Using Hookmark with the Craft Mac Writing App

NB: This integration currently requires macOS Big Sur, as noted below. Please make sure you have the latest Hookmark integration scripts (version 165 or newer) in Gear menu > About (or its Update tab). You may need to do Gear menu > Preferences > Update > Check Now. That will update the integration with Craft (if is not already up-to-date.)

Craft is a relative newcomer to the world of note-taking, writing and document-creation apps, but its beautiful UI and rich feature set have led many Mac users to adopt it. Its developer clearly values integration with other apps and services, and has growing support for automation of these integrations – allowing you to stay “in flow” while you’re working in Craft.

From its first release, Craft has supported bidirectional linking and backlinks. In addition to allowing users to copy a link to any page, its Copy Deeplink and Copy Markdown Deeplink features let you copy links to blocks, cards or sub-pages within documents.

Hookmark enables you to bidirectionally link Craft pages, blocks, cards or sub-pages to just about anything else on your Mac, including other files and folders throughout your system. They are connected via a hook – a bidirectional link that is visible whenever you invoke Hookmark on either item in the link.

You can also paste links obtained through Hookmark into Craft to connect files, folders, emails, tasks, contact cards and other resources to your Craft documents.

How to copy links in Craft for use with Hookmark (Copy Link and Copy Markdown Link)

There are two ways to copy a link from Craft. With either method, have your Craft document open and the window selected. Then, either:

1. Invoke Hookmark in your preferred manner, then press ⌘C or choose Copy Link or Copy Markdown Link from the menu, as shown below. This will copy the link to the current Craft document.
2. Or, use Craft’s own link copying capabilities, by selecting or placing your cursor in any Craft block and either using File menu > Copy Deeplink (or File menu > Copy Markdown Deeplink) or ⌘/Right Click and choosing Copy Deeplink (or Copy Markdown Deeplink) from the contextual menu.

The first option will allow you to copy the link to the current Craft page and its name; the second option will copy a deeplink to the Craft block.

Deeplinks resulting from Craft’s Copy Markdown Deeplink will be named after the title in Craft, while those resulting from its Copy Deeplink command will be named after the URL returned by Craft. Once you’ve hooked a deep link to another item, you can click on the Hookmark menu next to the link and select Rename if you like. This works for any link you’ve used in Hookmark.

Hook Craft links to anything you want

Hooking a Craft document to anything is easy. Once you’ve copied a Craft link using either of the above methods, just:

1. Select the item (file, folder, email, task or other) to which you want to attach a copied Craft link.
2. Invoke Hookmark.
3. Select Hook to Copied Link or hit ⌘V.

Now, your copied link to Craft will show up whenever you invoke Hookmark while the file or folder is selected. Just click the link to open Craft directly to that document or block.

Using Hookmark’s Hook to Copied Link feature, you can attach multiple Craft links and deeplinks to the same file, folder, email, etc. Invoking Hookmark on a folder could bring up a Hookmark window that looks similar to this one, with multiple Craft links:

The screenshot above shows four Craft links attached to the folder “Recent Rochelle Photos” via Hookmark. The first link is to a Craft document, and it was created using Hookmark. The last three links are Craft deeplinks that haven’t been renamed; they go to specific blocks within the same Craft document.

Paste links to Craft documents anywhere

You can also paste any link or deeplink copied from Craft – either via Hookmark or via Craft’s own link copying function – anywhere that you can paste text. Clicking it will open Craft to the linked page or block.

Using Hookmark-garnered links in Craft

Craft is designed to integrate easily with other apps and services, and opens hyperlinks pasted into Craft. This makes it easy to use Hookmark-garnered links in Craft by using Hookmark to copy any link and pasting the link anywhere in a Craft document. Craft will display a hyperlink with the name of the item you’ve linked to. Click the hyperlink to open a file, folder, email, Contact card, task, web page, etc.

You can also “hook” or attach linkable items to a Craft document. Once you have used Hookmark to copy a link, just select your Craft document, invoke Hookmark and either select Hook to Copied Link or hit ⌘V. To see and use the links you’ve hooked to a Craft document, invoke Hookmark from within your Craft documents:

To open the hooked item, select it (by using the arrow keys, your mouse/trackpad, or with the keyboard shortcut shown.) If the resource is a file or folder, you may also use Hookmark’s menu to reveal it in the Finder.

Hook a new item to any Craft document

In any Craft document you can invoke Hookmark and choose the Hook to New… command from Hookmark’s title bar (or use ⌃⌘N) to create a new item and hook it to the Craft document.

Hookmark will automatically do all of the following for you:

1. Create the new item document.
2. Name it after the Craft document.
3. If the new item is a file, Hookmark will (a) store it in a default Finder folder, and (b) optionally apply a “Hook” Finder tag to the new file.
4. Bidirectionally link (“hook”) the Craft document to the new item.

OmniFocus, Things or TaskPaper. Now you can invoke Hookmark on the new item. You will see a Hooked link to the new project —and vice-versa! That way, you can easily navigate between your Craft document and your writing plan.

Hook to New > Craft

You can also use Hook to New in the other direction. Use it to create a new Craft document that is hooked (bidirectionally linked) to a document, file, folder or any other currently selected linkable resource.

A common use case is to invoke Hookmark in the context of a PDF (say in PDFpenPro) and choose Hook to New > Craft. That way, you are able to use Craft to write notes about your PDF. (The value of long-form note-taking about documents is discussed in Cognitive Productivity books books.)

Hookmark effortlessly bookmarks your Craft links

Hookmark effortlessly bookmarks all the links you copy with Hookmark, including Craft links. As a result, you can use Hookmark to find your most important Craft documents — the ones that were worth addressing!

To find Craft documents and blocks whose links you’ve copied with Hookmark:

1. Invoke Hookmark.
2. Type ⌘F or Gear Menu > Find.
3. Type craftdocs and hit the Return key.

Your “hooked” Craft documents will show up in the search results. There’s a good chance that you’ve already bookmarked important Craft documents with Hookmark, so use Hookmark to search for relevant information.

Requirements

This requires Hookmark version 2.2.2 or later with integration scrips v. 162 or later. It also requires macOS Big Sur.

See also

• Creating and Modifying Integration Scripts
• Version 158 of Hookmark software integration: Linking the Craft writing app to anything, and updated Deep PDF-linking in Skim