Deleted files and Hook links

[schutz]

Dear Hook community,

After a few attempts, I noticed that the Hook links were kept when the linked files were deleted. For some people, it may certainly be a bug, but I find it rather useful!
The additional small wish would be that this information (deleted files) be (or can be) accessible from the linked files and also indicates where this file was located.

I give you my vision:
For my research, I use the Zotero reference manager. The files (research papers & notes) are stored on a Webdav server. Due to the limited space on the disk, I download the files when I need them (and delete them regularly when they are no longer needed).
So, when they are re-downloaded (from Zotero), I find my Hook links:)

However, from a working document, it might be useful to know that I had linked this (these) reference(s) and that I can then re-download it.

Best regards,
Jérémie

[LucB]

@schutz

The additional small wish would be that this information (deleted files) be (or can be) accessible from the linked files and also indicates where this file was located.

Thanks for sharing this.

As it happens, the path of file path is noted below the filename (in the ACCESS LINKED ITEMS section). But as you note, there’s no indication that it’s unavailable. Well, if a file is in the trash, the pathname indicates that. But it’s not very prominent. And as you note, for some people this may be a problem. So we might make that an advanced preference.

@schutz

(deleted files) be (or can be) accessible from the linked files and also indicates where this file was located.

Visually indicating that a file is no longer accessible would also be helpful for cloud storage services , like Dropbox and iCloud, as well as version control systems (like Git and SVN). Those are all important usages for Hook.

I’ve logged an internal feature-request for this.

[LucB]

@quorm

I would confidence in knowing that Hook is tracking and adapting its references in cases (1) and (2).

In case (3), since I’m relying on Hook to track links, I think I am ok that once a linked file is gone, it’s gone and Hook forgets it and no longer includes it in the list of linked files.

build 2215 (2019-04-01) mentions

• Fixed an issue that could lead to asymmetric links to/from some files.

But this was not specifically to deal with deleted files.

@quorm

Then there’s the tricky part

4. The linked-to item is not a file, but a sheet inside Ulysses, or similar, and that sheet has been deleted (trash is emptied).

I think this is the same as case (3) but probably tricky – how would Hook know about the deletion?

Hook does not know if the target of a non-file URI disappears. There is no macOS-wide protocol for Hook or any other app to subscribe to notifications about arbitrary resources (for events such as the resource being renamed or deleted). (However, we may help move this forward in the future.)

Similarly, if a link points to an https:// address which is no longer meaningfully populated by the server, Hook wouldn’t know. However, users can manually delete Hook links.

[LucB]

@LucB

Hook does not know if the target of a non-file URI disappears.

Just to be clear: in the case of deleted files: If file A and file B are linked, and file B is deleted, when the Hook window is invoked on file A, there will not be a link to file B.