How to get Firefox bookmarks from a Delphi application? - delphi

Question

I know how to get the favourites from IE, but how can I access Firefox's bookmarks?
Here's the code I have for retrieving the IE favourites:
uses
ShlObj, ActiveX;
function GetIEFavourites(const favpath: string): TStrings;
var
searchrec: TSearchRec;
str: TStrings;
path, dir, FileName: string;
Buffer: array[0..2047] of Char;
found: Integer;
begin
str := TStringList.Create;
// Get all file names in the favourites path
path := FavPath + '\*.url';
dir := ExtractFilepath(path);
found := FindFirst(path, faAnyFile, searchrec);
while found = 0 do
begin
// Get now URLs from files in variable files
Setstring(FileName, Buffer, GetPrivateProfilestring('InternetShortcut',
PChar('URL'), nil, Buffer, SizeOf(Buffer), PChar(dir + searchrec.Name)));
str.Add(FileName);
found := FindNext(searchrec);
end;
// find Subfolders
found := FindFirst(dir + '\*.*', faAnyFile, searchrec);
while found = 0 do
begin
if ((searchrec.Attr and faDirectory) > 0) and (searchrec.Name[1] <> '.') then
str.Addstrings(GetIEFavourites(dir + '\' + searchrec.Name));
found := FindNext(searchrec);
end;
FindClose(searchrec);
Result := str;
end;
procedure FreePidl(pidl: PItemIDList);
var
allocator: IMalloc;
begin
if Succeeded(SHGetMalloc(allocator)) then
begin
allocator.Free(pidl);
{$IFDEF VER100}
allocator.Release;
{$ENDIF}
end;
end;
procedure TForm1.Button1Click(Sender: TObject);
var
pidl: PItemIDList;
FavPath: array[0..MAX_PATH] of Char;
begin
if Succeeded(ShGetSpecialFolderLocation(Handle, CSIDL_FAVORITES, pidl)) then
begin
if ShGetPathfromIDList(pidl, FavPath) then
ListBox1.Items := GetIEFavourites(StrPas(FavPath));
// The calling application is responsible for freeing the PItemIDList-pointer
// with the Shell's IMalloc interface
FreePIDL(pidl);
end;
end;
Thanks.

Answer 1

The favorites are saved in 'places.sqlite' in the profile folder. They are in table moz_bookmarks. They refer to entries in table moz_places with their field fk. Get sqlite as dll and a delphi binding like this one.
Open the database with SQLite3_Open and use SQLite3_Exec to send ordinary sql statements to access the data, like
SELECT * FROM moz_bookmarks;
Unfortunately firefox locks places.sqlite, which means you have to copy it first (normal file copy). After you have worked on the copy you can delete it.

Answer 2

TBookmarks component from MetaProduct... it's $75.00 though:
http://www.metaproducts.com/mp/TBookmarks_component.htm
quote from their site:
For Borland Delphi 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009.
New! FireFox 3, Safari and Google Chrome Bookmarks are supported!
MetaProducts TBookmarks is a Delphi 2 - 7, 2005-2009 component that helps you to display MS Internet Explorer Favorites (4.0 - 8.0,) MSN Explorer, Opera Hotlists (3.0 - 9.0) and Netscape, Safari, Chrome, FireFox and Mozilla Bookmarks (2.0 - 8.0) in a menu.
Simply drop the TBookmarks component on the form and assign its Menu property and OnURL event. Set Enabled to True to collect all bookmark information in the specified TMenuItem.
You can also use TTreeView component to make TBookmarks populate the entries there automatically.

Answer 3

Well, Firefox bookmarks are a HTML file stored in
<WindowsUserPath>\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\
<aRamdonProfileName>\bookmark.htm as Sinan Ünür said.
So you need to get the mozilla profiles dir and retrie the folder
name in there.
After that you need to parse the html file.....
So AFAIK, no, there's no API to directly get the FF bookmarks.