Anyone using Tana with Hookmark?

Discussion & Help
1

I’ve had access to Tana.inc for a while, to check out compatibility with Hookmark. So far so good. But I have hardly used it. I’ve used it in a web browser. Resources in Tana seem to have a URL, which is all that you need to be able to link stuff with Hookmark.

There’s no Hook to New yet. I imagine they have a web API for that. We have not yet supported Hook to New in a web app, but would be possible.

Is an app for Tana planned?

Anyone using Tana with Hookmark ? want to share your experience using both?

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I’ve been playing with it. I like it so far. But linking seems to work sometimes…

It likes to link to the original page not the current tab. I think the variability of the page views will make it extremely hard to get perfect.

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I stay lightly up to date with their releases and plans in their Slack community, and use it a bit every single day for some structured activities.

  • No API exposed yet, so Hook to New isn’t low-hanging fruit.
  • URL scheme is really opaque and looks like this for two different pages:
    • https://app.tana.inc/?wsid=G0-G8A0jrM
    • https://app.tana.inc/?wsid=IqSYWsH4Zb
    • It’s regularly changing for the same page in some conditions, but after a quick trial, might be safe in the face of renaming or moving stuff around in Tana; more tests or docs required to be sure about what’s going on and what can be expected.
  • No app on the radar, and when they make one, expect Electron.
  • They’re focussed on getting it right, making it easier and more useful. Sadly, most users don’t ask for linkability.

Tana is really nice about semantic data organization. It feels like the most flexible and easiest way to mix text and data bits naturally together, and still have the data bits be usable outside of their initial context. Write a few sentences anywhere, tag some part as #something, and this #something is added to a structured Something database that can be used later with queries, filters, views, etc., a la Notion.

In contrast with Notion, there’s no need to browse to the Something database to add a new row: from anywhere, as soon as you tag #something, the expected attributes for a row of this Something database appear and become fillable for your use directly where you are. Brilliant, especially for e.g. habit tracking and structured journaling of all sorts (reading logs, mood tracking…), when you don’t want to feel like you’re always navigating tables of data.

Obviously, Hook to New would be exceedingly useful in Tana: let’s say I hook this webpage to a new Tana page and write a few notes:

  • Tana #scripting:
    • status: investigation
    • required: an API or new URL scheme, or we can’t make progress
    • next check: 2023 Q2
  • Do they have an app? #question
    • Not soon, and expect Electron.

Then, later, if I visit the Scripting database, I can sort its rows and group them by app, etc., and remember to check for Tana’s progress next quarter. And, thanks to Hookmark’s bidirectional links, browse straight back here to continue this discussion.

Sincerely, I feel Hookmark and Tana would make an exceedingly great match, once it’s possible.

Feb 15, 2023: Made some technical edits about URL Scheme above.

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4

I tried Tana out for a couple of months and experimented with how it integrates with my various apps (including Hookmark.)

My biggest issue with linking Tana data to external apps - It wasn’t quick to visit your linked item in Tana. Each time you click on an external link to Tana, a new browser window opens, and your entire workspace is loaded into that window. For me, this could take anywhere between 10 to 30 seconds… which is certainly a break in your workflow when you just want to quickly pull something up.

Tana is beautiful and powerful as long as you stay in the app. However, as of now, your data is locked* into the app, and integrations into and out of are severely lacking.

*Yes you can export your workspace as JSON, but as far as I can tell this is their raw data structure and completely unusable unless you build something to read/convert it.

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Hi there - I think Tana has added an API since this discussion. I was wondering if it would be possible to get a script or have some support writing one! An example with an API call would be helpful!

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Hope the hook official will provide available components ASAP, now tana also has a tana-desktop