Copy Selection and Link option?

[joolian]

Hello again!

One other follow-on request for folks that integrate Bookends with other PKM/note apps that I hope would be easy to implement is to add an option to copy selection *and* deeplink.

You currently have either option (Copy or Link) but when quoting/copying a text selection (or annotation) it would be lovely to have the deep link appended to the clipboard (at the end of the paragraph/block as with the new deep link behavior in Export Annotations).

If there's room in the popup highlight/copy window that shows up when text is selected, great, or at least added to the right-click on annotation options? As always, keyboard shortcut for this option would be much appreciated.

Hookmark offers Copy Selection and Link in its menus (which is great as a universal approach to this issue) but for some reason I can't make it work in Bookends pdf selections (perhaps a conflict with the Bookends popup?), and it would be nice to have a Bookends-native option.

I would be fine with labeling the deeplink "Link" but I imagine there might be some interest in having the text label for the link be an author/date format or name of paper?

Sorry for another request so soon after your swift tweaks to Export Annotations!

[Jon]

You can have text, or you can have a native link, but you can't mix them in the clipboard. Well, you can, but when you paste, the receiving app will choose which to accept. Apps that accept live links, like TextEdit, paste in the link. Apps that don't, like BBEdit, paste in the text.

Jon
Sonny Software

[joolian]

Thanks for the swift response! Before I posted the original request, I was testing it by using Bookends Export Annotations to Window (which you just tweaked) and manually copying a specific highlight+deeplink to clipboard. It then pastes nicely to DT3, Apple Notes, Apple Mail, Obsidian, Capacities, Slack, and I imagine any other app that supports rich text. I was hoping if this was easy to generate for Export Annotations it could work for a specific highlight/selection in a pdf.

I think there'd be interest beyond me for this ... Copy Selection and Link is one of those hidden gems in Hookmark that my colleagues have been pumped about when I showed them. But Hookmark doesn't work for this use case (it's greyed out for some reason) and a Bookends native function would be fab.

[Jon]

That's a different scenario. You can copy and paste text that contains links, of course. But you can't paste two separate pieces of information, one text and one a link, which is how I read your request. It's possible that Bookends could create a link and merge it with the text behind the scenes. I'd like to hear feedback from others about a feature like this. In addition to adding complexity, it would add more clutter and/or keyboard modifier keys when clicking a button to the existing UI.

But if Hookmark has this capability, have you written to them to ask why this option is grayed out? We have a very good working relationship with Hookmark. They have an active forum where questions like this are posed all the time -- they'll get in touch with me if there is a problem they can't solve themselves. The twp ways to get a selection and link are not mutually exclusive.

Jon
Sonny Software

[joolian]

Thanks Jon, the Hookmark folks figured it out, and you can do Copy Selection and Link using Hookmark as long as you dismiss the popup selection window in Bookends but keep the selection highlighted.

I still think a native Bookends version of this that plays well with block/paragraph-based note software will be desirable but am fine with waiting to see if other users request this.

[Jon]

I've already implemented this for the next update. The UI details are a bit different from what you proposed, but the capability should be the same.

Jon
Sonny Software