It's been a while since Alexander reviewed/compared (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=492) Plucker with iSilo. I was wondering how they compare now (several years later)?

Thanks!
~Tim :D

Really good question. I'm very interested in a comparison of the two. I've been using iSilo for awhile, but keep hearing great things about Plucker. And I'm always willing to try out software.

I've installed and deleted Plucker twice over the years. Maybe it's improved. Never really hated it - in fact, Plucker was fine. But the navigation and hard-button customization that iSilo developed is top-notch. For me, being used to iSilo, there were little things that made it a superior product to me (and not just me being used to one product over the other). For example, in iSilo's button customization, you can use directional keys to move around a document. But once a link is selected, directional keys jump from link to link. It was a very elegant solution to having a limited number of hardware buttons.

Same here. I tried Plucker various times, the last time because of Laurens' top-notch Sunrise application which only supports the Plucker format, but no matter how hard I tried, I found iSilo more convenient and faster.

The same here: iSilo is so incredibely elegant, simple and effortless to use. In comparison, Plucker seems to have a frustratingly steep learning curve...

Have you guys tried the latest Plucker?

I found this thread: http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=492

The comments near the end of that thread suggest Plucker has come a long way since previous versions. I don't remember how long ago I last tried Plucker, but may give it another shot when I get some time.

For example, in iSilo's button customization, you can use directional keys to move around a document. But once a link is selected, directional keys jump from link to link. It was a very elegant solution to having a limited number of hardware buttons.

In Plucker, there is quite a bit of customization you can do with the hard buttons, and for that matter, Graffiti gestures, screen drags, etc. Based on your comment I do something similar in my Plucker setup to what you do in iSilo... I've gotten my Tungsten E2 to the point where I really don't need the stylus at all. For example, here are my settings, all of which are totally customizable:

-- I can scroll up and down the document with the 5-way up/down presses
-- I can jump forward to the next hyperlink or back to the preceding hyperlink using the left/right presses of the 5-way. Center button selects the hyperlink once one is highlighted.

-- Left-most of four hard buttons is the "back" button (previous webpage)

-- Second button is "forward" (next page viewed in history if there is one to go forward to)

-- Third hard button is "toggle autoscroll" on and off. Once autoscroll is started, the up and down buttons on the 5-way increase or decrease the speed.

-- [I don't use the fourth button, have it reserved to launch something else even if I'm still in Plucker. Plucker will disable "normal" hard button activity.]

-- I have the screen set to drag the view if I drag the stylus. You can set it instead so that taps in each of four regions of the screen can be assigned to about 40 different functions. You can also use 5 graffiti gestures and assign each to about 40 functions, but I don't use those either.

The one thing that I wasn't able to do until recently is access the menus with only hard keys, and Alexander Pruss' great new Center Menu program enables that with a center-key hold. I can now do just about everything now without a stylus.

There's only one function I can't do with Plucker and hard buttons, and that's access the drop-down box that allows me to select where in the document to jump to (10%-20%-30%, etc.)

It's a great program, though it hasn't really been updated in a new release version in about 2+ years. But the price is certainly right!

It's a great program, though it hasn't really been updated in a new release version in about 2+ years. But the price is certainly right!
Its not dead, but those who work on its public-facing components have been very busy with day jobs, real life, families, other projects and so on.

Some updates have been made to the code very recently, and the hourly snapshots just gained a few new features that have been requested over the years.

I have received quite a few large patches to Plucker Desktop in my inbox, which I need to review, apply, test and commit... which may bring Plucker Desktop 2.0 to the masses very soon.. we'll see.

You gotta believe hacker... he is something like the granddaddy of plucker. Cool guy!

I'd say Plucker is good enough for the vast majority of uses. (Tables being the exception.) I agree that iSilo is, overall, a better application, but since it's commercial it better be.

At any rate, iSilo development hasn't been very active either.

At any rate, iSilo development hasn't been very active either.
My guess is that they spent the last months on porting iSilo to Symbian. See here (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9536).

My guess is that they spent the last months on porting iSilo to Symbian. See here (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9536).

Didn't it support Symbian already?

Laurens, you are right! The latest release adds support for Symbian S60 3rd Edition, though I don't know how much has changed between the Symbian versions.

Some updates have been made to the code very recently, and the hourly snapshots just gained a few new features that have been requested over the years.

hacker, I'd like to personally thank you and Alex Pruss and all the others that have made Plucker such a fantastic program-- it is without question the one application I use most intensively on my Palm (in concert with Laurens' great SunriseXP). I'm quite aware that Plucker's constantly being updated, that's why I stated "release version"-- maybe I was being too subtle. Alex Pruss was particularly helpful some months ago when I was having problems with Plucker crashing on large documents on my NVFS-memory Tungsten E2. So I'm actually using one of the snapshots right now. I've been extremely happy with good old Plucker 1.8, so I hope my last comment wasn't perceived as a "dig" at you guys... :o

Its not dead, but those who work on its public-facing components have been very busy with day jobs, real life, families, other projects and so on.

Some updates have been made to the code very recently, and the hourly snapshots just gained a few new features that have been requested over the years.

I have received quite a few large patches to Plucker Desktop in my inbox, which I need to review, apply, test and commit... which may bring Plucker Desktop 2.0 to the masses very soon.. we'll see.

Sounds cool. :kid:

In Plucker, there is quite a bit of customization you can do with
-- Third hard button is "toggle autoscroll" on and off. Once autoscroll is started, the up and down buttons on the 5-way increase or decrease the speed.


That sounds like a great trick, although I am not using a Tungsten - (m500) is this generally doable?

I would assume the up and down buttons work in the similar fashion to control autoscroll on the m500. You can also control the autoscroll at the top of the screen (small icon with plus and minus sign) but that's obviously less convenient than hard buttons.

Yep, I worked it out now that it was mentioned and I decided to look.

The up/down buttons do make autoscroll faster/slower, not quite sure how increments work for that though.

I found the 'main button' programming bit, so now the 'notes' button is autoscroll on/off. This is great, as I usually have the screen rotated so that the buttons are to the left of the page, so very handy indeed as opposed to fiddling with the stylus to turn autoscroll on and off.

So, thanks for the tip, people, hand't thought of doing that before.

Yep, I worked it out now that it was mentioned and I decided to look.

The up/down buttons do make autoscroll faster/slower, not quite sure how increments work for that though.

More generally, the page up/down controls, whatever buttons trigger them (e.g., you might have them assigned to jog dial) adjust autoscroll speed.