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Someone MUST make a new PowerMarks program.
Steven Avery:
Hi Folks,
Since I accidentally upgraded to Firefox 3.0 I was forced into some emergency considerations.
The AutoHotkey approach didn't do what it was supposed to for me, it didn't seem to have the focus for the right window, or it did nothing and/or it did funny stuff to the actual new bookmark. Anybody using that on a daily basis with Firefox and Opera opened ? It seemed fast enough, I just could not get it to work properly.
As a sidenote: I found out that you can have a pretty good Navigator 9. == Firefox 2.0 as an extra browser on your system, with the Firefox incremental search. However Powermarks did not recognize it fully in my case. Powermarks would open a Netscape tab/window, but the "Add from Netscape" bookmark feature did not work, the bookmark is ready to enter as new - blank.
The key Firefox 2.0 --> Powermarks integration is the wonderful "Install Firefox Toolbar" which is gone on 3.0. Checking the net, I was able to have Firefox 2.0 and 3.0 on my system, change the path in Powermarks for my new 2.0 in a new directory and sucessfully install the Toolbar without touching 3.0. Kewl. (This involves a smidgen of Firefox Profile manipulation, which I was happy to learn about anyway.) Apparently the differing profiles e.g. "Firefox2" can be in the same directory, you can have the question come up at startup, and one profile can be associated with 2.0 and another with 3.0. Something like that. So far, so good.
Can 2.0 and 3.0 be running at the same time ? Dunno yet, somebody said no on the net, but I am happy to have all my 2.0 functionality back without uninstalling 3.0 and feeling I am locked totally into the stone-age of 2.0 forevermore.
Now to PowerFavorites and Linkman. Power Favorites looks clean and more minimalist (in the Powermarks fashion) .. less agile, powerful .. however it seems like it may be using programming tools that are slower, such as for accessing data or screen redraws. That could be a concern for heavy usage, bookmark-as-PIM 50K plus, although likely not for 95-99% of the users.. Also when I imported the file, and then deliberately crashed-closed for a reboot -- the imported file was gone. Thus it probably needs some manual saves or automatic saves which I did not check yet. No damage, but the fact that a big file was simply gone concerns me. (I scanned for all the .xbel files on the disk, only find the demo/default). On the other hand Power Favorites brought forth the Powermarks original opening date, Linkman started everything today. A better import, when you save the data :) .
Powermarks small font and mimimalist approach and speed still makes it, so far, the PIM-bookmark favorite. I was very impressed with Linkman. It looks like neither other program has fully matched some of the simplicity of Powermarks such as:
1) Firefox toolbar for one click and small window pop-up adding/editing.
2) Small font, lots of rows on the screen, few windows, great for pseudo-PIM, super-speed.
3) Flexibility in opening a link in the browser of your choice, not just the current default browser.
Linkman does seem to have solid additional features that may make it the way to go shortly anyway, it looks like I should start to use it with my 3.0 Firefox and test it out. And it may be possible to do the equivalent of most of 1-2-3 .. just thought I would mention where I am .. today. Have to do some other stuff, now that Firefox 2.0 is back !
Shalom,
Steven
cyberdiva:
Like many of the other contributors to this thread, I was passionate about Powermarks. I used it and loved it for more than a decade. Last year, however, the developer announced that Powermarks was being marked for "end of life," and there would be no further versions. Fortunately, at about the same time I learned this, I discovered Linkman. After some initial annoyance with some of its features, I found myself actually PREFERRING it to Powermarks! It lets me do more varied and sophisticated searches, and its checking for dead or moved URLs is both much faster and more accurate than Powermarks' was. Though you CAN organize your bookmarks into folders, you don't have to: you can use Linkman the same way you use Powermarks. Also, as has already been mentioned by others, Linkman has an "import from Powermarks" feature.
I might mention that Linkman is available as freeware as well as in a modestly-priced commercial version. Since I love Linkman's link-checking ability, I'd opt for the commercial version, but most of its other features are available in the freeware version as well.
The Linkman developer is continually improving this already excellent program. I've found that he's also very open to suggestions.
In short--I'm even happier with Linkman than I was with Powermarks. :Thmbsup:
Steven Avery:
Hi Folks,
Thanks.
Yep. I agree now. I was able to make it into a Powermarks-style minimalist interface by maximizing the query field and hiding (covering or eliminating) the (at left originally) full-tree window. That helps tremendously. Even can knock out the edit area at top, getting that by clicking when needed, since I almost always do that upon adding. Also by using the task bar you have quick load, no refresh time. Zap .. like powermarks, with added functionality. (Probably I don't even use the button bar, simply the drop-downs.) Okay the font is bigger, however that aspect is covered by the next:
Especially helpful is the "Print" option. That was a major Powermarks lack. I found myself taking printkeys of my query search results.
The boolean searches will probably help.
Also the user defined fields..maybe (hmm.. they should be added to print output !)
I asked Linkman to try to get that Powermarks "date" option working on import, the date format was unusual, maybe it was EBCIDIC not ASCI .. hmmm. Is that possible ?
" Powermarks date looks something like this (in the file): 48DFD8CB" .
Nope, I am familiar with EBCIDIC character and packed, does not look familiar. Maybe somebody here is data-type helpful.
And I learned that the add and launch buttons are all reasonably fine at this point, a Firefox single-button would be nice (rather than right-click "Add to Linkman and edit") -- however all is reasonable as is for working with Firefox and Opera and more.
The settings are quite flexible. I think I can mostly retire Powermarks after a bit of trial. The speed looks sufficient. Especially interesting was his saying that he has folks with 1 million urls.
One item I asked him to improve. If you are not allowing dups, then if you add a dup it should simply bring up the record in an edit window -- for adding keywords and such. Right now a request to add (anyway) comes up..and editing the existing is not a dialog option.
And going upthread -- I understand the gripe about the "free" program trying to do 3rd party stuff (remember I was the one who held Trialpay to the fire because they don't care about partnering with programs "registry optimizers" .. often scams .. and "reg opts" seems to be one thing the 3rd party here was pushing). This is a factor to consider, I think we can just encourage Linkman to think about this more for now. I haven't loaded any free versions so it is early on my end.
There are some other niceties to discuss or try or use, but basically once we have then general excellent Powermark functionality, Firefox 3 (!) and printing (!), all is fine. Also boolean, user-defined fields and comments functionality, superior query field flexibility. And the better export types and templates and stuff. Yep.
Link-checking, can't hurt. I usually just research google for the text. Or try or find it in archive.org if important.
What would be nice .. saving many pages to the disk here in Surfalator fashion or to my own specified folder. Perhaps the person doing Surf-Linkman integration could discuss this. Oh, and having the new place linkable from Linkman. Ahh.. that is a dream of sorts. Even if the page vanishes, an alternate link to my own disk finds it.
Can Linkman do much with my C: drive as is now, or would I have to do a complex cut-and-paste of "C:\My Saved Pages\Sample.html" (is that the syntax from within ?). I never tried that with powermarks.
(Not sure if the drop basket and desktop toolbar will be used, the dropbasket is good as a large easy-use tray icon. The desktop toolbar essentially tries to accomplish in a limited space what I like full-screen in powermarks-style minimalism, so probably is not a factor.)
Probably a bit more, especially for those in stone-age folder thought. (Launching a special window-full of tabs from a folder might be nice.)
Query-speed. So far not powermarks quick, but quite fine, maybe some Process Tamer type of priority tweaking there. Adding URLs should be faster and better, now that I no longer need duplicate information in the Name and Keywords (since Linkman handles that in search check-field flexibility.)
Multiple instances of Linkman might be used, however more simply I would like to see some saving of former search (what did I have up before this one, I want to go back to that) with either a pop-up of previous and/or browser-style back-and-forth buttons.
And active development and support. I suggested an email forum or web forum. Does Donationcoder host that for 3rd-party products ? Wilders I think hosts a number of security software forums in a special place.
Just look for the discount .. and buy as the long-term replacement. Trialpay .. generally I avoid, for the reasons mentioned here. Rather buy direct.
Thank you Powermarks for many years of good service.
Thank you Linkman for taking over where Powermarks left off, and more.
Shalom,
Steven
twinkler:
cyberdiva & Steven,
Many thanks for sharing your experiences with Linkman. I just installed it, imported my Powermarks, and tweaked the interface.
However, I hit a brick wall looking for a way to display a list of all of my keywords the way Powermarks displays what it calls a dictionary. Do you know if Linkman can do this? If not, I don't see myself using it.
Steven, I use my AutoHotkey script every day and it (usually!) works fine. I'm sorry it didn't work for you, but your switch to Linkman seems to have made that moot.
superboyac:
Thank you Powermarks for many years of good service.
Thank you Linkman for taking over where Powermarks left off, and more.
Shalom,
Steven
-Steven Avery (February 21, 2009, 04:38 PM)
--- End quote ---
Nicely said, Steven. I think I feel the same way.
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