I love the idea of having selecting a file in Finder or an email or a text document – and then using Hook to create an OmniFocus task to work on it. But when I use “Link to New” for this, it doesn’t create a OmniFocus task.
Oddly, OmniFocus shows up in the list of options for “Link to New”, but there is no template file in the ~/Documents/Hook/built-in templates/ folder. Was it just overlooked, or is there a problem with OmniFocus templates?
Originally titled: “OmniFocus template file is missing from the built-in template folder”
The templates are currently just for apps that create files on Finder, not for “database” style apps. Finder-based apps can be handled quite generically, whereas database apps would require additional scripting. However, the latter could in principle be done.
Sorry! I focused on on the template issue, not the “Link to New” > “OmniFocus”. The latter should work. I’ve used this with OmniFocus 2 and it works (last time I tried anyway). I’ve very recently upgraded to OmniFocus 3 and have replicated the bug you report. (We had tested with OF3 but this seems to have fallen through the cracks.)
I would suggest we relabel this topic to
In OmniFocus 3 “Link to New” > “OmniFocus” does not generate a new task
Well, like I said. We did test it with OF3, and something fell through the cracks.
As for my own usage of OF2, I was quite happy with it, and I am probably in top .5% in terms of use of OmniFocus (number of projects and actions). So I had to proceed slowly
One thing people should note, however, is that this creates an entry in the OmniFocus Inbox, and uses the title of the Hook-linked item as the name of the task, with the link in x-callback code (which is not human-readable). For some purposes, this is just fine, especially when adding, say, a bunch of emails quickly to OmniFocus for later processing.
However, usually I want name the task myself, and I’d like to be able to see the title of the link in the Notes of the OmniFocus task. To do this, I use a combination of Hook’s “Copy Link” and OmniFocus’s “Quick Add”, pasted together in a Keyboard Maestro macro with a keyboard shortcut. This way, a “Quick Add” window opens, the nicely-titled Hook link is inserted (visibly) in the notes of the new OmniFocus item, and the cursor is moved to the point of naming the task. In the screenshot below, you can see the ingredients in the macro. Note that you may need to change it for your OmniFocus Quick Add shortcut. The number of pauses might be overkill, but usually helps.
There is probably a way to tweak the AppleScript in Hook Preferences > ScriptEditor > OmniFocus > New Document but, this is currently above my pay grade…
