General Settings Tab

You can control the following behavior of Hookmark on the General tab:

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1. “Hooked” indicator in menu bar icon

If Show current item's number of hooks in menu bar icon is enabled, then Hookmark’s menu bar icon will change dynamically to reflect whether the currently open or selected item is hooked to anything. It will do this regardless of whether Hookmark’s contextual window is open.

This means you don’t need to open the Hookmark window to see whether an item is hooked to something.

See Menu bar icon badge showing number of links to the current item for more information.

2. The effect of clicking Hookmark’s menu bar icon

You can configure whether clicking Hookmark’s menu bar icon shows:

Regardless of this setting, if you hold the option key down while clicking Hookmark’s menu bar icon, the menu bar window will appear.

3. Hookmark Context Window (appearance and hiding)

You can configure several aspects of the Hookmark (contextual) Window itself.

3.1 Hide Hookmark context window after copying links (checkbox)

If this is checked, then after you use Copy Link, Copy Markdown Link, or Hook to Copied Link), the Hookmark context window will remain visible. By default, this setting is unchecked.

Advanced users will prefer to disable this setting.

Even if this is disabled, Hookmark will automatically disappear if you open an item through Hookmark or use the ESC key — as macOS Spotlight® and launchers like Alfred and LaunchBar do.

Advanced users will normally enable this (auto-hiding).

3.2 Toolbar buttons

You can configure whether Hookmark shows any or all of the following buttons in its toolbar:

4. Show Badge Icon

You can control whether Hookmark’s floating badge icon is displayed or not. The badge icon is a convenient way for you to choose some of Hookmark’s commands that apply to the foreground window, without needing to open the context window.

5. Show Dock checkbox: foreground or backround mode

Hookmark can run in the foreground (default) or background mode. When the “Show Dock Icon” setting is checked, Hookmark runs in the foreground. When Hookmark runs in the foreground, Hookmark appears in the:

  • Application Switcher app (⌘Tab)
  • Force Quit menu, and
  • Dock.

In foreground mode, Hookmark’s menubar will appear, normally when the Bookmarks window or Settings window is shown. This means you no longer need to rely on the gear menu to access Hookmark’s global commands.

If you want Hookmark to revert to background mode, uncheck Show Hookmark Badge. This will hide Hookmark’s Dock icon, and Hookmark will no longer have a menubar or show up in the Application Switcher app.

If you choose to hide Hookmark from the Dock, you will first get a dialog box that asks you to confirm your choice, saying:

In order to run Hookmark without a Dock icon, it has to run as a “background application”.
Running Hookmark in background mode has the following implications.

  1. Hookmark’s menubar will not appear even when Bookmarks window is shown.
  2. Because of the missing menu bar, the Hide Others command (⌥⌘-H) will not work while Hookmark is active.
  3. Hookmark will not appear in the Application Switcher (⌘Tab).
  4. Hookmark will not appear in Apple Menu’s “Force Quit” list of apps, even while it is running.
  5. the “Hide Others” command (⌥⌘ H) will not list Hookmark, even while it is running.
  6. As noted, you will not see Hookmark in the Dock.

Note that even in foreground mode, Hookmark’s context window does not have its own menubar.

6. Links: hook://file/ URL-handling, and notifications

You can configure the following three aspects of Hookmark’s linking:

6.1. Reveal hook://file link targets in Finder

When you use Copy Link on a file, Hookmark creates a link containing a hook://file URL. You can paste that hook://file// URL anywhere. Similarly, invoking Make Hookmark File on a selection in the Finder creates a .hookmark file that contains a hook://file// URL.

The Reveal hook://file link targets in Finder option determines what happens when you double-click on hook://file// links stored in documents. The choices are:

  • to reveal the target of the link (the file) in Finder; or
  • open the target file.

NB: this preference does not affect what happens when you:

  1. Access files via Hookmark’s contextual window. If you double-click (or press the Return key on) a hooked file, Recent item, Pinned item, or Search, Hookmark will necessarily open that file regardless of this setting.
  2. Open .hookmark files that contain a link to another type of resource than files, such as web pages. That is because .hookmark files can contain any link. And of course, you can’t reveal remote web pages in Finder 🙂 .

6.2 Playing menu bar icon linking sounds

This checkbox controls whether sounds are played when you create links with Hookmark

By default, Hookmark issues macOS notifications when you create links. You can disable and configure Notifications in the macOS Apple menu > System Preferences > Notifications pane. See Apple’s documentation on notifications.

7. Hookmark Folder: where it is stored

At the bottom of Hookmark’s General Preferences tab, you can choose where Hookmark creates its (Hookmark) folder. By default, Hookmark creates it in ~/Documents.

The Hookmark folder contains:

Please note that this command will not move your prior Hookmark folder’s contents; it simply chooses a new folder.

Restart Hookmark in order for changes to the Hookmark Folder setting to take full effect.