Buchen Support 👩‍🏫

Buchen on iOS 17

There has been a change in the underlying database framework that means version 2023.03 will not work on iOS 17. Please ensure you upgrade to 2023.04. Unfortunately there has been a rare bug for people that have tried to use 2023.03 on iOS 17 that can cause problems even when you update. It makes it appear that you bookmarks have disappeared. They have not disappeared. In this case, you can uninstall and reinstall the app and it will work and all your bookmarks will download.

There has also been one case of the widget not working after performing a migration from your old iPhone to a new iPhone. The app works fine. Unfortunately in this case, uninstalling the app and reinstalling it will fix the widget.

Fixes for these that do not require uninstalling / reinstalling the app are being worked on.

Buchen Support (Deutsch 🇩🇪)

Categories

General

Advanced

If you need additional support for Buchen please feel free to reach out to help

Each section (Bookmarks, Tags, and Folders) will let you search your data.

At the top of the list, pull down to reveal the search box. The search tells you what data it will search.

With a tag view, you can search that tag’s bookmarks too. Inside a folder, you can search both the sub-folders and bookmarks.

In the case of bookmarks, the search will search against the name, URL, notes, and browser. This means you could, as an example, search for all bookmarks that open in Firefox.

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Widgets

Buchen has widgets in all 4 sizes (small, medium, large, and extra large). There are widgets for your most visited bookmarks or your most recently visited bookmarks.

Buchen also comes with Lock Screen widgets that do the following:

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Shortcuts

Buchen comes with a variety of shortcuts, and hopefully the list will continue to grow. Go to the Shortcuts app and search for Buchen to find all the available shortcuts.

There are shortcuts for searching bookmarks, navigating the app, deleting bookmarks.

There’s even a fun shortcut for generating a QR code from any URL and either displaying it or using the image in another Shortcut action. This could be used, as an example, to create and add a Shortcut for turning URLs in safari into QR codes. It doesn’t require the URL to be in Buchen.

The QR code shortcut, by default, is a standard black on white QR code. However, you might notice in Buchen’s settings that you can choose your own QR code colours. This shortcut can optionally use these too.

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Keyboard Shortcuts

You can use keyboard shortcuts on iPad or macOS. Within Settings, you will find a keyboard shortcut section if you would like to learn about these keyboard shortcuts.

Alternatively, on an iPad, they are discoverable by the standard method of holding down the Command key.

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Context Menu

Options you can access by long-pressing an item.

Bookmarks

Tags

Folders

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Swipe Menus

Options you can access by swiping left / right on a row

Bookmarks

Tags

Folders

Home Screen menu

From your iOS device’s home screen, you can long-press the app icon, and it will present you with the following options in a menu.

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Supported URL Schemes

Any parameter block that contains an ? is optional.

Any URL passed in as a value must be URL encoded.

Add Tag

buchen://add-tag?name=<tag name>

Add Bookmark

buchen://add?name=<bookmark name>&url=<url>&browser=<browser ?>

Browser options include:

NOTE: safari is another name for default. There is currently no way to open a URL in Safari when it is not the default.

NOTE: browsers are referenced everywhere with these names, including the Buchen JSON export files.

Go to Bookmarks

buchen://go-bookmarks

Go to Tags

buchen://go-tags

Go to Folders

buchen://go-folders

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Export Data

Buchen can export data in its own JSON format. This is the best way to inspect and understand its format.

Buchen can also export data as HTML, which will then allow you to import your bookmarks into a desktop browser or any other software that accepts the Netscape bookmark HTM format.

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Import data

Data can be imported from bookmark HTML files, Firefox JSON back-up files and with Buchen’s own JSON format.

Each format contains methods for defining folders (and sometimes tags), the app will pick up these folders and tags and import them too. Delicious style notes (<DD>A Note example...)will be imported from HTML imports too.

The Buchen JSON format uses ISO 8601 time format.

Buchen Format

The Buchen format allows you to import a mix of bookmarks without folders or folders with sub-folders (called children) and bookmarks. There is no hard limit on how deep you can go. So, feel free to import a folder with a structure that goes 10 levels deep.

Required Fields

All other fields are optional. Browser options use the same names as found in the ’Supported URL schemes’ section.

The root of the JSON has two sections (folders or bookmarks). Either can be excluded, but at least one should exist.


{
   "folders" : [], // zero to many folder objects
   "bookmarks" : [] // zero to many bookmark objects
}

A bookmark object should look like this


{
   // required
   "name" : "bird site",
   "url" : "https:\/\/www.twitter.com"
   // optional
   "visits" : 0,
   "tags" : [ ],
   "note" : "",
   "last_visit" : "2022-09-19T10:51:27Z",
   "created" : "2022-01-29T20:51:27Z",
   "browser" : "safari"
}

A folder object should look like this example, which is a folder with 1 bookmark and 1 sub-folder without any bookmarks or sub-folders.


{
   "name" : "my folder",
   "created" : "2022-12-29T20:49:46Z",
   "children" : [
      {
         "created" : "2022-12-29T20:51:01Z",
         "name" : "inner folder example",
         "children" : []
         "bookmarks" : []
      }
   ],
   "bookmarks": [
      {
         "name" : "borovia.co",
         "url" : "https:\/\/www.borovia.co"
         "created" : "2022-12-29T20:50:28Z",
         "browser" : "safari",
         "note" : "i am a note",
         "last_visit" : null,
      }
   ]
}

A complete import example


{
    "folders" : [
        {
           "name" : "my folder",
           "created" : "2022-12-29T20:49:46Z",
           "children" : [
              {
                 "created" : "2022-12-29T20:51:01Z",
                 "name" : "inner folder example",
                 "children" : []
                 "bookmarks" : []
              }
           ],
           "bookmarks": [
              {
                 "name" : "borovia.co",
                 "url" : "https:\/\/www.borovia.co"
                 "created" : "2022-12-29T20:50:28Z",
                 "browser" : "safari",
                 "note" : "i am a note",
                 "last_visit" : null,
              }
            ]
        }
    ],
    "bookmarks" : [
        {
           "name" : "bird site",
           "url" : "https:\/\/www.twitter.com"
           "tags" : [ ],
           "note" : "",
           "last_visit" : "2022-09-19T10:51:27Z",
           "created" : "2022-01-29T20:51:27Z",
           "browser" : "safari"
        }

    ]
}

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