Hookmark makes it easier to write well-informed documents.
When you are creating a knowledge-intense document — be it a report, blog post, memo, presentation, video, or something else — you typically need to create and consult many resources, such as:
- an outline
- a plan (the purpose, constraints and tasks of the document)
- source documents (web pages, PDFs, spreadsheets, figures)
- comments from reviewers and editors (often in emails)
It is inconvenient, sometimes impossible, to put all this information in the same folder as your draft.
With Hookmark, you can easily link supporting documents to your draft, and to each other! Just drag and drop the items onto the menubar icon, and they’re linked together. Or use the Hookmark window to link them to your draft.
You can then immediately navigate between your draft and supporting materials.
You can also instantly copy links to supporting material and paste them in emails, “to do” lists, or any other document.
Illustrated demonstration of benefits for writing
Here are a few blog posts that have videos and/or diagrams to help you understand this key concept. Across blog posts, we varied the writing apps and the task-management apps that we illustrated; but the concept remains the same.
- Creating Systematically and Stay “in the Zone” using OmniFocus, OmniOutliner, OmniGraffle and Hook – Hookmark. Have a look at it. You can replace OmniFocus with your favorite task management system. Replace OmniOutliner with your favorite note-taking app. Replace OmniGraffle with your favorite diagramming app. The core concept is the same: use Hookmark to generate, connect and navigate your creative information.
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BBEdit: A powerful, highly linkable, text editor for creative work and note-taking – Hookmark.
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How to Turn a TaskPaper File into a Project Information Hub – Hookmark.
Have any questions? As on the forum or send us an email.
One command to replicate templates and hook the new material together
Being CogSci Apps we know from cognitive science research that experts use templates to systematically solve problems and create new products. We also know that when solving problems, experts navigate information much more quickly than non-experts.
Therefore we built a unique, extremely powerful solution in Hookmark to rapidly create and hook together the documents you need to write world-class documents.
Hookmark has a convenient Hook to New... command and configurable templates. With Hook to New..., you can create a new folder containing all the resources you need to write like a pro:
- an outline
- a draft
- a title
- a concept map
- supporting rhetorical elements
- a TODO list (e.g., in TaskPaper)
And subfolders to store your:
- communications
- reviews
- figures
- Hookmark (.hook) files
- previous drafts
- research
The templates are based on CogSci Apps Corp. co-founder, Luc P. Beaudoin’s, two Cognitive Productivity books. You can modify these templates and create your own to suit your writing style.
As Tim Stringer of Learn OmniFocus says:
Using templates as the basis for new projects saves time and encourages consistency.
We’ve provided videos and examples of using Hookmark to help you write with BBEdit (a plain text editor) and with OmniOutliner. But of course you can use Hookmark with any URL-friendly app.
Whether you use Craft, Obsidian, Pages, LaTeX, or other linkable apps, use Hookmark to navigate between documents while you are creating your new document.
Stay in the zone
Hookmark enables you to instantly navigate between your draft and ancillary materials. Hookmark helps you search less, so you can remain in your writing context. This promotes psychological flow — and that is a good thing!
Get links to anything and paste them anywhere
Hookmark makes it possible and easy to copy fully formatted links to just about anything (web pages, files, emails, etc.) You can:
- paste these links into your outlines, drafts, notes, emails, etc.
- paste them into your Presenter notes (Keynote, Powerpoint, etc.), so you can navigate directly from a presentation page to that key PDF, spreadsheet or web page while you are preparing, rehearsing or giving a presentation
- apply these links to entire documents (using “Hook to Copied Link”), so that you can quickly navigate between them
Blog better thanks to Hookmark
The benefits described above also apply to blogging (and other forms of writing).
For example, one of the most common things a blogger does is link to other web pages. Hookmark makes that easier than ever.
- Using a web browser, on any given web page, invoke the Hookmark window (⌘⇧SPACE).
- Select “Copy as Markdown Link”.
- Paste the Markdown-formatted link right into your draft (or anywhere else)!
Ditch Web editors (WordPress and others)
Content management systems, like WordPress, are great. But they’re not the best place to be writing web pages.
- They are clumsy and unreliable.
- They tend to mess up styling.
- It’s easy to lose track of your web writing tab amidst all your other tabs.
- They are filled with distractions.
Instead of writing in a web editor, write in the editor of your choice (such as Drafts, BBEdit, Bear app, or MultiMarkdown Composer). Use Hookmark to link the local copy to the web version.
So if you want to tweak the web page at a later date, you can immediately get back to its private, local source. Or if you want to write a new blog post or web page based on the original, you can instantly navigate from the public web page to your private source files.
Of course, you can use Hookmark to link your draft to ancillary material, as explained above. This makes it extremely easy to navigate between the web page you’ve written and supporting materials.
That’s why we say of Hookmark: “File less. Search less. Access.”!
Collaborate on web pages
Hookmark also helps you collaborate on web pages. Keep the web page’s source in Git, Subversion, Dropbox, or in another shared system. Paste the links of the source or destination in HTML/Markdown comments. (We will automate this even further). Your writing partners will be able to immediately navigate between the public web page and the local source.
In fact, you can even link the local source to all kinds of internal resources (issue tracking entries, other version-controlled files, etc.)
Hookmark facilitates creating any product
The benefits described above apply to whatever you are creating, whether it be a text document, graphic, screencast, or any other artefact.
Ask yourself these questions
- Would you give up your search engines?
- Would you give up on folders?
- Would you give up on web links?
Of course not! Once you start using Hookmark, you will feel the same about it!
So why not Download Hookmark now?