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. 

[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)

Nicely said, Steven.  I think I feel the same way.

[cyberdiva]

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.

-twinkler (February 23, 2009, 05:03 PM)

Hi, twinkler.  I confess that I never paid any attention to Powermarks' dictionary feature--I couldn't see any use for it.  I never felt the need to know what keywords I had used in the past.  All that mattered to me was coming up with the right keywords to locate a specific bookmark, and I was always able to do that quickly and easily not by searching through a long list of keywords but simply by free-associating.  I had about 3000 bookmarks in my Powermarks file, and I never had a problem finding any of them.  That's one of the things that I loved best about Powermarks--and now about Linkman.

[Steven Avery]

Hi Folks,

Twinkler, like cyberdiva I found the dictionary system quickly irrelevant.  The way I remember a keyword (beyond short ones like "Biz" for business contacts or "Addy" for an address book and peoples initials for their category if more than one person has an addy book) is to stick the "dictionary" word in the subject in caps in a couple of items. Then I "remember" the dictionary pretty easily. Similarly I never tried the powermarks macro feature. True the dictionary is a nice feature for some, so you might take that up with Linkman.  When I would do this for Powermarks I would have to put stuff in two places, the subject line and the keyword, in Linkman you can have the subject line work in keyword searches as well (rather a major help, that was a PM deficiency).

Linkman says they are leaving freeze.com for the free installation very shortly.  Actually I cannot recommend the free install until that is done, install the 30-day professional and usb version.  Most of the people here will probably use one or more of the pro features anyway.  Freeze.com is a bit of a disaster, hopefully Linkman's new install group will be clean as a whistle. They say the arrangements are made, pending iminent implementation.

I still would like to see if the AutoHotkey could work in Firefox 3 for powermarks.  In a couple of days I'll likely send you a private thing going over the details, unless I decide that it is 100% moot (ie. I do not plan to add any urls to Powermarks even if I use it as a PIM.)  For all the benefits of Linkman, and the compatibility only uphill to Linkman (well maybe there could be a 2-step very limited import into Powermarks losing keywords) Powermarks still has a couple of niceties. The scrunch-font mode of (for me) 45 or so on a page is kewl, the speed may still have a small notch ahead, maybe.  And I am very used to using it as my address book and database with the scrunch-mode.

Linkman is making the printing function more usable.  For me that is a major plus (right now there is no sort).  With Powermarks I would use multiple print keys, a bit of a kludge.  Since I use my bookmarks as a multi-Pim this will be a major plus.  Hopefully this will combine with the user-defined fields and sorting by those fields (let them be states or card#s or publication dates, in fact one user-defined field can do multi-duty in some cases) to allow very neat printouts.  At that point a lot of stuff that is done in Alpha 5 or Ultra Recall or nowhere become even more Linkman capable.  If I add one voice to this discussion, it is to think in terms of Linkman being your PIM and research tool as much as a bookmark manager.

And of course Linkman has ongoing support and improvement and is a very solid program as is and has other really neat features, like the export stuff and USB and syncing through that web backup site (Powermarks sync had great limitations).

Shalom,
Steven Avery

[TucknDar]

Linkman says they are leaving freeze.com for the free installation very shortly. 

-Steven Avery (February 25, 2009, 08:37 AM)

Thank god! What an incredibly annoying installation procedure that was (had to whitelist a couple of freeze.com domains in my router, because of ad-blocking). Very off-putting and gave me an immediate bad impression of Linkman...

[jb30]

I had the same issue and I manually constructed a way to get Powermark bookmarks imported into Delicious using only Microsoft Excel. It should take you less than 30 minutes to it.

Steps to import Powermarks into Delicious.com using Microsoft Excel 2003

1. Put a bookmark in Delicious and export bookmark file from Delicious by going under settings then Export / Backup Bookmarks.
2. Export bookmarks from Powermarks under File -> export as type delimited ASCII.
3. Open the exported Powermarks text file in Excel.
4. Put columns in order of url, keywords, then title and delete all remaining columns.
5. Setup the Excel sheet with the following columns to mimic the exported Delicious file format. Copy and paste the test string following each column name into the first cell of each column then copy and paste that cell all the way down the column to the last row of your bookmarks. (The text is exact after the Column letters and spaces with the red lines as the original data columns from Powermarks):
Column A  <DL><p><DT><A HREF="
Column B  The url field
Column C  " TAGS="
Column D  The keywords field
Column E  ">
Column F  The bookmark name field
Column G  </A></DL><p>

6. Select keywords column and go under Edit -> replace put a space in the find what field and a comma in the replace with field. This will put commas in the place of all the spaces in between the keywords.
7. Press ctrl-a to select whole sheet and go under Data -> filter -> autofilter . Open the filter cell in the first row of the url column. Select custom and do contains file:  Then delete all those rows to get rid of the file bookmarks.
8. Do ctrl-a to select whole sheet then ctrl-c to copy then open notepad.exe and ctrl-v to paste sheet.
9. In notepad highlight and copy one of the tab characters placed in the rows as field separators, then go under edit and replace and paste the tab character in the find what field and hit replace all to get rid of the tab delimiters.
10. Copy top part of Delicious export file before first <DL><p><DT> line and paste into top of Powermarks notepad file, change both instances of the word bookmarks to Powermarks. Make sure all format exactly matches original Delicious download file.
11. Save the notepad file as powermarks.htm
12. Go in delicious.com, go under settings and Import / Upload Bookmarks. At the bottom select manual import. Delete “imported” out of tag field and hit Import Now.
13. You should get a success statement and your bookmarks should now begin showing up under bookmarks.

[drewk]

Just released Linkman 7.60 (Freeware and Shareware versions available).

-Outertech Support (November 10, 2008, 01:09 AM)

Another PowerMarks user here; been using it for years...

I am just trying Linkman (pro 7.7.1.15) and though it is really pretty great I'd like to offer a couple of suggestions to the developer regarding the query search:

1) Linkman's defaulting to a substring search is very inefficient. When I type in at (say for "attorney" or "atlas" or "athlon", etc.) I don't also want "battery", "rattle", "collimator", "estate", "matthey", and every other keyword that has at somewhere in the string. That just means I will have to type in additional keywords to narrow the search, or else backspace and re-enter my search term as a literal string with quote marks. On the rare occasion that I do want to perform a substring search I would be very happy to add wildcard asterisks to the query: *at*; but this should not be the default search pattern.

Here is a practical example: A search query of at b narrows my 2,000+ bookmarks to just four using PowerMarks. Linkman yields nearly 300 bookmarks for the same query, requiring additional typing or literal string quoting. at bo narrows to 2 for Powermarks, but there still remain 54 for Linkman... too many to glance through. Linkman consistently requires a lot more typing to narrow a search, due to the default substring interpretation of queries.

2) I also don't care for autocompletion when I'm typing in a search query. More often than not I end up having to delete the autocompleted part. I think people who are good typists generally find autocompletion to be annoying. For those who do like it perhaps it could be made an option.

I hope these suggestions are useful. I'll keep an eye on Linkman but in the meantime, still using PowerMarks...


Drew

[superboyac]

Just released Linkman 7.60 (Freeware and Shareware versions available).

-Outertech Support (November 10, 2008, 01:09 AM)

Another PowerMarks user here; been using it for years...

I am just trying Linkman (pro 7.7.1.15) and though it is really pretty great I'd like to offer a couple of suggestions to the developer regarding the query search:

1) Linkman's defaulting to a substring search is very inefficient. When I type in at (say for "attorney" or "atlas" or "athlon", etc.) I don't also want "battery", "rattle", "collimator", "estate", "matthey", and every other keyword that has at somewhere in the string. That just means I will have to type in additional keywords to narrow the search, or else backspace and re-enter my search term as a literal string with quote marks. On the rare occasion that I do want to perform a substring search I would be very happy to add wildcard asterisks to the query: *at*; but this should not be the default search pattern.

Here is a practical example: A search query of at b narrows my 2,000+ bookmarks to just four using PowerMarks. Linkman yields nearly 300 bookmarks for the same query, requiring additional typing or literal string quoting. at bo narrows to 2 for Powermarks, but there still remain 54 for Linkman... too many to glance through. Linkman consistently requires a lot more typing to narrow a search, due to the default substring interpretation of queries.

2) I also don't care for autocompletion when I'm typing in a search query. More often than not I end up having to delete the autocompleted part. I think people who are good typists generally find autocompletion to be annoying. For those who do like it perhaps it could be made an option.

I hope these suggestions are useful. I'll keep an eye on Linkman but in the meantime, still using PowerMarks...

-drewk (March 10, 2009, 10:25 AM)

Drew, I agree with #2.  I'd like an option to turn off autocompletion.
I disagree with #1, but to satisfy both sides, again, maybe an option to toggle one or the other.

[Steven Avery]

Hi Folks,

About a week or two ago I wrote with the same request, since I agree that the default search should be about words, not strings.  (I was looking up an author named Oosterzee and the boosters and the roosters were crowing.  And there are many simpler examples.  In addition I was having a problem with the way to do a word search itself, using a prefix character. although I have not retested that.)   The toogle-choice suggestion would be the most elegant solution possibility.

No discussion with Linkman yet, but some other concerns were addressed (especially a problem in the Powermarks data which needed extra tweaking on the import to Linkman.  Powermarks internally expanded the @ sign .. which is used in the Google books links.  Linkman had to contract the Powermarks internal expansion, probably in the Powermarks programming language the @ character had a special meaning and thus needed an awkward string to be represented).

We all agree on auto-completion being more nuisance than help. (Although again a toggle or configuration possibility comes to mind.) I noticed also that sometimes the query words do not simply stay in the query field, although it is in the "completed searches" history group, ready to be put back and modified.  I would prefer always seeing the last, current search in the field, I'm not sure what causes that sometimes to blank out.  (That one I had not yet mentioned to Thomas.)

Overall, though, I have found the Powermarks-->Linkman move to be very satisfactory.  And quite helpful for anyone who views Firefox as the browser of choice..  And I'm looking forward to printing enhancements and some additional usages.

Shalom,
Steven

[Outertech Support]

Linkman Pro 7.80 is out:

<ul><li>Added more Buttons to Firefox integration</li>
<li>Improved Printing: QueryPrint, Userdef fields, configurable margins</li>
<li>Query option to search for whole words only (default off)</li>
<li>Query option to autocomplete search terms (default off)</li>
<li>Added date support to Powermarks import</li>
<li>Query results can be exported using Templates (Pro version only)</li>
<li>Added <PARENT.KEYWORDS> and <PARENT.COMMENT> Tags to Export Templates (Pro version only)</li>
<li>Increased the size of keywords edit area in URL properties window</li>
<li>Ascending/Descending option in Autosort</li>
<li>When adding URLs you get the option to edit a URL if it already exists</li>
<li>Query Results font is now configurable (Tools | Settings | Interface)</li>
<li>Added more URL Launch options to context menus</li>
<li>If Linkman is hidden "Add and Edit to Linkman" will restore focus back to browser</li>
<li>New option to add browser links to the top of the database (Tools | Settings | Receive URLs)</li>
<li>Tools | Settings | Interface | Show Treeview lines turns also Query Results lines on/off</li></ul>Shareware Version:

Web: http://linkman.outertech.com
Download: http://www.outertech...om/files/linkman.exe

Tutorial video: http://linkmanvideo.outertech.com

Freeware version will follow within this month (Linkman Free 7.71 will be replaced by Linkman Lite 7.80).

[Steven Avery]

Hi Folks,

My thanks to Outertech for an incredible responsiveness and active user support.  (Another reason for those unsure with Powermarks to make the plunge, help the developers and move ahead.  You can always keep Powermarks up for finding and loading existing bookmarks for awhile, until you are fully Linkman comfortable.) My recent XP software experience has been enhanced by Outertech and BillP of WinPatrol, two companies that have really set and raised the bar on small company support (yes, there are probably many dozen others that are worthy of mention, including DC programs and coders., I mention those two because they work on programs in the sweet spot of my daily usage).

For now I want to point out - clarify - one very significant enhancement.

"When adding URLs you get the option to replace a URL if it already exists"

This means that you can "EDIT" an already existing URL (when you try to add it .. and often you do not even know if it exists in your link database or not before the add / re-add attempt).  If you have the checkbox for :

Tools --> Settings --> Receive URLs --> Prevent adding existing URLs
as checked.  ie. (No dup-key)

When the web page is already in front of you it will be faster to simply go to "Add" and then "Replace (Edit)" than to put in keywords to "Query" and then "Edit" .

A heavy user will use this option many times a day, the word "Replace" in that situation really means to us "Edit" or "Update". I mentioned it to Linkman recently and the improvement made the next update ! 

(Not the only one, especially they also bumped up the printer enhancements, a feature that helps bridge the gap between Bookmarks, Notes and PIM.  On Powermarks I was using the "Print Key" method, followed by the "scissor/pocket-razor cutup followup".  Not the most elegant :-).  And without much for sorting options.) 

I'm not sure how that adding stuff now works if you don't have the check-mark, it is likely unchanged from the former, since the idea is that you are asking for multiple urls for the same bookmark.  Personally I would recommend keeping it checked (no dups) although I can imagine some usage where a person goes the other way.

Notice above also the Query Options on search for whole words and autocomplete.  Apparently that was largely in response to the recent discussion on this thread within the last week or two, or correspondence some others here had with Linkman privately. (Oh, yeah, I had mentioned en passant one of the two, the 'word or string' search question.)  Likely all quite recent.  This is what is neat when you have some competent and responsive programmers who modify the program for the users rather than versa vica. 

And they fixed up the Powermarks date stuff (Powermarks uses unusual date formatting that needed translation) so I have to consider whether to back up my current file and try the reimport and how that would work after dups are eliminated. This goes along with fixing up a Powermarks "@" quirk in the PM data file, another reason for the reimport, that effected my Google books urls. I don't think they mentioned it in the enhancements list since it is a bit on the techie side and mostly unnoticed, but Thomas had mentioned to me that they had made the change.

Also they now have the option to remove the lines between lines on the query mode.  I asked for that to help when you try to go into a scrunch mode (more lines per page) .. something that is native to Powermarks :-) . "Show Treeview lines turns also Query Results lines on/off". Actually whether Linkman should default to lines off or on is a good question.

I've been a bit busy so I have only worked with the "Replace"  --> Update mode of the enhancements I mentioned here so far.  There is other stuff ... I am discussing mostly the stuff where I am quite familiar.

Shalom,
Steven Avery

[m9833]

I have now tried "Power Favorites" and LinkMan. Both are nice tools but somehow don't manage to give me the comfortable feeling I had with powermarks. At least regarding LinkMan, which I still have on my PC, three things that frustrate me most are

1. No Automatic Suggestions while entering Tags. Here PowerMarks always used to suggest previously entered Tags, as one typed.

2. Folder Structure, instead of simple tag based structure. I guess, in LinkMan, one can choose to hide the folder pane. I personally, would like to see a folder panel, showing a tag based virtual folder structure, like in the not taking freeware WikidPad (http://wikidpad.python-hosting.com/).

3. Duplicates & Marking the same site again: Both "Power Favorites", as well as LinkMan offer Duplicate Deletion. But PowerMarks simply did not have any duplicates. When one bookmarked a site which already existed in the database, PowerMarks very nicely opened the edit box for the preexisting bookmark, allowing one to make modifications if one wants to. This is much more flexible than a notice telling you that you already have that site bookmarked, and whether you would still like to mark it again (This, I guess is because of the hardcoded folder based approach).

I am sure that both LinkMan and Power Favorites will improve on their already impressive list of features, and hope that they incorporate features such as those mentioned above to approach the power and simplicity of powermarks. That will gain them many a customers like me, who are still crying over the demise of their favorite PowerMarks. :-)

[Steven Avery]

Hi m9833,

It takes a smidgen of effort to make Linkman more Powermarks like, and then you have to push yourself a bit, however it is worth it.  You will find that the advantages will balance any disadvantages and that you are moving forward, especially in having new features as the latest updates show.  Now to your 3 concerns.

1. No Automatic Suggestions while entering Tags. Here PowerMarks always used to suggest previously entered Tags, as one typed.

Not sure how that works for you.  I always pick up the metadata anyway, with both programs, and then add keywords particular to the moment.  Rarely do I add exactly the same as the previous entry so there may be a Powermarks feature I never used.  On the cases when I do want to dup the previous entry I use the clipboard. (Usually that is in the name fields for alphabetizing, since I use Linkman as a PIM, as I did Powermarks, in the future I plan to do similar alphabetizing-sorting with the user-defined fields that are Linkman-specific as well.)

Note: They have been enhancing the printing as well, which is a very big plus over Powermarks, where my print function was usually the screen capture program. In this function alphabetizing is helpful, since the sorts match the query sorts (new feature).

2. Folder structure. 
Here your comparison is not with Powermarks but with a program I will have to look at, so I will pass on commenting much.  The ability to have a folder structure in Linkman may have some advantages, and perhaps that can be changed structurally as you suggest for pizazz. However the Powermarks "no-folder-at-all" structure can be reasonably emulated in Linkman, the key issue in comparison.  We can't fault Linkman for both having folders and letting us hide and unuse the folders !  Especially if we are trying to enhance the folder concepts.

3. Duplicate deletion
Your points about dups are well-taken.  However Linkman just made the major enhancement on this, which I discuss above.  They still don't radically prevent dups on the data-manipulation level, (they can still be made in imports, their deliberate design decision, understandable yet worthy of more discussion) however they definitely now properly move you into edit mode when you go to "add" (update) an existing URL, as long as you have the no dups configuration option checked.  This was the major Linkman lack, now fixed.  The only awkwardness is that they did not "Replace" the word "Replace" with "Edit" or "Update" -- however once you understand how it works, that is more cosmetically semantical than a problem.  Oh, yeah, Linkman may have one more click involved.  We can ask them to make eliminating that click a configuration option "Always bring up existing URL" as a sub-configuration under the no-dups checkmark.

The big difference I see is that I frequently had to dup-text (cut-and-paste) on Powermarks the name line to see the entry, the same words in the keyword-tag section.  To be sure it showed up in search.  With Linkman you can specify that the name field is part of the keyword search anyway, no dup necessary.  Now granted I was using the "Keyword Search" on Powermarks, not the "Exact String Search" and Linkman just added the "word search" function as a default configuration option, so I may have to check this a bit if the goal is accurate comparison.  Linkman is more flexible with wildcard-style characters and boolean, how much this is used will vary a lot.

Why would anyone deliberately want to allow dups ?  Well, you would have to ask around.  If you want to use Linkman as a PIM, I can give an example.  While in googlebooks every page can easily be a new link, this is not the case on archive.org.  So if you wanted to make a bunch of easily-read notes (in the name field) for a book, ("p. 20 about Messianic expectations, p. 75 about the Johannnine Comma") you could have the same link 5 times.  Not the most elegant, and I don't do that, but one possibility.  There are probably others. I agree with the no-dup philosophy for me personally, however Linkman may have a number of customers who like the dup-option.

=================================================

It might be good to list the 5 or more significant advantages, and the differences between, Powermarks and Linkman.  It is no knock on Powermarks that Linkman is able to be competitive, Powermarks has been truly fantastic for years. If the fellow from Kaylon had kept at it it would have been neat.  He never really gave us much visibility and moved in other directions.

Understand I am no slouch when it comes to using programs others consider dated.  Eudora is my email of choice, and I have looked at Thunderbird, the Bat! and the kitchen sink.  If it wasn't for Linkman I would be using Powermarks and would have tried hard to have gotten those AutoHotkey kludges working !

Shalom,
Steven

[Outertech Support]

[The only awkwardness is that they did not "Replace" the word "Replace" with "Edit" or "Update"]

We have replaced "replace" with "edit" 2 days ago (from 7.8.0.3 on).

[m9833]

Dear Steven,

Thank you very much for your detailed replies to my post. I apologize if my post came up sounding like a complaint. This was not my motive in posting it, and I sincerely am thankful that efforts are being made in developing an application like LinkMan, which are making bookmarking an effecient and easy process, even after PowerMarks gave up the ghost. I was just detailing my frustrations as a PowerMark user in using the software. There are of course a lot of plus points, as well.

Your points, are all well taken.However, kinly allow me to try and explain some of the points I made, which might not have been very clear.

1. No Automatic Suggestions while entering Tags. Here PowerMarks always used to suggest previously entered Tags, as one typed.

Here, I refer to the auto-complete as you type feature in PowerMarks. This is especially useful, to speed up the process, and also for the times, when you end of tagging related URLs differently, as you did not remember which Tags did you earlier use (Eg, from my usage. Academics & Academy). PowerMarks just made the suggestions, it did not force one to use any tag. I found out that it helped me a lot, personally. Such a feature can be kept as an "autocomplete option", to give users the choice of using or not using it. Your method of using the clipboard is a nice one, but seems to be more effective for people who are certainly more organized than bird brained ones like me :-).


2. Folder structure

This was a minor frustration arising out of me not knowing, earlier. how to turn the folder pane off. :-) I was not faulting LinkMan for it, and my apologies to you as well as the Outertech Support people, if it appeared that I was doing so. The WikidPad like Folders would definitely be nice, for navigating via tags (another method is using Tag Clouds), but that is something I have come to like while using WikidPad. I do not necessarily miss it in a bookmarking applications.

3. Duplicates

You have provided a very good example of situations where one might need duplicates, and your suggestion of using an Edit button on the dialog box (which it seems have now been implemented) is an even better solution than simply opening the edit box, without providing any other option.

I wish, and am sure that LinkMan is a great step in the right direction, and am thankful for them listening to us users. I am trying my best to adjust since the loss of PowerMarks by trying out different ways like Delicious.com, Linkstash etc., but found that there have some features which PowerMarks provided that I simply cannot do without, and ended up not using bookmarking at all. LinkMan does give me a hope for the best :-)

Thanks again, Steven, and Outertech.

[Steven Avery]

Hi Folks,

Completely understood.

Even today .. (shhh.. don't let Thomas from Linkman hear ) there are times I am almost tempted to do something in Powermarks.  It took about a week of having them both loaded to get fully comfortable. 

And we had some semi-vigorous discussions about response time questions (e.g. which were sometimes unacceptable when restarting in Powermarks until I put it on high in ProcessTamer .. it seems that when a program falls asleep, Powermarks or Linkman or whatever, swapped out to disk, new keystroke recognition can be quite slow .. one reason I have memory on order.  There are a lot of variables so imho benchmarks don't mean very much which is what I was discussing with Linkman) . Suffice to say that both Powermarks and Linkman are fully fine in general on response time, Linkman says they assembler optimized on searches, Powermarks gives that feel as well even if in C+ or some other language (I dunno).  And some, or most, of the competition is not excellent on speed when talking about the large databases.

Once you get use to Linkman though, with the new changes and the extras and the responsiveness, you really simply bid a fond adieu to Powermarks .. they paved the way, it was a uniquely well-designed and implemented software .. little appreciated -- except here (an example of the practicle savvy of the Donationcoder crew). And Linkman has very fully taken up the challenge of moving on.

In my case I only dabbled with alternatives .. I didn't want to spend time unless I heard that a program had excellent keyword implementation and fine handling of large databases, and of course I wanted an import.  The issue came to a head with the desire to really use Firefox 3.0 and not wanting to kludge along with script alternatives (apologies if that is a little harsh on Autohotkey implementations).  At first I wanted to like Power Favorites (which might be ok for some) but hit some snags, and then focused on Linkman.  They surprised me very nicely, once I gave the program a full chance.

On auto-complete, I think Linkman has recently added versatility as well, responding to the diverse ideas here.  I am not so familiar with the ins and outs.  Note that Linkman has a buffer pop-up with the last 10 or so entries and I use that quite a bit.

Shalom,
Steven

[TucknDar]

Will Linkman free be available in a regular installation program anytime soon? The stuff it's packaged in now is pretty annoying, IMO. Doesn't let me install anywhere and the download affiliate is blocked in my routers ad-blocker (can be worked around, of course).

I've tried it on a couple of occasions but never really seriously partly because I was too annoyed with the installation routine to give it a fair run.

[Outertech Support]

The new freeware version will be available this week. It's simply our strategy to give the Pro users a new version first.

[TucknDar]

Yes, I realize that, but I was referring to the actual installer, which is a bit unfriendly, IMO. Would much prefer a regular installation routine.

[cyberdiva]

We have replaced "replace" with "edit" 2 days ago (from 7.8.0.3 on).

-Outertech Support (March 17, 2009, 09:14 AM)

I have tried unsuccessfully to find a link to 7.8.0.3.  I received an email message saying that version 7.80 is available, but I'm already running 7.8.0.1.  When I clicked on Updates on the Linkman interface, all it did was take me to the homepage, leaving me to search for updates.     Shouldn't an "Updates" link take one to a specific Updates page?  I would also expect it to let me know whether there's a more recent version than the one I currently am using?

[SKA]

cyberdiva

Suggest you manually get latest version Linkman Pro 7.8.0.7 from here:
http://linkman.outer...risma_page=downloads

The free version is still at 7.71

SKA

[cyberdiva]

Thanks very much, SKA.  I was actually on that page earlier, but I didn't see a specific version number.  This time, I did, and I've now downloaded and installed 7.8.0.7.  I do wish that the downloaded file would bear the specific version number--lkmn7807.exe, rather than the more generic lkmn780.exe.  I hold onto these files for a while, and I always want to know which specific version it is.  It's obviously easy enough to rename the files, and that's what I do, but I'd prefer Linkman to do it. 

Again, many thanks!