Hook integration scripts v. 83: for macOS 10.15 iCloud sync

We’ve updated the Hook integration scripts to deal with bugs with macOS 10.15 Notes issues described elsewhere on the forum.

Here is a web page on the subject: Hook and macOS 10.15 (Catalina) Notes App – Hook.

In sum, on macOS 10.15 if iCloud Sync is enabled when you try to access a link to an Apple Notes note, Hook will popup a dialog box.

We are likely to enhance this script. At a minimum, the wording of the dialog boxes may be improved.

At this point, it seems that if you do not enable iCloud sync, you can continue to use Hook with Apple Notes as you did before 10.15 (and the integration scripts reflect that).

I wouldn’t say this actually fixes the Notes issue. Yes the dialog opens. Yes a link can be copied. And yes, the link can be applied when another item (like a file) is selected when Hook is invoked.

But, the links are horribly complex and contain no useful information. (Not Hook’s fault. Apple’s fault.)

Clicking the highlighted link in the “Access Linked Items” just opens the Notes app. It does not open the note with the displayed ID.

Clicking the highlighted link at the bottom of the dialog, causes macOS to throw an error:

I’ve seen this error elsewhere in Catalina and with other URL schemes. Catalina’s recognition of registered URL schemes seems to be broken or unreliable – even for Apple’s own URL schemes.

Thanks, @quorm.

Correct that links to notes are not helpful, and it’s reflecting a problem with Apple Notes. What we tried to convey on the Hook and macOS 10.15 (Catalina) Notes App – Hook page is that links to notes (whether from Notes or any other app) , are not working. If you were to activate that link in Hook, it would give you an error message to that effect. This is handled by the script itself.

We could in principle update Hook itself such that links to Notes were not presented, or add status bar information. That would be more helpful for the user in the short run. But for now it’s cleaner to do it the way we’ve done it, i.e., handle it in the script, which is more general, allows for quicker updates, etc.

but in the future we could in principle enhance the scripts schema to provide script-configurable status bar messages.

the bottom line is that links from Notes to non-Notes objects works, but activating links to macOS 10.15 Notes doesn’t.

I’ll be updating the Hook and macOS 10.15 (Catalina) Notes App – Hook page and will try to make this clearer (without going into implementation details).

Thanks for letting me know that Spotlight with Notes 15 is working for you. If I can achieve the same, I’ll create a screencast to illustrate how the ```hook://search" links feature can be used to work-around the macOS 10.15 Notes issue and effectively link to notes. It’s a good example of the feature.