Given that Hook connects many apps, at CogSci Apps , we are in touch with a large number of developers of your favorite apps. Internally, we try to split up responsibility for usage of particular apps. E.g., one of us uses Things whereas I use OmniFocus and TaskPaper for my own work. We have been toying with the idea of setting up some kind of a liaison programme where some Hook customer(s) informally act as liaisons in keeping track of and communicating with devs of particular apps. Those will not be positions (not formal nor paid), just informal roles by enthusiasts of the particular apps (e.g., with Obsidian, Drafts, Roam, Ulysses).
We don’t have specifics to propose yet, I’m just floating the idea here. And I wanted to start by seeing if there were one or two members of the Hook forum community who are avid Obsidian users (and find Obsidian delightful), that would like to act as informal liaisons to Obsidian. If so please send a PM to our Support Group, or just start connecting with them. (I’ve been on their forum before and have exchanged communications with them.)
I chose Obsidian as a test of the liaison concept, because it’s promising software (it values linkability, plain text; does not require putting one’s life onto a server, etc.) , the good folks at Obsidian have indicated an inclination to provide required automation, and no one inside CogSci Apps is using it regularly yet (we can’t be regular users of all apps, at least not at our current size; my own note-taking is mainly with nvUltra, BBEdit, OmniOutliner and 1Writer).
Listening to Mac Power Users and Focused podcast episodes, I know that @MacSparky has been using Obsidian, which is a strong indicator of the quality/promise of the software. More generally, somewhere past the 30 minute mark of Focused #112: Productivity & Creativity - Relay FM, in relation to Obsidian, David Sparks mentioned his preference for using best of breed apps (such as OmniFocus for task management) rather than throwing everything into a big bucket. In my opinion, an app like Hook that provides inter/inter-app data linking is a good complement to apps that try to do their specific functions extremely well but don’t throw in the kitchen sink. (Having said that Hook can also work with kitchen sinkers if they have a linking API). So, one can connect Obsidian notes to OmniFocus tasks for instance. Some of this can be facilitated by Hook, but last time I checked, Obsidian was not fully linkable via automation. It would be helpful to have a community member monitor progress at Obsidian, interact with their community and support team with respect to automation of linking, and report back to ours.
When interacting with other app devs/communities, one may wish to refer to What’s a Linkable App and Why Does Linkability Matter? – Hook and Contacting Developers of Other Apps and Information for Developers – Hook.
As I mentioned elsewhere, we will publish (on a dedicated website) a manifesto on linking that will be co-signed by several app developers – i.e. many are currently onboard. (others who wish to join can contact us.) The manifesto will be based on the linking web page mentioned above and on a linking manifesto chapter that @danieljomphe and I wrote for The Future of Text book – the book will be published later this month . The idea of the manifesto is that app users have a right to be able to reference and access their data with links, via automation and the UI. That implies that developers have certain responsibilities to their users.