If I understand correctly there’s a couple of things missing. I just wrote to the good folks at Obsidian about that:
Congrats and thank you for delivering an API for creating new notes! (Which we heard from our joint users on our forum recently here.)
There seem to be a couple of issues:
Your API does not seem to give us the URL and title of the item in return. That makes the workflow unreliable. Any chance you can return them both in your x-callback-url API? (Drafts and Craft do that, which makes the process seamless).
Your API requires the vault name; but we don’t know what vaults are available.
later email I rephrased point 2:
basically the issue is that: we from the outside do not have visibility vault names; but you do. So if your “new note” x-callback-url would either:
2.a ) provide an option to ask the user which vault they want it in; and/or
2.b) simply create the note in [b.1] the currently open / foreground vault; or [b.2] a default vault
If anyone’s on the Obsidian slack or forum, perhaps they could point to this to help keep the ball rolling.
@bchend here, or Obsidian users, may correct me if I’m missing something.
updated 2021-05-07 12:12. I updated this post after hearing back from @bchend .
@LucB, thanks for stepping in!
The vault issue is important, especially if you want to implement a scalable solution for Hook / Obsidian integration.
But if one accepts the idea of using a “default vault”, I think we already have the items we need:
obsidian://new?vault=myVault&name=myName&content=myContent
creates a note and focuses obsidian on this note,
then obsidian://hook-get-address
returns the markdown link of said note.
In Script Debugger, with hardcoded values for myVault, myName and myContent, this works, so the obsidian url-scheme should be ok.
The issue here, if we want a quick and dirty implementation of Hook to New Obsidian while the developers give us something more seamless, iis to make the apple script work - and here I have to say I’m stumped.
Ok, after much head scratching I realized that obsidian://hook-get-address
returns the full markdownified link for the new note, whereas Hook seems to be expecting only a URL.
So here’s a New Item script that works most of the time.
use AppleScript version "2.4" -- Yosemite (10.10) or later
use scripting additions
set myVault to "{YOUR DEFAULT VAULT NAME HERE}"
set myName to "$encoded_title"
set myUserLink to "$encoded_link"
set myLink to "$link"
set myContent to "[" & myName & "](" & myUserLink & ")"
set myNewNote to "obsidian://new?name=" & myName & "&vault=" & myVault & "&content=" & myContent
set myScript to "open '" & myNewNote & "'"
-- Create a new note in Obsidian
do shell script myScript
delay 0.4
-- Get the MD link for this new note on the clipboard
do shell script "open 'obsidian://hook-get-address'"
delay 0.4
-- Extract the MD link from the clipboard
set theNewMDLink to «class ktxt» of ((the clipboard as text) as record)
-- Get only the second part of the MD link (the url)
set oldDelimiters to AppleScript's text item delimiters
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "]("
set theArray to every text item of theNewMDLink
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to oldDelimiters
set t to item 2 of theArray
set theNewLink to text 1 thru -2 of t
-- Return the URL
return theNewLink
CAVEAT: this works only with Obsidian open on your machine. If it’s closed, results have been random for me - i usually end up with the content inside a “daily note”, but sometimes the script just hangs…
I updated this a bit to deal with a few issues. If the file already exists for some reason, don’t create another file, use the one we have. And if you move the file, the link should still work. And it works regardless of whether Obsidian is running.
use AppleScript version "2.4" -- Yosemite (10.10) or later
use scripting additions
set myVault to "ObsidianVault"
on findAndReplaceInText(theText, theSearchString, theReplacementString)
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to theSearchString
set theTextItems to every text item of theText
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to theReplacementString
set theText to theTextItems as string
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ""
return theText
end findAndReplaceInText
on removeAfterDollars(theText)
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "$$$"
return text item 1 of theText
end removeAfterDollars
set myName to findAndReplaceInText("$encoded_title", "/", "-")
set myUserLink to findAndReplaceInText(removeAfterDollars("$encoded_link"), "/", "%252F")
set myContent to "[" & myName & "](" & myUserLink & ")"
set myNewUrl to "obsidian://advanced-uri?vault=" & myVault & "&filepath=" & myName
set myNewNote to myNewUrl & "&data=" & myContent & "&mode=prepend"
set myScript to "open '" & myNewNote & "'"
do shell script myScript
return myNewUrl
Now this would be a lot easier if encoded link didn’t have the $$$ and the base64 encoded string and if applescript had a built in way to replace text.
In version 3.2.1 of Hook, one can define Prefix and Suffix when creating new notes. Is it possible to allow for add time stamp also for newly created Obsidian notes, e.g. 202108241456?
If one wants to change the behaviour for Hook To New > Obsidian, should be scripts provided in this forum be included in the Get Address or New Item part of the scripts for Obsidian?
After searching on the Hook forum, now I will answer my questions as follows:
1 & 2. It is possible to customize note content and title by using the method in the following post: Obsidian Hook to New - #15 by Wen.
3. The script should be included in the New Item part.
Just as an exercise in understanding how hook integrates with JavaScript, I created a javascript version. This has been tested for a full 10 minutes so trust it accordingly
//JavaScript
(() => {
// See:
// https://help.obsidian.md/Advanced+topics/Using+obsidian+URI
// https://hookproductivity.com/help/integration/creating-integration-scripts/
'use strict';
// Constants
let vault = 'Home'; // <---- Default vault
let folder = '002 WIP/' // <---- Chosen destination folder (ends with '/') or blank
let createDateStamp = () => {
let d = new Date();
let month = '' + (d.getMonth() + 1);
let day = '' + d.getDate();
let year = d.getFullYear();
if (month.length < 2)
month = '0' + month;
if (day.length < 2)
day = '0' + day;
return [year, month, day].join('-');
}
let prefix = createDateStamp() + ' '; // <---- prefix for the created file, or blank
// Parameters passed in and substituted by hook itself
let title = '$title';
let encodedLink = '$encoded_link';
// The encoded link has a hook specific suffix ($$$...) we must remove
let processedEncodedLink = encodedLink.replace(new RegExp('\\$\\$\\$.*', 'g'), '');
// How many times has this been encoded?!?!?!
let link = decodeURIComponent(decodeURIComponent(decodeURIComponent(processedEncodedLink)))
// Can't allow just anything in the title as it messes with sync plugin
// and links to the document. I'm probably being over cautious here
let fileName = title
.replaceAll('$', '-')
.replaceAll('%', '-')
.replaceAll('|', '-')
.replaceAll('?', '-')
.replaceAll('[', '-')
.replaceAll(']', '-')
.replaceAll('(', '-')
.replaceAll(')', '-')
let markdownTitle = title
.replaceAll('[', '-')
.replaceAll(']', '-')
.replaceAll('(', '-')
.replaceAll(')', '-')
let content =
'# ' + title + '\n' +
'\n' +
'[' + markdownTitle + '](' + link + ')\n';
// Build the url
let url = 'obsidian://new' +
'?vault=' + encodeURIComponent(vault) +
'&file=' + encodeURIComponent(folder + prefix + fileName) +
'&content=' + encodeURIComponent(content);
//console.log(url);
return url;
})();
For the record of this topic, we released a solution using a community plugin (advanced-URI) in Hook Version 3.4.3 (4626, integration v. 201) earlier this month, which we updated on Friday with version 206 of Hook integrations.
Obsidian URI’s new and hook-get-address actions can now optionally accept x-success as part of the x-callback-url specifications, and will return a name, url, and file (file://) as the returned URL parameters.
Thanks, @Wen , that’s it. There’s an issue remaining with it. We notified Shida Li about it yesterday. It will apparently be in the next Obsidian v0.14.3 Insider build.
We pulled 3.7 public beta 1, but I assume you are using macOS 12 on which it is OK to use Hook 3.7.
For obsidian, please see Using Hook with Obsidian – Hook. If you overrode the Obsidian script in Scripts Tab – Hook you may need to remove your override (with the “-” button on bottom left of Scripts pane).
It’s been a long while… Nice to see it is working.
Question: Are (and if so, how are) templates supposed to work?
I’d like to tell hookmark which Obsidian folder to put the new note into, and ideally also immediately choose some template along with it (e.g., to put a timestamp).
I’ve manually done it by hacking the current new script - see
I don’t really understand what really a “Finder-based” app is. Could you give actual examples / walkthroughs about this? I was trying to understand from the documentation, but somehow it evades me.
Sorry my answer was not super helpful. Let’s try again.
First you can use Hook to New with Obsidian out of the box.
The subtlety pertains to templates if you want to use them: Hookmark’s templates work best with apps that create files that they can open when users double-click on the file in the Finder. Those are apps where Finder, > Get Info > “open with” works well.
The Obsidian case is subtle because it is an electron app which does not act like a regular mac app in some ways. You can’t just double click on the file in Finder and open the file in Obsidian. That means you can’t easily make it a default template. If you try in Finder, macOS will say something like:
“Obsidian2.md” is damaged and can’t be opened. You should move it to the Trash.
So the work-around is
In Finder:
create a template file
and make a macOS friendly app the default
In Hookmark > Preferences > Notes,
Choose an obsidian vault as folder
Make a proper Mac app the default app. (Not an electron app)
Notice I used a file called text.md as the template file. (I had edited this template file to have the content I wanted). BBEdit is the default for “md” files on my system. I can’t make it Obsidian due to Obsidian being electron (and the Electron folks choosing not to fully integrate with macOS).
this will setup hooks between the file and whatever was the context of the Hook to New command.
Run time
do: Hook to New > that default (text.md)
Thereafter, you can invoke Hookmark on the file in Obsidian and you’ll see the hooks . And vice versa.
better
if you can find a way to make Obsidian open apps from finder, it will be easier. Someone on the forum have found a solution. I can’t recall. The Obsidian forum might know.
even better
Hookmark’s “New Item” software integration framework is quite powerful. There’s probably a way we could use or extend it to integrate with Obsidian’s electron-like way of opening files. That would require an Obsidian API ( x-callback-url and /or plugin).
Is it possible to modify the script so that instead of creating a new note in Obsidian, it appends to a specific note? The best would be some kind of note picker (starred files or something similar) to choose which note the link should be appended to. The Advanced-URI-plugin has a command for this.
Another option is to append the link to the daily note. There is also a advanced-uri link that appends to the daily note, so it should be possible.
The Obsidian Hook to New script is exposed in Hookmark’s Script Editor pane. Users can create Hook to New variants from there. If no one responds here, you could try the Obsidian forum. Lots of Hookmark users there too. In fact one of the plugins developed for Hookmark: https://hookproductivity.com/help/integration/using-hook-with-obsidian/ was not even a Mac user yet; he is currently using Linux.
