Convert tab

The Convert tab allows you to perform the following tasks:

The Input field shows the clipboard content by default. Aba works as a clipboard viewer, so you can open Aba's window side-by-side with a text editor and copy the text you want to decode. Aba will immediately show the decoded text, so you don't have to switch between the windows and paste it.

If you edit the text in the Input field, it won't be automatically replaced with the clipboard content anymore. You need to click the Paste button in this case.

Aba usually detects the encoding automatically, but it can be wrong for very short texts. Sometimes you may also want to double-encode, so you can choose the encoding from the drop-down in the top right corner.

Aba can convert an image from the clipboard to PNG format and encode it as a Base64 data URL. However, it's recommended to save the image in a graphics editor, run it through an image optimizer, then open this file in Aba. Graphics software allows you to adjust the number of colors and the image compression, so you can create a smaller data URL compared to pasting the image from clipboard. Transparency (alpha channel) is lost when copying/pasting an image from some applications including Firefox and XnView, but fully supported when opening/saving files.

The following image file formats are supported: PNG, JPEG, GIF, and ICO. Other file formats like WebP or AVIF/HEIF can be encoded, decoded, and viewed in binary format, but you won't be able to see the image in the Aba window.

In the status bar, Aba displays one of the following:

Supported encodings

Base64 encoding is specified in RFC 4648; it transforms each three UTF-8 bytes into four printable characters, making them unreadable. By default, the standard Base64 encoding is used (see section 4 of the RFC), so the last two characters of the Base64 alphabet are + and /. If you check the URL alphabet option (see section 5 of the RFC), these two characters will be - and _. The last encoded bytes are padded with the equal sign =, which can be avoided by unchecking the Padding option.

HTML encoding encodes special characters like < to HTML entities like &lt;. The following characters are encoded:

< to &lt;
> to &gt;
& to &amp;
" to &quot;
' to &#39;

If you check the No double option, the existing entities are not double-encoded. For example, if the text already contains &lt;, it's not changed to &amp;lt;.

By default, double quotes are encoded to &quot; and single quotes to &#39;. Encoding quotes is necessary when you insert the encoded string into an HTML attribute; for a text node, it's not mandatory, so you can choose the No quotes option.

If you choose the &apos; option, the double quote is encoded to the &apos; entity, which is supported in HTML5 and XML. By default, Aba uses &#39; to remain compatible with legacy Internet Explorer versions.

URL encoding encodes the URL string using the percent-encoding specified in RFC 3986, section 2.1. Reserved characters such as slashes are replaced with their ASCII codes preceded by a percent sign, for example, %2F. Non-ASCII characters are replaced with their UTF-8 codes.

If you check the Form (+) option, spaces are replaced with plus signs instead of %20. This encoding variation is used in the application/x-www-form-urlencoded media type.

JSON web tokens (JWT) are specified in RFC 7519. Aba does not verify the cryptographic signature or HMAC, but allows you to view the Base64-encoded JOSE header and the JWT claims set. JSON web encryption (JWE) tokens specified in RFC 7516 are not supported.

Timestamps

The Unix timestamp is the number of seconds passed since January 1, 1970. It's commonly used in C and C++ programming languages and many databases. Java and JavaScript use the number of milliseconds, not seconds, to represent time.

With Aba, you can convert these timestamps to a date in the format specified by RFC 3339 or in the Windows date and time format. The RFC 3339 timestamp is displayed in both your local timezone and UTC.

You can also copy a date/time to the clipboard, and Aba will convert it to the Unix timestamp or the Java timestamp. Many common formats are supported, for example:

RFC 3339 / ISO 8601 subset:

RFC 822 with the RFC 1123 / RFC 7231 additions (used in HTTP headers and MIME headers):

RFC 850 (Usenet):

Local time (today):

Time with a timezone (today):

US date format (if the time is not specified, it defaults to midnight):

European date format:

Textual format:

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