How to convert existing links if hookmark goes out of business?

Discussion & Help
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if hookmark goes out of business, what would I do with a zillion existing links ?

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We’re not going anywhere but up, @ronny213 :slight_smile: . Nevertheless, it’s important for customers to be able to get their data into and out of Hookmark. The answer is here: We Value Interoperability.

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Just link to @LucB , it will follow wherever he goes!

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At the moment activation is reliant on Hookmark still being around. Would be nice if that limitation could be removed.

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Realistically, however, standards do last longer than companies.

I decided in the end to stick with standard urls – a pity to add friction and constrain the longevity of documents and wiki-like cross-connections by depending on a proprietary url-scheme when you can use open standards, and assemble your own (Markdown etc.) labelled links.

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Hookmark Trial mode is Pro and can do the export. In the extremely unlikely event that the company should not be able to maintain the software users will be allowed to use that.

Moreover, Hookmark Standard and Pro can be used forever. And it would be easy for us to flip a switch to disable licensing if we needed to.

Like we say on our openness page, we are not just a one-person shop hob cobbling together a bunch of scripts and macros that would be hard to maintain if its sole developer got hit by a truck. We are a Canadian :canada: corporation who depend on the tool for our own use, and it is used by our academic partners etc. You will notice it starts by acknowledging our roots in UNIX (in the old days this was at the center of interoperability, while I was doing my Ph.D. in Cognitive Science at Sussex and Birmingham England, and a reason why I switched to macOS in 2002).

As a corporation, we have a succession plan should some of us be unable to continue working. We have no intention, inclination or need to throw away this tool / asset. Being a corporation in or case is a good way to have continuity, because it comes with a revenue stream for continuation of the work. At the same time, we have no intention to sell out like Canva did to Adobe. See my Toot:

We also have another asset sustaining the company, called mySleepButton, which some of you (like millions of people) will have heard about (and perhaps used). That one too is based on our R&D in cognitive science. Stay tuned for a paper of mine with several academic colleagues from multiple disciplines on integrative design-oriented R&D leading to wearables for insomnia :blush:.

Also, with regard to Rob’s comment,

  1. please see Principles That Determine the URL Scheme Returned by Copy Link for a Given App – Hookmark. We note that we tend to use the apps own scheme. We only default to our own when there are good reasons to.
  2. Providing our custom URL scheme (which we do in some cases) allows our links to work on iPhone and iPad, with several advantages.
  3. In the case of email links, our scheme allows users to switch email app providers. What if your email app goes out of business? You can still open the links. What if you want to move away from Apple Mail?
  4. Also please note that we provide a script editor, so users can choose the URL schemes that are used. We often provide multiple URL scheme choices, and will make it even easier to choose.
  5. etc. etc.

And again, these URLs can easily be converted.

CogSci Apps is deliberately crafted to be sustainable and yet extremely interoperable and friendly to all users, including academics (not only computer scientists, but also computer scientists).

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When I hook a link from Finder and have a closer look at the hook link, I can guess the filename, but I can’t even see (recognize) the file path.

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  • There’s AppleScript automation to get the file path from a hook://file/ URL.
  • you can copy the link and use [Focus on Link in Clipboard](https://hookproductivity.com/help/hook-window/focus-on-link-in-clipboard/), then Reveal File in Finder
  • There’s also export if you want to see all the paths for all your files
  • By a nice coincidence, Hookmark 5.1 will have two flavors of Copy Path for files ( Hookmark context window > Action ☰ button menu. Something that had been in a pipeline. So you won’t need to reach into BBEdit or similar editor to get the file’s path.