Hook Pop-up Window stays visible to Do Work on it

Hookmark Feature Requests
1

I have a general comment about the Hook Links menu. I understand that much has already been commented on. Now that I am up to speed with using Hook, and understanding that Luc is open to feedback, I wish to offer the following observations about using the Hook Links menu popup. Some of these points I have already commented on so please, forgive me for repeating some of my points.

I am concerned that, as Hook is intended to help those of us that use Hook to stay focused on our knowledge work, by taking so much time in a repetitive step by step process setting up, keeping organized, and deleting links, this is somewhat defeating of the very purpose that Hook was designed to address.

I wish that the Hook popup menu could be worked on all at once. That is, as it is now, each and every time I add a link, or delete a link, the Hook menu goes away again. Then, I have to trigger it again, make another change, etc… This becomes a bit tedious after a time.

As my work-flow changes and I need to delete files that I am no longer actively accessing in a project it would be very nice to take a moment and just to focus on the links window - for a while, instead repeating the process, one file at a time.

For example, I have just crossed a milestone in my project where I am now working in a different area than I was working in yesterday. To this end I want to revisit my Hook links and adjust what goes and what stays according to this new phase of my project.

This leads to another suggestion, because once I get one linked grouping set to the new phase of my project, now I have to copy all links, and open each and every one of the documents associated with this new phase and paste in my copied set of the new set of links. This is again, tedious, time consuming, and focus killing.

I have already suggested making the link popup window resizable. I just mentioned that in case this list is viewed in anyway as comprehensive as to my suggestions.

I would also like to see a way in the Hook link window for a way to set the window to one or two different sort options. Or, place this as an option in the Hook preferences. I can think of two different ways that it would be nice to see the Hook link window sorted. One, it would be nice sometimes if the list sorted by file type. And two, it would be nice sometimes if the list sorted by the date the link was added.

I very much like the idea behind Hook. Its just that, the upkeep of the linked files window seems a pretty important part of keeping up with a clean and an uninterrupted work-flow.

1 Like
2

On my system the Hook window remains open when I delete a link.

3

and that is the expected behaviour.

4

Yes, I goofed on that one, my apologies. The window disappearing each time was about what happens when I add a new link. Instead of seeing if it took, and continuing to review the set of links to make sure my project’s links were up to date in my work-flow, the Hook window goes away, until you again hit the hot key combo, again, and again, each time you add a file and try to organize your linked set.

Each two hook files are linked, but when you have a project wide set of links and you are trying to revise your entire set, you can’t just change one document’s links and know that this will also change all linked documents links that have any link to that document in that particular project set.

What I am arguing for here I think is having the concept of a set of links that can be made to behave as a group, rather than individual links only. To do this, you need the ability to have the Links window open - and to be able to stay open until closed, as an interface option.

I also think it would be nice to have the ability to save a group or to archive a group. Again taking the idea of working through a project when you focus changes with revisions and different research needed in different phases of the project, why not have the ability to put all that was important in a phase of your project into an archive so that later, in case you wanted to or needed to revisit your process in that earlier phase of the project, all your Hook links in the set you were using then, would still be available.

If nothing else, you could have an archive script that would copy all the documents names and Finder addresses and compile and save a list so that if you wanted to recreate your old research again later, and remember which revision of a document you were on at a certain time, you could do this.