Linking an existing todo from Things doesn't show the name, only ID

Discussion & Help
1

Hey, new user here!

Sorry if it has been discussed elsewhere already - haven’t found it via search.

I’m trying to link an existing todo item from Things 3 to a web page and get this instead (no name, just some guid):

20
201200×244 48.4 KB

It works the other way around though: linking from a page to an existing or new todo resolves the name correctly :man_shrugging:

upd: seeing the same behavior with Bear…
upd2: and Safari too… Looks like the app that I’ve initiated linking from doesn’t return the item’s name to Hook correctly.

2

So to clarify, the steps you follow are:

  1. Open Hook on Application A (e.g. Things)
  2. Copy Link (to todo)
  3. Open Hook on Application B (e.g. Safari)
  4. Link to Copied Address (link todo to web page)

And the result is that the link to Application A, whether it be Things or any other app, doesn’t have a title.

Also need to clarify that when you open Hook on Things, the title shows correctly in the title bar.

I think that the issue is probably with the clipboard. When you “Copy Link” with Hook it actually copies 3 different forms of the link, a plain text (txt) version, rich text (rtf) version, and a special custom version which Hook uses to link items together. What you are seeing sounds like Hook is linking with the plain text address, which doesn’t have information about the name. It should only do that if there is only the txt version of the address in the clipboard.

Try copying a link and pasting it into an rtf document. Is it a hyperlink (e.g. Apple) or a URL (e.g. https://www.apple.com) If it is a URL, then the rtf address either isn’t being copied or is being lost. Do you have any other utilities which modify your clipboard?

As an interim workaround you can try using Copy Markdown Link (⌘M) instead of regular Copy Link, to link between two items. A markdown link contains the item’s title information, but stores it as plain text and shouldn’t be subject to any issues with using different clipboard formats.

e.g.

  1. Open Hook on Application A (e.g. Things)
  2. Copy Markdown Link (to todo)
  3. Open Hook on Application B (e.g. Safari)
  4. Link to Copied Address (link todo to web page)
3

I’ve updated the help page, Copy Link – Hook, with such information. We will further extend this information.

4

Wow, thank you so much guys for looking into this!
TLDR: I’m all set now, case solved :slight_smile:

Exactly these steps, yes.

Yes, I use a clipboard manager. It turned out to be the culprit - as soon as I’ve disabled its auto-transformation stuff and added Hook to excluded apps just to be safe - everything started working just as it should.

Maybe it’s worth adding some note on using third party clipboard managers there, too. A funny thing is that I’ve already had exact the same situation with some different app, and spent unreasonable amount of time investigating :sweat_smile:

Many thanks again!

2 Likes