NAME

       browser-history - external history of web browsers, such as netscape

SYNOPSIS

       browser-history [ options ]

DESCRIPTION

       Browser-History is a client-side X daemon maintaining a browser-independent global history
       of all the web sites you visited. Its usage is very simple, just put the following line in
       your .xinitrc or your X start-up script:
              browser-history &
       And open the file ~/.browser-history/history-log.html and bookmark it.

       Browser-history  came  from  the  will  to  overcome  a  Netscape bug: there was no global
       history, and if you close a window, its whole history is lost. For people browsing lots of
       sites,  having  a possibility to track back where one has been before means that you don't
       have to put everything in your bookmarks file. If you are not sure if a site may be  worth
       remembering,  don't  add  it  in  your  bookmarks.  If you need it later, just browse your
       history files.

       Later, it came to our minds that this also could be a valuable add-on  to  people  writing
       experimental  browsers,  so  they  dont  have  to  add this functionality to their browser
       itself.

       Browser-history is a small and efficient daemon. Real user services could be built on  top
       of  the  log files it maintains for more possibilities (graphical representation, advanced
       search options, collective histories). It can be seen as a quick-and-dirty hack wrt to the
       general  solution  of  using  a  personal  proxy  to provide this history and housekeeping
       facilities. But in the meantime, it is easy to use and it works.

IMPLEMENTATION

       Browser-History spies your web browser and logs in ~/.browser-history/history-log.html all
       the  URLs  you went through.  You can then browse the log under Netscape or other browsers
       via  the  URL:  file:~/.browser-history/history-log.html  (replace  the  ~  by  your  home
       directory).  It tracks automagically all already present browser windows, and all new ones
       created in the future. This program has no user interface. It just appends information  to
       a  log  file  in  html format so you can browse it through a web browser. If more that one
       hour has passed since last entry, it draws an horizontal lines, and  adds  H1  headers  to
       delimit new days. Each week (Sunday mornings), it archives the week history, compresses it
       by gzip (that you must have in your path), and starts a new  history  with  links  to  the
       older  ones.  To  make room you can just remove the obsolete history files. You can search
       files for string XXX in shell via:
              zgrep XXX ~/.browser-history/*

       This version (2.6) works with Netscape, Arena and Amaya.

       URLs  can  be  excluded  from  logging  by  putting  them,  one  per  line  in  the   file
       ~/.browser-history/history-log.exclude  ,  then,  if  an  URL begins with a line from this
       file, it is not logged.  In this file, empty lines or lines beginning by  #  are  comments
       This file is read once at startup, and re-read when receiving the signal 1.  e.g:

                  # We exclude local files
                  file:
                  # Exclude search engines...
                  http://home.netscape.com
                  http://guide.infoseek.com

       When  browser-history  is run, it looks if another one is running, and by default it kills
       the previous one if it is an older version. Otherwise, it the new one is the same  version
       number or older, it just aborts.

OPTIONS

       All options can be given by their first letter: you can specify either -verbose or -v, but
       you cannot group options, e.g. you must say -v -k , but not -vk

       -display display_name
              Specifies X display, otherwise contents of $DISPLAY is used

       -verbose
              outputs information on what it is doing. useful for debug.

       -Version
              prints version number and exit.

       -logdir directory
              which directory to store files into? defaults to ~/.browser-history

       -gzip gzip_filename
              the complete path to the gzip compressor. Defaults to "gzip". E.g:
              -gzip /usr/gnu/bin/gzip

       -seconds delay
              if two entries are made are more than  delay seconds apart, an horizontal rule will
              separate them, else just a simple line break. Defaults to one hour (3600).

       -replace
              If  there is an already running browser-history on the display, aborts.  Default is
              to replace it only if the version is older than ours.

       -noreplace
              If there is an already running browser-history on the display, aborts.  Default  is
              to replace it only if the version is older than ours.

       -kill  If  there  is  an  already  running  browser-history on the display, kills it, then
              terminates immediately in all cases.

       -DontGrab
              Never Grab the  X  Server,  which  might  cause  deadlocks  while  debugging,  when
              browser-history or gdb tries to print on the grabbed xterm or emacs.

       -checkpoint
              Cause  the  currently running instance of browser-history to save a list of all the
              URLs and their  titles  that  are  currently  being  viewed  by  a  browser-history
              compatible browser to the normal history file as a "checkpoint".

LOG FILE FORMAT

       A  log  file can have some decorative HTML to represent days, but each entry has the form:
       (on a single line since version 2.4)
                  separator
                  <b>name</b>
                  <a href="URL">URL</a>
                  YYYY/MM/DD-HH:MN:SS <small>windowid</small>
       where the following items are:
              separator: either <hr> or <br>
              name: the name of the document (window title)
              URL: its URL
              YYYY/MM/DD-HH:MN:SS: year, month number, day number, hour,
                              minutes, seconds. (2-digit numbers)
              windowid: the X window ID of the browser window, in hexadecimal

       Note: Before version 2.4, the 4 sub-parts were separated by newlines, but since 2.4,  they
       are only blank-separated to ease searching for URL in log files via "grep".

       Note:  Before version 2.5, the year was stored in 2 digits. Now it is stored in 4 (or more
       :-) digits, to fix this Y2K bug

HOME

       The latest version of browser-history can be found at:
              http://koala.ilog.fr/ftp/pub/browser-history/
       and its WWW home page, with full technical documentation is at:
              http://www.inria.fr/koala/colas/browser-history

AUTHOR

       Colas Nahaboo, http://www.inria.fr/koala/colas

COPYRIGHT

       browser-history bears the same license as the X Window System: you can do everything  with
       this  code  (selling  it,  modifying  it),  except  suing  me  or  using  my  name in your
       advertisements, or expecting any kind of support or guarantee.

                                              local                            BROWSER-HISTORY(1)