Rekonq and Google Bookmarks Sync

[x-shaney-x]

I have been wanting to use a KDE browser in KDE for a very long time and thought the Google Bookmarks sync in rekonq might finally be the answer.
I use Chromium in other distros/OS's and am already moving over to using Google Bookmarks so this would be ideal.

Unfortunately, it is a bit problematic.

I imported all my bookmarks from Chromium and organized then to suit.
I then set up the sync with an unused google account to test it.

All the bookmarks synced and showed up in Google Bookmarks but only ONE out of hundreds of bookmarks was labelled, which means manually sorting them all again.
Not only that, when I deleted all my rekonq data and tried setting it up the other way, syncing FROM the server, they are all disorganized in rekonq and ALL added to the bookmark toolbar.
I had hoped the bookmark labels would appear as folders in rekonq.

Anyone else using this feature and has any tips on how best to use it?
If I have to start reorganizing them every time I re-install, it would be quicker and easier to just manually do it all which is a no-no.

<EDIT>

Nevermind, started again from scratch.
Deleted all google bookmarks and rekonq ones, imported them to rekonq and setup sync.
Now it doesn't sync at all. Not sure how long the sync feature has been in but I guess it's still early days?

[vw72]

While that sounds like a nice feature (bookmark sync), I've never been fond of Google knowing all the sites I frequent, so I choose not to use it. I do periodically export my bookmarks and copy them into my dropbox account, though.

[x-shaney-x]

If it was a simple case of using one OS with one browser then it wouldn't be so bad to just copy or import bookmarks but when using multiple OS's it is just too much of a hassle and I consider bookmarks syncing at the very least, to be a requirement.

I don't particularly care if Google know what sites I visit. I am going to be pounded with ads wherever I go anyway so what difference does it make if those ads are targeted based on my browsing?
Google have made some great services and apps available to me free of charge so I am happy to let them make money off me via advertising.

[vw72]

If it was a simple case of using one OS with one browser then it wouldn't be so bad to just copy or import bookmarks but when using multiple OS's it is just too much of a hassle and I consider bookmarks syncing at the very least, to be a requirement.

I don't particularly care if Google know what sites I visit. I am going to be pounded with ads wherever I go anyway so what difference does it make if those ads are targeted based on my browsing?
Google have made some great services and apps available to me free of charge so I am happy to let them make money off me via advertising.

I use various browsers on Windows, OS X and Linux, at home, work, laptop, desktop, tablet, etc. However, I don't need the whole bookmark collection on every one of those devices. For instance, work really frowns on surfing for non-work related things. On the otherhand, I do have some of my work related sites on my other browsers/locations because they are useful to me even away from work. I guess I tend to customize my bookmarks based on use cases, but I can understand the desire to have one all encompassing set of bookmarks.

[SteveRiley]

While that sounds like a nice feature (bookmark sync), I've never been fond of Google knowing all the sites I frequent, so I choose not to use it. I do periodically export my bookmarks and copy them into my dropbox account, though.

Rekonq's bookmark file is ~/.kde/share/apps/konqueror/bookmarks.xml. Two ways of "syncing" to Dropbox might be:

* Move that file to your Dropbox and then add a corresponding symbolic link
* Edit a configuration in Rekonq's rc file

Must check which works...BRB

[SteveRiley]

Tried the first one, and it worked. My T520 has a more complete set of bookmarks than does (er, did) my X1. On the T520, I copied the bookmark file to my Dropbox folder. Assuming I might find similar occasions for future items to sync, I created a folder hierarchy and naming convention for this purpose:

mkdir -p ~/Dropbox/Linux/share
cp ~/.kde/share/apps/konqueror/bookmarks.xml ~/Dropbox/Linux/share/konqueror-bookmarks.xml

On the X1, I deleted the existing local file and created a symlink to the one on Dropbox:

cd ~/.kde/share/apps/konqueror
rm bookmarks.xml
ln -s ~/Dropbox/Linux/share/konqueror-bookmarks.xml bookmarks.xml

And it works. I repeated the above process on the T520. Now both machines are sharing the same bookmark file. Neat.

[x-shaney-x]

I have used dropbox in this way for various config files via symlinks and it generally works well.
Just a shame all browser don't use the same format for bookmarks.

A simple bookmarks.html or something shared between every browser would be great.

I think vw72 made a good point. No I certainly don't need all my bookmarks in all systems really. It's more of a preference than a need.
I tend to have all my bookmarks for all different use cases all together so I prefer to have them everywhere just in case I want something in particular at a particular time.

I have done a bit more playing around with google bookmarks and tried "gmarks" extension for firefox.
I imported my chrome bookmarks into firefox then used gmarks to import them into google bookmarks.
This set all my folders as labels exactly as there were set out in firefox, even using nested labels for nested folders.
This is how I had hoped it would work with the rekonq sync.

[dequire]

The real problem, as I see it, is that there's no easy way to convert boomarks from Chrome(-ium) or Firefox to Rekonq. The main issue being that Rekonq uses Konqueror's .xml format while the bigger boys use .html. As long and hard as I've searched for add-ons or utilities, and played around with using CLI-tools to convert the bookmarks.html file from Firefox to .xml it just doesn't work.

I toyed with the idea of manually entering (over time) my Firefox bookmaks, but the fact the Rekonq doesn't allow keyword tagging in bookmarks is a deal-breaker for me. With keyword tagging, spending hours organizing your bookmarks folder into a logical higherarchy by topic is a thing of the past and utterly unnecessary as the results just populate your drop-down list as you type in the keyword(s). Very similar to the way KRunner gives results. And also very cool!

So at the end of the day, even if I can use FTP or U1 or Dropbox to sync bookmarks across various Rekonq instances, that alone is still not good enough without some bookmarking enhancements.

[bailout]

This is a bit of a sideways solution but Opera has had bookmarks sync for a long time now and it uses their own servers. Opera has linux and windows versions so having your bookmarks synced across different computers and OSs is easy. You can also sync passwords for auto logins and notes. It isn't a kde app but works well under linux.

[dequire]

This is a bit of a sideways solution but Opera has had bookmarks sync for a long time now and it uses their own servers. Opera has linux and windows versions so having your bookmarks synced across different computers and OSs is easy. You can also sync passwords for auto logins and notes. It isn't a kde app but works well under linux.

Thanks fot the heads-up! I haven't given Opera a go in ages. Might install it for kicks and see how it's come along over the years.

[Guest]

I feel pretty safe using firefox sync on my Kubuntu, Mac OS X and Windows systems. It encrypts your data locally, before sending it to the cloud, so no one can look at it, unless you choose an easy password. And if you don't trust Mozilla servers, you can still run your own sync server.

And Firefox has LOTS of interesting features and addons that make it a really good browser!
Anyway, it could be really nice if we could sync rekonq through firefox sync.