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Someone MUST make a new PowerMarks program.
twinkler:
Hi guys,
I've been meaning to post a writeup of my recent research into this question but have procrastinated until now. Thanks, patteo, for inspiring me to share my results.
I've been married to Powermarks for almost ten years. With the twin blows of Kaylon no longer supporting it and it "not working" with Firefox 3, I recently found myself moving through the five stages of grief. Then, having finally accepted that I must abandon my longest-used, most-used, and most-loved program, I furiously started looking for an alternative.
Without even testing them, I rejected most standalone bookmark managers because they rely on a tree rather than tags. That left two that actually use tags, miTaggedMarks and Power Favorites (formerly XBEL Bookmark Manager). I tried out miTaggedMarks and was impressed by its ability to import a Powermarks file and by its tag handling features. But before I could try Power Favorites (and figure out how much trouble it would be to devise a way to import my powermarks), I realized that I was essentially on the road to recreating the sorry situation in which I had found myself--having entrusted the most important part of my online life to a lone obscure programmer who could close up shop tomorrow.
So I decided to look at del.icio.us. I figured out how get my 4300 powermarks into del.icio.us with the tags intact (I'll post that process separately in the next few days). I've had a Google Alert for the search term "powermarks" for years, which among other things has led me to read several unanswered appeals from Powermarks users desperate to get their bookmarks into del.icio.us. So seeing all those powermarks there in del.icio.us felt like quite a triumph. But you know, after working with it for a while, I just did not like that web interface. I tried the del.icio.us Firefox extension, and that was pretty nifty, but the whole experience was so far short of what I'd been used to that I started thinking again.
Because I had equated Firefox 3 with Death to Powermarks, until last month I hadn't paid it any attention at all. But during all my research I discovered that Firefox 3 had incorporated tags into bookmarks, so I took a look. I installed Firefox 3 and, as patteo did, the TagSifter extension, then went to work on importing my powermarks into Firefox. (I'll post that process soon, too). Seeing my powermarks in Firefox with tags, I experienced once again the feeling I had upon successfully importing my powermarks to del.icio.us: a mixture of jubilation, joy, and wonder. But, once again, after a few hours I was dissatisfied, as patteo was.
In desperation I (finally!) decided to see what it meant that "Powermarks doesn't work with Firefox 3". I found that Powermarks can indeed launch a bookmarked URL in Firefox 3, but it can't load info about a page into a new bookmark--hitting my usual hotkey for "Add bookmark from browser" brings up a blank powermark.
So I fooled around with AutoHotkey for a while and came up with this kludgy, temperamental, but functional script:
--- ---!m::
WinActivate Firefox ; move to the Firefox window
Clipsave = %clipboard% ; save the current clipboard contents
Send !d^c ; copy the page's URL
Send ^+m ; simulate the hotkey for "Add bookmark from browser"
Sleep 200 ; wait a moment for the blank powermark to appear
Send {Tab}^v ; move to the URL field and paste in the URL
Sleep 1000 ; wait some more
Send !f ; hit the Fetch button
Sleep 1000 ; wait some more
Send {Enter} ; hit the OK button
Sleep 1000 ; wait some more
Send {Tab}^+{End}{Del} ; delete the fetched keywords so I can enter my own
clipboard = %clipsave% ; restore the previous clipboard contents
Return
If you use this script, change line 1 to whatever hotkey you want to hit to add a new powermark, and change line 5 to send whatever hotkey you entered in the "Add bookmark from browser" field in Powermarks's hotkey options.
Using "Fetch" to fill the name only works half the time; the other half it inserts the URL. I delete the keywords that Powermarks adds because I've developed my own taxonomy.
I've been using this for about a month now. It's not ideal, but it's pretty close. In any event, it has enabled me to continue using one of the best pieces of software I've ever encountered.
Any AutoHotkey whiz reading this who can suggest improvements?
superboyac:
Wow this is cool. Skrommel is the ahk expert here, but I haven't heard from him for a while. I need to read both of your posts more carefully later, but all we need is to have the three buttons for powermarks working in firefox 3, it seems very simple. The program itself still works fine, even with firefox 3. I can call up the program using my hotkeys pick a link and it will open in a new tab. I used to prefer it opening in the existing tab and the buttons were on the toolbar, but this is still workable for now.
I still truly can't believe nobody has imitated this program yet. It's really very simple. There's a list of bookmarks with absolutely no organization, you filter the list in the search box, pick the bookmark and it opens. That's it. What could be simpler? The whole program is a list, a search box, and some buttons to add items to the list. Yet it's the greatest program of all.
It just goes to show you the beauty in simplicity. With all the bookmarking tools around, there's something so exceptional about Powermarks.
twinkler:
You might want to spend a little time with miTaggedMarks. It's the closest thing to Powermarks. Michael has put a lot of thought and work into the program, and his tag handling is actually more sophisticated than that of Powermarks. It's too bad he hasn't implemented something like Powermarks's status checking of the bookmarks.
twinkler:
I spent some time this afternoon improving my code:
--- ---!m::
Clipsave = %Clipboard% ; save the current clipboard contents
WinActivate Firefox ; move to the Firefox window
WinWaitActive Firefox ; wait until the Firefox window is active
Send !d^c ; copy the page's URL
Send ^+m ; simulate the hotkey for "Add bookmark from browser"
WinWaitActive Bookmark Properties ; wait until the new blank powermark appears
Send {Tab} ; move to the URL field
ControlGetFocus, ControlName ; wait until we're at the URL field
loop
{
if ControlName = Edit7
break
sleep 50
ControlGetFocus, ControlName
}
Send ^v ; paste in the URL
Send !f ; hit the Fetch button
WinWaitActive Updating Powermark ; wait until the fetch finishes
ControlGetText, ButtonText, Button1
loop
{
if ButtonText = OK
break
sleep 50
ControlGetText, ButtonText, Button1
}
Send {Enter} ; close the fetch window
WinWaitActive Bookmark Properties ; wait until the fetch window closes
Send {Tab}{Del}^+{End}{Del} ; delete the fetched keywords so I can enter my own
Clipboard = %Clipsave% ; restore the previous clipboard contents
return
I replaced the clunky sleep statements with tests to determine when Powermarks has finished responding to the keystrokes I send it. Besides being cleaner, it works better, and the script will work the same on someone else's system as it does on mine.
superboyac:
You might want to spend a little time with miTaggedMarks. It's the closest thing to Powermarks. Michael has put a lot of thought and work into the program, and his tag handling is actually more sophisticated than that of Powermarks. It's too bad he hasn't implemented something like Powermarks's status checking of the bookmarks.
-twinkler (September 11, 2008, 02:48 PM)
--- End quote ---
OOoo! miTaggedMarks looks really good. I may have to get this one.
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