Using Hookmark with OmniOutliner

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OmniOutliner is an outliner developed by The Omni Group.

OmniOutliner is a powerful tool for organizing (and reorganizing) information, so you can see the full picture and structure your information effortlessly.

Hookmark enables you to link OmniOutliner documents to and from anything that is also link-friendly.

This page provides some of the technical details about linking with OmniOutliner.

Copy Link and Copy Markdown Link commands

When you invoke Hookmark on a document in OmniOutliner and then choose Copy Link or Copy Markdown Link, Hookmark will produce a link containing a URL like this: hook://file/. You can paste those links anywhere.

These links are heuristically adaptive, meaning you can move the OmniOutliner document around and the link will normally still work! In addition, if you’ve selected a row when copying a link using Hookmark, the link will be deep, pointing to a specific row in the document.

Hook to Copied Link

Hookmark enables you to create 2-way links between OmniOutliner documents and any other link-friendly object. We call these links “hooks”.

Here’s one way to create hooks. Use Hookmark to copy a link to an OmniOutliner document in the clipboard (as explained in the prior section). Then navigate to another item, invoke Hookmark, and use the handy Hook to Copied Link command. The Hook to Copied Link command is available in Hookmark’s contextual window (Title bar button, in the Action ☰ button, or via the ⌘V keyboard shortcut). You can also access the Hook to Copied Link command by control-clicking on another file in the Finder (assuming you’ve installed Hookmark’s Finder extension.)

See Hook to Copied Link for more information.

Deep linking to specific rows in OmniOutliner documents!

You may be familiar with OmniOutliner’s Copy Link function. When you select a row in an OmniOutliner document and use this OmniOutliner command, you get a link, like this: omnioutliner:///open?row=lAgiZr2AgMn. These links are great because they bring you to the specific row in the document. But they only work if the document from which the link was copied is currently open.

Hookmark extends OmniOutliner’s deep linking functionality, enabling you to create deep links that

  1. do not require the file to be open,
  2. are robust, meaning the links continue to work even if you move the files around!

As long as a row is selected, text in a row is selected, or the cursor is in a row, Hookmark’s Copy Link returns a deep link. Deep links have a rowid parameter in their address that matches the native OmniOutliner link. Here is an example. If you inspect that link you’ll see that Hookmark has embedded rowid=lAgiZr2AgMn in the URL. (That’s the row ID provided by OmniOutliner that we mentioned above.)

Deep links are very convenient for long and deep outlines. This functionality is emblematic of Hookmark, which helps you focus your attention to the precise information you need without you needing to search.

Copy Selection and Link

If you select text within a row, then Hookmark enables the Copy Selection and Link ⌃Q menu item. This command

  1. copies the selected text,
  2. adds a new line to the clipboard, and
  3. copies a deep link to the item.

See Copy Selection and Link for more about this command.

Hook to New > OmniOutliner

Hookmark enables you to instantly create new OmniOutliner documents and link them to the current item, whether a web page, email, PDF , file, project, etc., in any such context.

With Hookmark’s Hook to New command, you can instantly create a new OmniOutliner item linked to the current item, whether it be a web page, email, PDF, file, project, etc..

For example, if you invoke Hookmark on the current web page,

  1. choose Hook to New (⇧⌘N),
  2. select OmniOutliner, and
  3. hit the return key:

Hookmark will

  1. create a new OmniOutliner document,
  2. name the document according to this web page,
  3. hook (bidirectionally link) this web page to the new OmniOutliner document, and
  4. add a bookmark inside Hookmark to this webpage and to the new OmniOutliner document.

Not bad, for one quick command.

You can also make OmniOutliner your default Hook to New (“note-taking”) app in Hookmark’s Notes preferences pane. In that case, instead of using Hook to New... (⇧⌘N), you can simply invoke Hookmark and then use ⌘N; or even faster, use Hookmark’s global shortcut for creating new notes.

Hook to new entire OmniOutliner folders!

Hookmark also enables you to use Hook to New to create an entire interlinked folder based on a template. We have created a special folder just for OmniOutliner users.. Click that link to download the template folder. The template contains folders, OmniOutliner files and an OmniGraffle file:

  • Communications, reviews, comments, etc. (folder)
  • Drafts (folder)
  • Figures (folder)
  • Figure.graffle
  • Hookmark (.hook) files (folder)
  • Previous (folder)
  • Resources and Research (folder)
  • Reviews and comments about this from others
  • ELEMENTS.ooutline
  • OUTLINE.ooutline
  • PLAN.ooutline
  • scratchpad.ooutline

For more information, see Templates – Hookmark.

Reveal File in Finder

Suppose you are editing an OmniOutliner file and you want to see where it is located on the Finder. Hookmark has you covered. Simply invoke Hookmark, click the Action ☰ button, and select Reveal File in Finder.

Search for OmniOutliner bookmarks in Hookmark

Hookmark automatically bookmarks links it creates. That means if you use Hookmark to copy links to OmniOutliner documents or hook them to anything, then Hookmark will automatically bookmark those items for you. Later you can find those bookmarks using Hookmark’s search on any Mach with which you sync Hookmark’s bookmarks! Hookmark becomes a treasure trove of links to the information you value the most.

To find OmniOutliner items you’ve processed with Hookmark, simply

  1. invoke Hookmark
  2. enter search mode (with ⌘F or a click)
  3. type: ooutline and hit the return key

Your OmniOutliner bookmarks will show up in the search results.

See also…

OmniOutliner is discussed and illustrated elsewhere on this website. To find out more: