unicode characters in bookmark manager

I want to import a Netscape 7 bookmark file in a third party bookmark manager (Netscape 7 cut my bookmark file so that I lost a lot of my bookmarks). I have a Netscape 7 bookmark file with german text, i.e. with "Umlaute" (ä, ö, ü and the german ß) but this problem should apply to all other language specific versions.

After the import of the Netscape 7 bookmark file I see all "Umlaute" as two special characters, i.e. words with such letters are not readable.

Perhaps I have to make special settings in the Netscape 7 browser before exporting the bookmarks. Obviously the bookmarks are exported as unicode characters so that faults are only visible with language specific letters. I know that in the prefs.js file in the profile folder of Netscape 7 there is a a setting user_pref( "prefs.converted-to-utf8 ", true). May be this setting controls the appearance of the exported bookmarks - but I don't know that. I didn't find the setting in the GUI what controls this parameter in the prefs.js file and I cannot set it manually. It seems to be not the original source because this file is automatically generated when I close Netscape and this parameter is always changed to a fixed setting after I have altered it. A manual change of this parameter had no effect.

Thanks in advance

 

Welcome to the Forum, UweGalle!

Hi UweGalle,

You say that Netscape cut your Bookmarks, causing a loss of a lot of them? Were the Bookmarks converted from a Communicator or another Netscape 6/7 installation? Do you still have Communicator on your HD? If this is the case, let us know, as you most likely will be able to salvage your Bookmarks.

About your third-party Bookmark Manager Program. Netscape bookmarks, as you have stated, contains the data in Unicode (UTF-8) encoding, so the program that you used to import should know, or be able to handle UTF-8. Which Bookmark Manager program are you using?

Ramona

 

The Netscape 7 bookmarks were converted from the former version of Netscape - I don't have this version on my computer any more, I think it was Netscape Communicator 5.74. Netscape 7 found the bookmarks of this version and offered the import what was done correctly. Later I deinstalled the Communicator.

Now I want to use the NetVisualize Favorites Organizer http://www.netvisualize.com.

But what about the parameter user_pref( "prefs.converted-to-utf8 ", true) in the prefs.js file in the Netscape profile? I hope the coding of the exported bookmarks can be controlled with this parameter. Is there perhaps another setting what affects the coding of exported bookmarks?

Uwe

 

Hi Uwe,

There is nothing that you need to do in Netscape before Exporting Bookmarks. Bookmarks.html data is in Unicode(UTF-8) encoding. However, the application you use to import the Bookmarks must be able to handle UTF-8.

The Bookmark Manager that you refer to does not mention which Versions of Netscape that it supports.

Ramona