Hook Window – Hook

The Hook popup window has two modes: context-sensitive mode and search mode. This document deals with the context-sensitive mode.

The Hook window has up to five sections:

1. A Title bar, which initially contains the name of the selected/open item in the foreground app.
2. A HOOKED links section. It shows everything you’ve previously hooked to the title bar item; which means it is context-sensitive. (The title bar item is the context.)
3. A PINNED items section. It shows Hook bookmarks that you have pinned. It is context free. This section is hidden by default; you can show or hide it ⌥⌘P (in the Gear menu) or Hook’s General Preferences.
4. A RECENT items section. It too is context free. This section is hidden by default; you can show or hide it with ⌥⌘R (in the Gear menu) or with Hook’s General Preferences.
5. An optional status bar (Show hide with ⌘/) which has a Gear menu button.

Here’s an annotated screenshot of the Hook window as it currently appears on this writer’s Mac when he invokes it on this web page after after linking a few items to it. As you can tell from your web browser, the current web page is called “Hook Window – Hook”. Hook repeats that title to remind you what its context is.

You would see different items in the HOOKED section: whatever you have ‘hooked’ to this page would show up there instead.

Now let’s make things even simpler and look at each section of the Hook popup window, one by one.

1. The Title bar and Title menu

The title bar contains the name of the title item, which is initially the name of the document or item that was active when you invoked Hook.

For example, if you invoke Hook on this page (⌘⇧SPACE), the title bar says “Hook Window – Hook”, which is the title of this web page.

The title bar has a title menu/☰ button plus the following three optional buttons that you can show or hide using Hook’s General preferences pane:

• Copy Link button. Copies a link to the title item to your clipboard.)
• Hook to Copied Link(s). (Only enabled if the clipboard contains at least one link).
• A 🔍 button for searching through all your bookmarks..

When you click on Hook’s title bar with ☰ button (or type ⌃T in Hook) , you see the “Title menu” . The Title menu has the main commands you’ll use to copy and create links. All Title menu commands operate on the title item:

The Title menu acts as if it were an additional menu in the foreground app. For instance, you are viewing this page in a web browser. Invoke Hook (⌃H); click on the Title menu; notice that the menu items are relevant to your browser’s Edit menu, in that they could be there. Now, switch to another app; click on the Title menu; again notice that the menu items are relevant to your browser’s Edit menu (Hook virtually extends your favorite apps.) Get that idea, (it’s worth it) and your cognitive productivity will also be extended!

So are the contents of Hook’s Title menu:

• Copy Link, which copies the name and address of the title item into the clipboard as a link that you can paste or use in “Hook to Copied Link” (same effect as Hook’s Copy Link toolbar button).
• Copy Markdown Link, does the same thing as the previous command but in markdown format (Pro Only).
• Copy Selection and Link, copies a quote and a link, in markdown, rich text and HTML formats. This only works for certain apps (such as PDFpenPro, Preview, Skim).
• Copy All Links, this copies all the links shown in the HOOKED section to the clipboard.
• Hook to Copied Link which is only enabled if there is a link in the clipboard (e.g., from “Copy Link” above). This command hooks (links) the title item to the target (URL) of the copied link (same effect as Hook’s Copy Link toolbar button.) This is the command that makes hooked links appear in the Hook window.

• Hook to New…, which creates a new item in an app that you choose and links the new item to the title item (very handy for note-taking and other purposes),
• Hook to New <default note taking app>, same as previous command but instantly uses your default note-taking app.

• Rename in Hook: This enables you to rename a bookmark. Next time you use Copy Link you’ll get the new name. (Revert the name in Advanced menu).

• Pin : This adds the title item to the PINNED section of the Hook window (though that [context-free] section may be invisible — depending on > Preferences> General; or Gear Menu > View > Show|Hide Pinned),
• Reveal File in Finder which is only enabled if the title item is a file (of course), in which case it reveals the file in the Finder,

• Advanced >
  • Open All Hooked Items. This opens all the items in the HOOKED section: the items ‘hooked’ to the title item.
  • Make Hook File (Pro only). This creates a .hook file (in Finder) containing a link to the Title item. Opening the created .hook file opens the Title item. (It’s a better alternative to Finder aliases and .webloc files)
  • Revert Name in Hook: This sets the name of the bookmark back to its original name (assuming you have renamed it yourself). Next time you use Copy Link you’ll get the original name.
  • Share: a share sheet for the item in the Title bar.

2. HOOKED links section

When you invoke Hook (⌃H), the HOOKED section shows everything that you previously “hooked” (bidirectionally linked) to the Title item. (See Hook to Copied Link in getting-started.)

Each item in the HOOKED section represents a bidirectional link from the Title item to something else.

The screenshot below shows what Hook might look like when, after having ‘hooked’ the current page a few times, you invoke Hook again on it:

💭 Imagine how handy it is, when writing a web page (or any other document), to be able to instantly navigate to relevant information in your favorite apps! Your todo list, source text file, diagrams, a folder, web pages.👏👏👏

Of course, you can open any hooked item by double-clicking the link, or by selecting it and pressing the return key.

That’s the main purpose of Hook: to access related information.

You can also navigate (browse) the network of hooked links using arrow keys or by clicking. Hook supports many standard keyboard shortcuts (e.g., emacs style keyboard bindings). For instance if you select a link and click its > button, the Hook window will focus on the link. When you focus on an item (i.e., “navigate to it”), the title bar of the Hook window takes the name of the hooked item. Try it out, and checkout “navigating linked items”.

In addition, every link has a Link Menu. A link’s menu pops up when you click on the link, or when you type ⌃L. The Link menu contains the same kinds of commands as are in the Title menu described above, except that they operate on the selected link instead of operating on the item shown in the Title bar.

Notice the hooked Link menu on the selected link:

3. PINNED items section

Show or hide the PINNED section via the Gear menu or by typing ⌥⌘P.

As you would expect, the PINNED section of the Hook window contains items you have pinned.

Whereas the HOOKED items section is contextual, the PINNED items section is context-free. Regardless of the context you’re in, this section (if displayed) will show the same items: anything you’ve pinned, assuming you’ve configured Hook to display this section.

Please note that

1. As you can tell from the screenshots above, you can pin items using the Title menu (⌘P) or the Link menu (⇧⌘P).
2. You can show/hide the PINNED section with a keyboard shortcut or via Hook’s General Preferences pane.
3. You can expand or collapse the PINNED section using via (a) a keyboard shortcut () or by clicking on the triangles.
4. You can also focus on (“navigate into”) pinned items (again, with the same keyboard shortcut)
5. The Link menu is also available for pinned items.
6. Double-click or ‘return’ on a pinned item to open it.

The PINNED section is part of what makes Hook a truly universal bookmark manager. You can bookmark just about anything! 👏👏👏

At the end of a work day, or when switching between projects, it can be useful to pin a project item. Then when you get back to work on the project, consult the PINNED section, open the item, and use Hook to navigate its related items. (Of course, you can also use Hook’s search to find previously bookmarked items).

4. RECENT items section

You can show or hide the RECENT section via the Gear menu or by typing ⌥⌘R.

You know that many macOS apps have a recent items item in their File menu. Well, Hook has a RECENT items section, which can contain links to anything.

Hook adds an entry in the RECENT items section whenever

1. you invoke the Hook window an Hook item (it takes on the Title). For example if you invoke Hook on this web page it will be added to RECENT items.
2. You open an item through the Hook window.
3. Hook opens an item through a hook:// link

Whereas the HOOKED items section is contextual, the RECENT items section is context-free. Regardless of the context you’re in, this section (if displayed) will show recent items, assuming you’ve configured Hook to display this section.

Please note that

1. You can show/hide the RECENT section with a keyboard shortcut or via Hook’s General Preferences pane.
2. You can expand or collapse the RECENT section using via (a) a keyboard shortcut () or by clicking on the triangles.
3. You can also focus on (“navigate into”) recent items (again, with the same keyboard shortcut)
4. The Link menu is also available for recent items.
5. Double-click or ‘return’ on a recent item to open it.

5. The Status bar (bottom of window)

You can show or hide the Status bar with ⌘/ (like Finder).

At the bottom of the Hook window is a status bar. It displays helpful context-sensitive messages. If the current app is unsupported or Hook just cannot find a valid file or linkable resource, the status bar will say “No linkable found in the app”. But normally, the status bar presents tips, such as listing available commands and keyboard shortcuts.

Gear menu in Status bar

On the far right side of the Status bar is a Gear menu. To access the gear menu, click on the gear menu or type ⌃G. Whereas the Title menu and the Link menu are context-sensitive, operating on the title item and selected link, respectively, the Gear menu contains global commands (that do not vary as a function of the Title item or link-selection).

See Gear menu for more information on that menu.

Search mode (show all bookmarks)

The Hook window has two modes.

1. It starts off in contextual mode, reflecting the title item.
2. Type ⌘F (Find) or use the search button in the title bar to enter search mode (exit context-sensitive mode.) Hook’s search has a very powerful syntax.

In search mode:

1. the Title bar becomes an input field.
2. the Title menu and Title buttons go away.
3. The HOOKED, RECENT, and PINNED sections are replaced with the (initially blank) search results.

Here’s an example where one has searched for obsessive* pdf. The * is a regular expression for matching part of the word. One could have done obs* pdf.

Each search result has the handy, now familiar, Link menu.

What you see in the Hook search results are bookmarks. Where do Hook bookmarks come from? Well, Hook effortlessly bookmarks items for you whenever you use Copy Link, Copy Markdown Link, Hook to Copied Link, or hook items via the menubar window.

This turns Hook into an unbelievably handy bookmark manager. 👏👏👏 Why?

Because it turns out that whatever Hook bookmarks for you is information you are likely to want to re-access in the future. After all, that’s the main point of Hook, to help you re-access information (so you can stay in psychological flow as you do great work). Once you use Hook a lot, the information you want to re-access is very likely likely to be in Hook’s database. This CogSci Apps Invention makes effective bookmarking effortless.

Of course, you can also manually add bookmarks using the Add Bookmark command (shown only in Title menu of non-bookmarked items, for obvious reasons).

See Hook Search.