LaunchBar by Objective Development and Hookmark are complementary information retrieval apps. LaunchBar provides context-free information retrieval (searched based); Hookmark is specialized for linking and context-sensitive information retrieval (link-based). Hookmark’s search feature finds what you have bookmarked. LaunchBar is, in addition, a “Swiss army knife” with many other functions.
You can use Hookmark and LaunchBar together in several ways, one of which is to see everything you’ve linked with Hookmark. Hookmark creates bookmarks when you hook items together or use Copy Link
on files. First, you need to download a free LaunchBar action we have created for you.
- This one is for Hookmark 1.8 and
- this one is for Hookmark 2.0.
- this one is for Hookmark 4 and 5 . There is one for Hookmark standalone, another for Hookmark Setapp. Just install the one you need.
Then, double-click on the “Show Hookmark Bookmarks.lbaction” file. That will install it in LaunchBar.
Now, to see all your Hookmark bookmarks in LaunchBar:
- Invoke LaunchBar.
- Start typing
Browse Hookmark Bookmarks
. - Hit the Return key.
To find a particular item you’ve linked in Hookmark, just type the name of the item. It does not need to be something that LaunchBar indexed independently of Hookmark.
You can use LaunchBar’s fantastic adaptive search algorithm in steps 2 and 4:
- In step 2, you don’t need to type all of
Browse Hookmark Bookmarks
of course. LaunchBar will quickly show you the right command. You could type “hkb” for “Hookmark bookmarks”. - In step 4, you can type ahead in the way you normally would in LaunchBar, skipping characters.
Screencast and blog post about Hookmark and LaunchBar
See this blog post and screencast. It describes Four Ways to Use LaunchBar and Hookmark Together, including using LaunchBar to search for Hookmark bookmarks.
See also this Hookmark forum post about LaunchBar integration and Hookmark automation.
Please note that the “Send to” feature only works with files. You can’t send Safari bookmarks, contacts or other types of info to Hookmark via LaunchBar at this point.
And more
LaunchBar enthusiasts can already create their own LaunchBar actions based on Hookmark’s AppleScript dictionary.
Stay tuned for more Hookmark automation and LaunchBar actions.