Provided by: gtkcookie_0.4-7_amd64 
NAME
gtkcookie - edit Netscape cookie file
SYNOPSIS
gtkcookie [ Gtk options ]
DESCRIPTION
Options
gtkcookie supports the command flags common to all Gtk applications. There are no gtkcookie-specific
flags.
What happens at startup
On startup, gtkcookie will try to find your Netscape cookie file by looking for ~/.netscape/cookies. If
~/.netscape/cookies is found, gtkcookie will load the file and show it in a multi-column list.
Opening a cookie file
Regardless of whether gtkcookie finds your cookie file, or you have to open it manually, when you open
the file, all of your Netscape cookies are displayed in whatever order Netscape wrote them into the file.
Sorting a cookie file
You can sort the cookies by any column by clicking on the heading for that column.
Human-readable dates
The final column is actually not stored in your cookie file, but is a translation of Netscape's native
date field. Netscape stores the date as the number of seconds since 1 Jan 1970 (familiar to anyone who's
spent any time on Unix), but gtkcookie translates those dates into human-readable expiry dates in the
final column.
Editing cookies
To edit a cookie, double-click on the cookie, and a cookie edit dialogue will pop up. You'll notice that
the date, in seconds since the epoch (the epoch is 1 Jan 1970), is not an editable field, whereas the
human-readable date is. Follow the format presented in the edit dialogue box, and as you edit the human-
readable date, the expiry date in seconds since the epoch will update itself. Please note (as repeated in
the bugs section below) that although dates later than 2038 are supposed to present problems, (you'll see
the date in seconds since the epoch become -1) dates on or after 2036 seem to present problems. I'm still
looking into this.
Searching for text strings
Under the Edit menu, select Find. Type in a string or substring that you wish to find, and press the Find
button. If the string or substring is found anywhere in a cookie, that cookie will become selected, and
the view will scroll to that cookie, if necessary. Pressing Find again will search for the next
instance, or pop up a "not found" dialogue box if the string wasn't found. In its current version,
gtkcookie isn't yet smart enough to re-start a search from the top of the cookie list, so if you need to
search from the top, highlight the first cookie, and then do your search.
Deleting cookies
Right click on a cookie, and select "Delete" from the popup menu, or click on the cookie and press "Del"
on your keyboard.
Creating cookies
Press the "Create Cookie" button. A cookie with dummy values will be added to the cookie list, and the
"Edit Cookie" dialogue box will pop up so that you can edit the new cookie to your liking. Note that
even if you press "Cancel" immediately after creating a new cookie, the new cookie, with its dummy
values, will still be in the list. You'll have to delete the cookie manually.
FILES
~/.netscape/cookies The Netscape cookie file in your home directory
SEE ALSO
None
NOTES
None
AUTHOR
Manni Wood: mwood@sig.bsh.com or pq1036@110.net
BUGS
1. The "Edit Cookie" dialogue has problems with on-the-fly conversion of human-readable dates to the
number of seconds since the epoch for dates later than 2036. For some reason, despite the fact that the
date is supposed to overflow in 2038, the C function strptime flubs up the conversion for dates larger
than 1036.
Unfortunately, this means that when you edit a cookie whose expiry date is after 2036, the edit dialogue
box shows the number of seconds since the epoch as -1. There is currently no workaround to this problem,
besides moving the date back 2 years.
2. Although the "find" feature is supposed to always highlight and scroll to any found item, sometimes,
the item becomes highlighted, but is outside the current view.
3. The file open and save dialogues don't show directories beginning with a dot (such as .netscape!) but
typing such directory names manually will work.
4. Double-clicking in the scroll bar will pop up the "Edit Cookie" dialogue box for the currently
highlighted cookie.
5. Editing the cookie file while Netscape is running is futile, because Netscape will re-write the cookie
file when you exit Netscape, based on what's in its memory, not what's in the cookie file. A popup menu
in my programme warns you of a running netscape... unless you're running Netscape 4.5. Netscape 4.5
doesn't seem to create the same lock file that earlier Netscapes used to.
October 1998 gtkcookie(1)