gtkcookie(1) gtkcookie(1)
October 1998
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.
- 1 - Formatted: April 25, 2024
gtkcookie(1) gtkcookie(1)
October 1998
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,
hightlight 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 - Formatted: April 25, 2024
gtkcookie(1) gtkcookie(1)
October 1998
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.
- 3 - Formatted: April 25, 2024
