I have a spreadsheet with about 300 lines in it. Each one has a HookMark that leads to another spreadsheet in one cell and leads to a folder in another. The trouble is that I designate the year that the spreadsheet is being used as a matter of habit. Now that I’m about to move from 2023 to 2024 I’m wondering if there is a way to globally change a block of hooks rather than having to reset all of them.
Is there a place where I could see all of them listed in a text file or in Finder so that I could use a rename feature of some sort?
Yes. That is why I posted the question. The spreadsheet is called something like 2023 Clients and the files they link to are in a folder called something like: 2023 Mileage Records. Now that it is (almost) 2024 the new file and folder will be something like 2024 Clients and 2024 Mileage Records. So I click on the link to someones name in the 2024 Clients spreadsheet and it is supposed to go to their file in the 2024 Mileage Records folder so I can just open it and enter the necessary data into it. This does not work. the hook goes to the old folder, which I haven’t yet archived. I’m going to do a bit more testing this morning to see what happens when the folder doesn’t even exist anymore.
I thought you would rename 2023 files to 2024 files. It seems those 2024 files are all newly created files. Is this correct? Then the old links would not work.
I generally make a new folder with a name that reflects the new year. Then I copy all the old file in it. I don’t rename those files. I take the old year’s folder and put it in an archive with a new name out of the way so that if I ever need to look back to see something from a previous year as it was I can. But moving forward the files are named the same, just their parent folder is different. When I do as I just described the hook finds the old file in the archived location. Since I want to keep editing those files with the new info for the new year, this isn’t useful. I’m probably going to have to recreate the hooks. Bummer. Also, I know this process is a bit clunky, but it has worked for me for some time now and it is too close to the end of the year to come up with something different just because I now use HookMark (which I only purchased about 3 weeks ago).
(1) Duplicate the original 2023 folder, which will give you a “2023 copy” folder
(2) Archive the “2023 copy” folder, or you can rename it to something else.
(3) Rename the original folder to 2024
(4) Test the old links .
Believe it or not, that is exactly what I’ve been saying I’ve done. The hook gets found in the archived (renamed) parent and sub-folder because the file name that it points to has not changed. Even if I change the name of one of the linked files inside of the renamed folders the hook still manages to find it. So it looks like I need to make all new HookMarks to the files in the new folders. Right?
One more quick question about this… If I reboot the computer would the issue be resolved? I hardly ever restart my MacBook but I will if you think that is the reason HookMark is following those folders and files no matter where I put them or what I rename them.
Thank you for all your input on this. I have learned a lot about HookMark I guess. I do now understand how the path gets changed when the file gets moved around. My problem was that I was keeping two copies of all the files in folders with two different names. HookMark was ignoring the new folder and rerouting me to the archived ones even though I kept renaming it. Now that I understand how this works and that I can go to the list of bookmarks and manage the Hooks pretty efficiently I can set up what I need for 2024 in a slightly different way so that I won’t have the same issue next year. I have also learned that I can quickly rename a bunch of hooks from the Bookmarks screen so that is less keystrokes. Thanks again for all your help.