Server Options

Connection

The Server tab contains the details of how to contact your server.

Within this on the Connection tab, you can select the protocol to use (http or https for a web server, ftp for an ftp server, file for a shared folder). You can also enter the hostname or IP address or your server (e.g. ftp.yourhost.com or www.yourhost.co.uk) and can optionally add a port number if you need it as well (e.g. www.yourhost.co.uk:8080). With ftp you can also enter login details if you need to.

Synchronisation

On the Synchronisation tab you can choose to synchronise using a JSON formatted file or an XBEL file. JSON is ideal for the storage of all the bookmark information from the new Firefox Places system (e.g. tags, queries, and annotations) and with the compression option will result in the fastest synchronisation. XBEL is simplistic, has larger files and slower to use, but is ideal if you need to synchronise with Firefox 2, or other browsers/services. Note that if you do choose to receive/import XBEL from another source (i.e. not SyncPlaces) you will probably lose all the new Places features from your bookmarks (see the Support section for more info).

In either case you can also choose to synchronise your passwords and list of password exceptions. This will send a separate file to the server. This file is automatically encrypted for safety.

Unless you are using the 'file' protocol, all the paths on the rest of this tab must begin with a '/' and are the names of files that will be created on the server. If you are using the 'file' protocol then any normal O/S path will work such as 'C:\bookmarks\syncplace.json'. But with 'file' you cannot use UNC paths like this '\\my_server\bookmarks\syncplaces.json', instead you will need to map a drive.

If you synchronise using JSON, then you can also select the 'Send XBEL' option to also send your bookmarks in XBEL format. This is ideal for transforming your bookmarks into a web page for remote access from any browser. There are additional options on the Advanced tab to help with this styling.

The 'Send HTML' option will also send a web page of all your bookmarks. This is for people who don't wish to deal with XBEL. Note that this is generated by the 'Export HTML' option in Firefox so SyncPlaces has no control over the formatting or the content.

Finally if you get into a mess the 'Run wizard next time' option allows you run the wizard to help you set everything up from scratch. The wizard will also ask if you wish to reset everything back to the way it was when you first installed SyncPlaces. Note that you must close all SyncPlaces windows and then reopen SyncPlaces for the wizard to appear.