and
c) ability to IMPORT it if I need to on other PCs, as from a thumbdrive or similar, in full detailed precision with descriptors intact.

Can anyone assist?

[lovemyfoxy]

Toolbar-Bookmarks>Show all bookmarks> Import and export
Export to somewhere else on your computer, import if original file gets corrupted.

[the-edmeister]

I don't think the exported bookmarks.html file will show the Firefox tags. The bookmarks.html format is a lot older than Foxmarks (the original name of Xmarks) / Xmarks and it hasn't modified since 2004 when saving Favicons was added to the bookmarks.html format. And Firefox Places Tags aren't saved in exported bookmarks.html files, either.

Try it and you'll see what I mean.

.

[Flashlight]

Hi 'LoveMyFoxy' ... as I said "I tried native FireFox TAB: Bookmarks / Show All bookmarks / Export bookmarks ... and what I get is again the thin, stripped down URL list without any descriptive words." And of course I exported the bookmarks to another place on the computer to examine it, finding it to be, as described: thin, stripped down, and without any descriptive words.

And thanks 'the-edmeister' .... if I understand your brief history, you seem to be saying I can NOT EXPORT A full 'Mirror' of my Bookmarks with descriptors aka tags because: "I don't think the exported bookmarks.html file will show the Firefox tags...." This sounds like there is NO solution to this problem.

You suggest: "try it and you'll see" is not clear to me. Try what? If there is a solution to this problem, as I am not a programmer, a simple follow the bouncing ball 1-2-3-4 checklist of what to do in what sequence would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[allande]

Firefox can backup and restore bookmarks including tags/descriptions to .jsonlz4 files. However those cannot be viewed with a phone, or opened- nothing can be done with them except restore overwriting all current bookmarks. It can be restored on another computer running firefox. To do that click "backup" or "restore" instead of "export to html" or "import" in the library menu.

Firefox sync can keep 2 installations of Firefox with the same bookmarks, including tags and descriptions. Sync can also work with android and iphone. By default this also syncs all your passwords, etc., so it is really meant to use only with computers of your own.
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/features/sync/
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/ho ... y-computer

In order to do this the way I think you want, where you produce a bookmarks.html file that is usable on other people's computers, that retains tags, I agree, not possible.

[Flashlight]

Thank you, Allande -
"Not possible" is bad news for me.
For years, WHEN Xmarks was working, I was able to backup detailed & structured bookmarks, with descriptive tags, to XMARKS, and then download them as intact HTML files that I could then edit and make available to others (disaster response links especially). XMARKs is funky .. sometimes it works fully, sometimes does a halfway job ... it stores and allows me to download 'thin' lists of URLs without descriptors, and it currently has an annoying pop up box that doesn't do anything useful. Maybe they will fix XMARKS. Maybe not.

I'll hope another forum user has a better answer than 'Not possible' to download a detailed fully structured BOOKMARKS.HTML file. Anyone else? Thanks in advance

[Brummelchen]

In short: no, never. you got all solutions written down.

[Flashlight]

Ok - thanks.
I DO hope that there is enough compelling interest to salvage detailed / annotated complete BOOKMARKS.HTML files out there that in the future FireFox Developers (or at least, App Developers such as Xmarks) develop a robust and reliable way to back up and restore fully developed annotated BOOKMARKS.HTML. There is a real need for this. It's basic stuff. We need to develop our own bookmarks, export them and back them up, without tech-troubles.

[allande]

Xmarks has an extension for the Chrome browser. You could see if using Xmarks to sync them into Chrome and then exporting or importing from/to Chrome does any better at retaining tags.
At the bottom of this page is how to export from Chrome - https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/96816?hl=en

[Flashlight]

Thanks ...
I'll have to get to it later this week - no time until maybe mid week with luck.

[the-edmeister]

You suggest: "try it and you'll see" is not clear to me.\

Open the exported from Firefox bookmarks.html file and see if the Places TAGS are included and also if the DESCRIPTION field is present. It's been a real long time since I spent any time playing with bookmarks.html files, preferring to do editing of a bookmarks.html within the Firefox browser window using bookmarklets and making the browser window editable - so I don't recall if the DESCRIPTION field is in there or not.

Ok - thanks.
I DO hope that there is enough compelling interest to salvage detailed / annotated complete BOOKMARKS.HTML files out there that in the future FireFox Developers (or at least, App Developers such as Xmarks) develop a robust and reliable way to back up and restore fully developed annotated BOOKMARKS.HTML. There is a real need for this. It's basic stuff. We need to develop our own bookmarks, export them and back them up, without tech-troubles.

BOOKMARKS.HTML is a legacy format, and not even used any longer for the "default" that come with Firefox in the "base Profile". There are no web browsers around any longer that actually use BOOKMARKS.HTML for storage of bookmarks for display in the UI. As far as Mozilla appending BOOKMARKS.HTML, I seriously doubt that is in the cards - considering Mozilla is working on removing DESCRIPTIONS from Places (bookmarks storage file in Firefox) due the current group of Mozilla developers seeing no use for that data; in their opinions the the NAME data should be enough of a "description" in Firefox.

Those DESCRIPTIONS weren't added to the exported BOOKMARKS.HTML files when Places.sqlite was started with Firefox 3.0 back in June 2008 when SQLIte was incorporated in Firefox. IMO, adding it at that time solely for "interchange" between different web browsers wouldn't have made any sense vs. the risk of breaking it with other web browsers solely for purposes of import/export.
And with Places the TAGS feature came to Firefox bookmarks; as Foxmarks users quickly discovered the new Foxmarks TAGS weren't compatible
with the SQLite version of TAGS in Firefox 3.0.

Back in 2008 Xmarks did exist as Foxmarks, and it was solely for Firefox / Gecko-based browser bookmarks, which was about the time that Google Chrome was released to the general public. I think that was when Foxmarks became Xmarks was when they added Chrome to their service.

As far as the Xmarks developers goes regarding changes on their end, I suspect that with the new WebExtensions format in Quantum purposely being the same (or very close) as WE in Chrome and other WebKit/Blink browsers, I suspect "their hand are tied". WE does not allow addon developers the same latitude for 'futzing around' in Firefox data files as the older Lecgacy addons allowed.
Or maybe Xmarks developers just didn't try hard enough and went with the same feature set for their new Firefox addon as they have in Chrome to keep their "maintenance costs" lower than supporting 2 similar extensions with a slightly different set of features?

Mozilla purposely went with the WebExtensions format so that addon developers could create addons for a multitude of web browsers and not to create the Firefox version from scratch, as been necessary for the last 10 years. Of course, there are many other reasons that Mozilla left Legacy extensions behind and went towards a "common format" that requires only small tweaks for compatibility with each different brand of web browser engine.
.

[lovemyfoxy]

How about copying places.sqlite? Does that include tags? To restore, just pop it back into the profile, although the history wouldn't be current.

OT/-
edmeister-- I use Chrome, which I hate, for work. Can I use current FF WE with Chrome?
/OT

[the-edmeister]

OT/-
edmeister-- I use Chrome, which I hate, for work. Can I use current FF WE with Chrome?
/OT

I don't know if that is possible, minor differences do exist with how Firefox WE and Google Chrome WE works. I have seen postings about "converters" to make a Google Chrome WE install and work in Quantum Firefox, but don't recall seeing mention of converting from the Firefox WE to Chrome W to get it to work in Google Chrome.


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[Brummelchen]

We need to develop our own bookmarks, export them and back them up, without tech-troubles.

not "we" - "you"
if you feel affected that much why dont develop on your own?

chrome? the library of chrome is a piece of crap in direct comparison to firefox. awful!

[lovemyfoxy]

OT-

chrome? the library of chrome is a piece of crap in direct comparison to firefox. awful!

I know, but I'm required to use it for certain tasks. Some of the Greasemonkey and Tampermonkey scripts are now interchangeable.
/OT