Bookmarks

Bookmarks are used to flag addresses of interest in a Program. Each Bookmark consists of an address, a type, a name, a category (optional), and a description (optional). Bookmarks may be organized using the category field. Ghidra places various Bookmark icons in the Marker Margin of the Code Browser to indicate locations of defined bookmarks. The tooltip (shown when the mouse hovers over the Bookmark icon in the Marker Margin) shows the Bookmark's type and comment.

The type refers to how the bookmark was added. Ghidra supplies five types of bookmarks:

Type (icon)	How Bookmark is Added	Navigator Color
Bookmark Types
Note	Added via the Note Bookmark dialog; Notes are intended to be user-defined only.	Purple
Info	May be added by a plugin to mark an address of interest.	Cyan
Analysis	Added during the Auto Analysis process. Indicates automatic changes which have been made to the program (e.g., code found, address tables, etc.).	Orange
Error	Added by the disassembler or Auto Analysis process when an unexpected condition is identified at a specific address (e.g., bad instruction).	Red
Unknown	Represents a custom Bookmark type which was added by a plugin not currently configured into the tool. A properly designed plugin will assign a custom icon and color to its custom type.	Magenta

Ghidra also places a marker for the bookmark in the Navigation Margin of the Code Browser. Clicking on the Navigation Margin causes the Code Browser to go to that address, and centers it in the browser.

The following paragraphs describes the Bookmarks window, and how to add and remove bookmarks.

Add a Bookmark (in the CodeBrowser)

To add a Note Bookmark,

Position the cursor at an address
Right-mouse-click in the Code Browser, select Bookmark
The Address field on the Note Bookmark dialog shows the location where the bookmark will be added
Enter a Category (optional) or choose an existing one from the combo box
Enter a Description (optional); if an end of line comment exists at this address, then this text becomes the default description of the bookmark, as shown in the image above.
Click on the OK button.

When adding a bookmark with multiple selections in the Code Browser, the Bookmark Top of Each Selection checkbox is both enabled and selected by default. Leave the checkbox selected to create a bookmark at the start of each address range in the selection. Deselecting the checkbox will cause the bookmark to be created at the cursor location.

Before Adding Bookmarks to Selection

After Adding Bookmarks to Selection

The following image depicts the Code Browser with Bookmarks. Notice the checkmarks in the Marker Margin on the left and the markers in the Navigation Margin on the right.

Bookmarks Window

The Bookmarks window lists all of the bookmarks within a Program, including the bookmark type, category, description, address, label, and code unit where the bookmark was placed. Click on a Bookmark to navigate to the selected address in the Code Browser.

To display the Bookmarks window, click the bookmark icon in the Code Browser toolbar, or select the Window Bookmarks option from the menu.

Each of the columns may be sorted by clicking on the header. The sort graphic illustrates which column is being sorted on, and whether it is ascending ( ) or descending ( ). In the image above, the Preview column is sorted in ascending alphabetical order. By default, the bookmarks are sorted in ascending order by the Type column.

In the Bookmark table, only the Category and Description columns are editable. To edit entries in these columns, double-click on the appropriate cell and begin typing. Click outside of the cell to apply the changes. When the Category column is being edited, it shows a combo box, listing all of the categories. Choose an existing category or enter a new one. If a new category in entered, the combo box is updated.

The list of Bookmarks displayed can be filtered by clicking the Filter button in the toolbar of the Bookmark Window. The displayed bookmarks will correspond to the selected checkboxes in the Bookmark Filter dialog.

You may also filter the contents of the bookmark table by using the filter text field.

The following describes the features available from the Bookmarks window (Note: some of these features are also available from inside the CodeBrowser):

Edit Category

Double click in a Category cell to display the cell editor.
Click on the down-arrow button in the cell editor to display the list of categories.
Select a category from the list OR enter a new category in the cell editor.
Press the <Enter> key or click outside of the editor.

Edit Description

Double click on a Description cell to display the cell editor.
Enter a new description.
Press the <Enter> key or click outside of the editor.

Change the Sort Order

Click on the desired column header to change the sort order.

Navigate to a Bookmark

Click anywhere in the row to navigate to the bookmark.

Filter Bookmarks

Click the Filter button in the local toolbar of the Bookmarks window to display the Bookmark Filter dialog.
Configure filter information.
Click on the OK button.

If you have turned off some of the filter types, then the filter icon will show a checkmark ().

You may save the settings of the bookmark filter dialog by saving the tool.

In addition to filtering on the type of bookmarks you may also filter the contents of the bookmark table by entering text into the filter text field found at the bottom of the bookmark table. This filter will include only those Bookmarks whose Category or Description contain the specified text. For example, to show only the entry point bookmarks, you would enter "entry" in the filter field. The results would show only those bookmarks with a Category or Description containing the word "entry". The text filter is not case sensitive, nor does it support regular expressions.

Reorder Columns

Reorder columns in the Bookmarks window by dragging the column header to another position in the table.

Make Selection in the Code Browser

Select one or more rows in the Bookmarks table.
Click the Select Bookmark Locations button in the local toolbar.
The corresponding addresses are selected in the browser.
Navigate to the selected addressed by using the navigation buttons ( , ) on the main tool bar.

Remove Bookmarks

Select one or more rows in the Bookmarks table.
Hit the <Delete> key, or press the icon on the Bookmarks toolbar, or right mouse click and choose the Delete option.

Dismiss the Bookmarks Window

Click the Dismiss button to exit the Bookmarks window.

Provided by: Bookmarks Plugin