RSS Feeds
organise
O-Marks Syncs Your Foxmarks Bookmarks To Your iPhone
Posted by Adam Pash at 7:00 AM on September 18, 2008
iPhone/iPod touch only: Free application O-Marks automatically syncs bookmarks to your iPhone from Firefox-syncing tool Foxmarks or from your Delicious account. The most intriguing feature for Firefox users is the Foxmarks integration, since once you've set up O-Marks with Foxmarks, your Firefox bookmarks now automatically sync to your iPhone. That means you don't need to use Safari just to sync bookmarks to your iPhone anymore. It just takes a little know-how to get it set up.
If you're not already a Foxmarks user, you'll need to install the Foxmarks extension and register for an account. Assuming you've done all that (and downloaded O-Marks), here's how you set it up on your iPhone.
First, login to your Foxmarks account on your desktop. O-Marks needs a unique RSS feed of your bookmarks to work, and while Foxmarks provides this functionality, you have to turn it on. To do so, click on one of your Foxmarks folders, then click the Share button on the site's toolbar. You'll see a pop-up window prompting you to share this folder. Assuming it's a folder you want to share, tick the checkbox. Foxmarks will automatically create an RSS feed for that folder that looks something like:
What you need is to copy the key at the end of the URL (in my example, the 10 x's).
Now fire up O-Marks on your iPhone. By default all the bookmarks are set to Delicious' popular feeds, so you need to edit them. Tap the 'i' button on the bottom right of the screen, then tap on one of the categories. From this screen, you can edit the feed name, switch over to Foxmarks, and enter the Foxmarks RSS key we created above. Once you've done that, just save your settings. When you go back to O-Marks, it'll automatically download the bookmarks from the folder you set up and put them right in front of you. Unfortunately these bookmarks don't integrate with Safari, inasmuch as you can't access them from Safari—instead you launch Safari whenever you tap on one of the bookmarks in O-Marks.
The application could use a bit of polish, but it still does exactly what it says (i.e., uni-directional sync), and it does it well. If you wanted to take things a step further, you could set up a dedicated iPhone folder in Firefox, share that folder with Foxmarks, and have quick synced access to those bookmarks whenever you wanted. Alternately, you could set up O-Marks with an RSS feed of all your Delicious bookmarks tagged iPhone—which again would put them at your fingertips whenever you started up O-Marks. Not bad.
Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
There are currently no AU comments for this post.
Cripesonfriday
Posted 8:14 AM 18/9/08
I've had this for nearly 3 weeks now and keep meaning to visit foxmarks and set up the rss reader, gonna do it now, thanks for the reminder
Cripesonfriday
dssstrkl
Posted 8:14 AM 18/9/08
I don't know if its because I synced my whole bookmarks folder, but O-Marks doesn't update the list and crashes. A lot.
dssstrkl
Robert
Posted 11:39 AM 18/9/08
I get a crash too, when trying this out.
Robert
Christopher
Posted 1:43 PM 18/9/08
yeah crashes here too - and it seems to be taking a long time to pull all of the bookmarks. still, holds promise if they can fix the crashes. would be nice if it kept folder hierarchy intact.
Christopher
maccolar
Posted 1:25 PM 18/9/08
Nice app, it works pretty well on my iPhone. Found some free iPhone games, share it here.
maccolar
ErikWestrup
Posted 9:24 PM 18/9/08
I'm going to try it right away.
ErikWestrup
wgoodwin
Posted 2:54 AM 19/9/08
Curses. Only crashes, can't even sync once and I only have maybe two dozen bookmarks. Oh well.
wgoodwin
sparkst
Posted 2:12 PM 18/9/08
Travis from OpenPathMedia here... Sorry to hear about the crashes. I've not been able to replicate the crashing on our test devices. For those seeing the issue, I'd appreciate if you would leave any information you can (iPhone/iTouch, Delicious/Foxmarks, settings [only if you're willing to share], etc.) on the O-Marks support form at the bottom of the O-Marks page. I would really like to get these issues fixed. Thanks.
sparkst
puffmoike
Posted 11:28 PM 19/9/08
What does this offer that using the iPhone-optimised my.foxmarks.com page doesn't?
That page maintains folder heirachies, and once entered as a Safari bookmark can be easily accessed without leaving the iPhone browser to reach it. The interface is beautifully clean and in keeping with the look and feel of the native iPhone apps.
Seems like O-Marks might be a (poor) answer to a question that doesn't need asking...
puffmoike
puffmoike
Posted 12:38 AM 19/9/08
Arggghh... use first, then comment!
my.foxmarks.com only requires me to login the first time. After that I just click on my 'foxmarks' bookmark in Safari and I'm taken straight to my list of bookmarks.
Bookmarks which are displayed in a great-looking format which is easy to use, searchable, and which maintains my folder hierarchy. All from within Safari.
With all due respect why would you use O-Marks? Am I missing something?
puffmoike
puffmoike
Posted 12:10 AM 19/9/08
my.foxmarks.com is also searchable!
My early impression is that the standalone site is far better at almost every level than O-Marks, with the notable exception of the need to login each time.
puffmoike
puffmoike
Posted 12:02 AM 19/9/08
I've only just installed O-Marks, but I am (not) seeing a list that's predominantly invisible, with only the last ten or so links visible.
By contrast I've gone to my.foxmarks.com and found a nicely iPhone-optimised page which renders my bookmarks beautifully.
It also maintains my folder hierarchy (unlike the app, if Christopher's comment earlier in the comments is correct - because my apps not displaying correctly I can't confirm this behaviour)
Obviously having to key in my username and password each time is going to be a pain, but at this stage I don't imagine using foxmarks on my iPhone very often (but will be very grateful for its existence when I do)
puffmoike
meshe
Posted 10:53 AM 18/9/08
Nice idea, but there are a couple of options that you can use that don't involve you leaving Safari to get at your Foxmarks bookmarks.
1. Bookmark [my.foxmarks.com]
This loads the iPhone optimized version of your Foxmarks bookmarks. You can view them without leaving Safari.
2. Add the RSS feed to Google Reader. This will also allow you to view your bookmarks without having to leave Safari, and if your anything like me you're in Google Reader on your iPhone more than any other App or Site on your iPhone.
Having to switch out of Safari to view your bookmarks again makes this a solution that I wouldn't use.
meshe
meshe
meshe
Posted 8:22 AM 18/9/08
There are a couple of ways of doing this right in Safari on the iPhone without requiring a separate app.
1. Bookmark [my.foxmarks.com]
You can log in from the iPhone optimized web interface and browse your bookmarks synced to Foxmarks.
2. Google Reader [reader.google.com]
Since there's an RSS feed available add it to your favorite RSS reader IE: Google Reader which you would already be using in Safari.
The method that I currently use is just to have Safari on my desktop import my firefox bookmarks.html file occasionally and let iTunes sync them. The O-Marks solution seems a bit silly to me, if I need to bounce between a few different bookmarks I don't want to have to switch apps to do so.
meshe
meshe