BookmarkBridge User Manual

Chapter 3. How BookmarkBridge Works

Compiling BookmarkBridge From Source

Since BookmarkBridge is a multi-platform program, the instructions for compiling from the source code differ a bit between platforms. Even though the procedure for compiling BookmarkBridge may differ between platforms, the source code itself is exactly the same, whether for Windows or Unix. All files necessary for compiling it for all supported platforms are present in the source distribution.

Development Pre-requisites

BookmarkBridge was written using a few open-source toolkits. Before compiling BookmarkBridge under Windows or Unix, you must ensure these development kits are available on your computer.

Qt
Qt is a multi-platform GUI development framework available for Windows, Unix (X11), and Macintosh. For Unix you need to make sure you have the Qt/X11 Free Edition. For Windows you need to obtain the 2.3.0 Non-Commercial Edition. Both are available free from TrollTech at www.trolltech.com. BookmarkBridge will compile with 2.3.0 or 3.0.X. For Windows, make sure you download the non-commercial edition!
Libxml
Libxml is an off-shoot of the Gnome Desktop Environment. It is a toolkit used for reading and writing XML and HTML files. BookmarkBridge is written to use libxml2. You can download a development toolkit at www.xmlsoft.org.

Compiling BookmarkBridge for Windows

I developed the Windows portions of BookmarkBridge using Microsoft Visual Studio 6.0. The Qt 2.3.0 NC edition does not work with Visual Studio .NET 2002, which I also have. I have had limited success compiling BookmarkBridge under Visual Studio .NET and even got it to link once but BookmarkBridge seemed somewhat unstable. I make no promises that BookmarkBridge will work with VS .NET and probably will not be very helpful with questions or support for those who wish to try it.

As part of the source distribution I provide a .pro file. The easiest way to start a project in MSVC 6.0 is to use the Qt integration to import bookmarkbridge.pro. The .pro file is a project file describing BookmarkBridge's compilation procedure. For those wishing to compile BookmarkBridge from the command line, the tmake utility, included with the Qt development toolkit can read a .pro file and convert it to a Makefile suitable for use with Microsoft Nmake. Before compiling, either in the visual development environment or through the command line, you need to be sure the include path is set up correctly for Libxml2. If compiling from the command line, edit the bookmarkbridge.pro file and change the include path. If using the visual development environment, change your project settings (from the Project menu).

Compiling BookmarkBridge for Unix

On Unix, BookmarkBridge uses the standard GNU build procedure. Just run the following commands at a shell prompt: 

#: ./configure --enable-mt
#: make
#: make install
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BookmarkBridge is Copyright © 2003 by Ken Schenke. All Rights Reserved. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.