Duplicate bookmarks = Different keywords

[VLMin]

I think I just found something troublesome, and for me destructive, in PM. Whether this began in v. 28, or I am just recently noticing, I cannot say with certainty. For years, since the earliest days of Firefox, one of the brilliant, if not well publicized, features has been not only the ability to create keywords, but the ability to create different keywords for multiple copies of a bookmark. By "multiple copies of a bookmark", I mean two or more bookmarks that share the same location (typically, URL).

Now, whenever I duplicate a bookmark and attempt to enter a different keyword, all existing bookmarks that share the location/URL are changed. This adversely affects thousands of intentionally created duplicates and has wreaked havoc on certain of my work habits.

EXAMPLE: I have a pair of bookmarks pointing to a Thomas Jefferson quote about "rightful liberty". One bookmark has long used the keyword "rightfulliberty", the other "jeffersonliberty". This allows me to remember the quote in two different ways, which I find most helpful. This is now gone.

Was this a change made intentionally? Can it be fixed/reverted to the way it was before?

Thank you.

[Moonchild]

Keywords for bookmarks are bound to URI now, that has been by design in the Mozilla code base since like gecko 40 or so. Can you explain to me how you are using the different keywords for the exact same target in your workflow?

[VLMin]

I see, thank you for explaining.

I often provide myself with different ways to recall, via keywords, the same location/URI/URL (for the most part). I was under the impression that many people did this, though I don't really have a reason for having formed that impression.

For example, an article may be about historical events and economic theory and law and political science. I might create (and often have created) multiple bookmarks for such an article and place them in bookmark folders germane to each subject or topical area.

Also, I often create families of bookmark keywords, then duplicate bookmarks with alternate keywords for one or two of them. Here is a typical example of such a use: I might create a set of bookmarks for a Pale Moon extension such as FEBE, which I run automatically daily. Their keywords include

febe (for the extension home page)
febepm (for the extension PM page)
febedocs (for documentation about the extension)
febef (for the extension forum)
febed (for the extension download page, included here by way of example though not relevant in the case of FEBE)

and so on. These bookmarks are found in a folder hierarchy such as Pale Moon > Add-ons > Manage > Backup & Restore > FEBE / CLEO / OPIE.

I might also create a duplicate bookmark for the extension PM page containing the keyword pmfebe. That way, if I don't happen to view that page for a long time, either way I enter the keyword (febepm or pmfebe) seems "logical" to me — and works.

This is, of course, only one example. Hopefully, it conveys the essential point.

Do you find this helpful?

[Moonchild]

Yes, it's helpful - however, the essential problem is that keywords being bookmarks is an old paradigm that is no longer true. They don't -have- to be. This makes tying keywords to a URI instead of a bookmark an essential and necessary change in behavior. What the situation is now is 1 keyword = 1 URI. The UI for bookmarks might be a little confusing as a result because it visually associates it with individual bookmarks but there's no separate UI for keyword-URI pairs so we'll have to deal with this as-is for now.

Also, it seems to me you'd be better served with a quick-filter way of finding your desired bookmarks (as found in the bookmarks sidebar or by using the address bar to find bookmarks) and using tags instead of keywords. Keywords are generally used to pass data to a specific URI (with %s).

All is not lost however -- since keywords will still be unique to URIs you can create duplicates with a different URI that still loads the same page (e.g. adding a #reference or making sure the URI has different POST data) and you should be able to still assign unique variations of keywords to bookmark copies (although it's not necessarily the way it was designed to be used).

[sIDcORK]

You could tag one bookmark with both rightfulliberty and jeffersonliberty separated by a comma.

[Moonchild]

You could tag one bookmark with both rightfulliberty and jeffersonliberty separated by a comma.

Tags aren't the same as keywords. I already suggested the use of tags.

[VLMin]

Thank you, Moonchild, for your careful explanation and for giving my inquiry your personal attention. I vaguely recall reading something from Mozilla, long ago, about the distinction between URI's and URL's, but I never realized the impact that distinction could have on what I was doing. Also, I have been able to do this until relatively recently, regardless of what was said. So I wonder whether the PM dev team has merely undertaken stricter enforcement of what was there in principle but perhaps not altogether in fact. In any event, the point is clearly moot.

Also, it seems to me you'd be better served with a quick-filter way of finding your desired bookmarks (as found in the bookmarks sidebar or by using the address bar to find bookmarks) and using tags instead of keywords. Keywords are generally used to pass data to a specific URI (with %s).

This sounds worth pursuing; I'll have to learn how to do these things. Historically, I've avoided use of sidebars because of my eyesight; I "need" every bit of screen real estate I can get. But using the address bar would be fine. Would you suggest a place in the documentation or elsewhere, where I can learn how to create "a quick-filter way of finding your desired bookmarks"?

All is not lost however -- since keywords will still be unique to URIs you can create duplicates with a different URI that still loads the same page (e.g. adding a #reference or making sure the URI has different POST data) and you should be able to still assign unique variations of keywords to bookmark copies (although it's not necessarily the way it was designed to be used).

Similar here … I just have to learn how to do these things in a quick and easy way. Meanwhile, I need to find a way to identify duplicate bookmarks, so that I know what to change. Whatever solution I undertake will be a massive project, given the numbers involved.

Again, thank you kindly for your help with this; understanding helps!

[VLMin]

One more thought about the use of tags. The keyword opens the item. Does, or can, typing the tag in the address bar have the same effect? Of course, this would require a massive list of unique tags, but the same is true of keywords, so that's no change in principle.