I created a new Hook note for a research project. I then navigated to a few related web pages in Firefox, adding links for each of them to the Hook document.
I expected the Hook window to list links to all the other items when any one of them is in the foreground. Instead, I see all links listed when the Hook note is in the foreground, but only a link to the note file when one of the linked web pages is in the foreground.
If this is by design, I suggest that it should not be.
I second that. I find it totally confusing as well as disappointing.
IMHO, the user interface is fundamentally flawed in that it rests upon a key file and doesn’t cross-link other associated files. It’s not clear which is the key file, and whether the key file should be a Note or a Hook file – is there a difference?
I suggest that Hook adopt a Project-based approach, with distinct Project windows into which links can be dragged, and a way of selecting from a list of user projects.
I appreciate that this is a Beta under development, but at the moment, it’s a very unrealised app. The fundamentals are there, but the user workflow is far from ideal.
It is by design that the Hook window only shows links to to/from the current resource. We’re dealing with an exponential space here so if you tried to show more it would get out of control quickly. By analogy, when you visit a web page, you don’t expect to see n-degrees of links.
The Hook window needs to be compact. There’s a huge cognitive load involved in parsing information. A major advertised purpose of Hook is to keep users in flow.
Having said that we do intend to make it possible for users to navigate directly through linked items.
I would suggest this issue should either be marked “invalid”, or moved to Feature request. Maybe best to create a new forum topic for the new feature (navigation, I suppose), which as noted is on our product road map.
Yes, key files are key. Ways of navigating Hook-linked files will be made available. But the notion of a key file is central to Hook, and to meta-documentation ( Cognitive Productivity), which we will expand upon in Hook documentation (there’s already text to this effect).
Yes, there is a big difference between a note and a Hook file. Hook files like a generalization of aliases and webloc files, supporting markdown.
Apart from those special Hook files, Hook does not have its own files. The originality of Hook as a concept is that it is a bridge between your existing resources, and also to new resources created by Hook.
We do plan to provide additional ways to manipulate links. E.g., multi-select links in a window and copy/paste them to a new resource. Please note that Hook already allows users to copy all links, and to link a different resource to those (multiple) copied.
Yes we have notions of project down the road, but that notion might not be what new users initially expect. It’s a bit difficult to propose new features for Hook before using it because it is a very different tool from what users’ have used before, so their prior models don’t match ( we’ve found in our own use Hook addresses a ton of previously impossible Use Cases – Hook, which we will flesh out).
I’m closing this report as invalid because the software is operating as intended. If you want a feature request, please log it in feature request. Or go to the Discussions forum to ask questions about how to use the tool. Based on the descriptions above, I think after using the tool the participants will have different ideas about what they want from it.
Another way to handle this would be to add a ‘Search for existing Hooks to this item’ feature.