Main menus and toolbar

When you start Gnobog for the first time, you can see the main window. From there, you will be able to open several bookmarks documents (whose filenames are displayed in the documents list), create a new document, close all documents at once, and access the online help (which you might be reading right now :-).

To perform these operations, you can use the 'file' and 'help' menus. You may also use the toolbar which offers a shortcut to the most used actions.

Each document opened with Gnobog has its own window, and you can even have several windows for a single document if you wish. One such document is special : the 'Storing Zone', which you can see as Gnobog's own bookmarks. More on this later.

All other possible operations are accessible in the 'popup' menu, displayed when you click the right mouse button over a document.

Contextual popup menu

Popup menu actions operate on a single document (or even on a single view of a document), as opposed to main window menus and toolbar that allow to manipulate several documents.

So the popup menu is what you will use most often when editing one or more documents, or the Storing Zone itself. It's contextual in the fact that not all options are usable all the time, according to the context : some actions need something to be selected, some others need something to be copied or cut, and some need both :-)

A few more notes

You can also perform a lot of things with 'Drag and Drop' manipulations, to move and copy bookmarks, or even send them in other applications like browsers, mail clients, text editors, and so on. Experiment ! And send us ideas or bug reports :-)

The following sections will present the first steps to the main usages of Gnobog: editing your bookmarks, and... using them !

Importing

To import your existing bookmarks, you use 'open' in the file menu or toolbar. You'll then be presented a dialog with 3 choices (as of version 0.4.x of Gnobog) : open Netscape bookmarks, Mozilla bookmarks, or from a specified file.

The first 2 choices are only shortcuts to standard places for netscape and mozilla bookmarks. It may not be accurate (we don't read these programs preferences for now), in which case you'll have to specify the location of the bookmarks file you want to open.

To specify a file to open, you may write its filename (with the path) in the appropriate entry box, or use the 'browse' button that'll display a file dialog. In this file dialog, you can use the mouse and/or the keyboard (you can use 'tab' key for completion when you type the beginning of a file or path name).

When you click on 'OK', you'll have a new window containing the bookmarks imported.

Editing

Once opened, you can edit and reorganize your bookmarks. See the chapter on editing. Feel free to experiment with all popup menu features, to open as many windows you need, and to drag and drop to your soul's content :-) But don't forget to save your work, just in case!

Saving

You have several possibilities to save your work. See the chapter on editing. We have taken a few precautions to prevent the complete loss of your documents, and we use Gnobog ourselves, but we can't claim it's perfect right now. Anything might happen, even the complete disintegration of the Universe ;-) We have ideas to improve Gnobog in a lot of ways, but drop us a note anyway if you desperately need one feature, or find any bug. We will take it into account, as Gnobog development goes on.

The Storing Zone

The Storing Zone is a default bookmarks document, which is automatically saved when you quit Gnobog, and automatically opened when you launch it. So it can be seen (and used) as your main bookmarks repository.

You can import your existing bookmarks in the Storing Zone by opening them (which creates a new window), and then copy/paste or drag and drop them in the Storing Zone. If you want to save your Storing Zone before quitting, you can, just as any other document (with the popup menu). You can even save a copy in another file.

The Storing Zone is saved in .gnobog/storing_zone.html, in the same format as Netscape bookmarks. You can't change this filename as of version 0.4.x, hence you can't 'save as' either, you can only 'save' and 'save a copy', which should be enough :-)

Right now (as of version 0.4.2), there's no 'autosave' feature at regulars intervals of time, nor is there any 'undo' function. The Storing Zone is always saved when you quit, without prompting (other documents ask you if you want to save when modifications have been performed). As for any file, a backup is made nonetheless, before writing.

Remember that all operations can be performed on the Storing Zone, beside the exceptions noted above. Don't fear using them ! For instance, you can have a new view of the storing zone (a new window without menu and toolbar), that you can use alongside your browser. And you can hide the title columns to have even more space to display your bookmarks.

Navigating with Gnobog

Speaking of browsers, a few Gnobog features are maint to improve your surfing experience (and more will come in the future). See the chapter on browsing. You have special menus, drag'n'drop, double-click, and a few options that are equally useful when browsing or editing, like the 'set as root' feature for example.

Opening URLs (your internet addresses stored as bookmarks) is not limited to Web browsing, you can also open them in ftp clients from Gnobog.