NotePlanNotePlan
Sep 29

Easy Finder shortcuts to Notes

IDK which order you all prefer but I will do "what", "how" and then the "why" to wrap it up and all will be clear. :) **What** I would like to access a specific NotePlan Note from the macOS Finder. **How** - In the "..." menu of a Note, I select "Create (alias/link/shortcut) to Note" (*Parentheses because this is something that has no standard name… yet…*) - An in-app Finder "Save" dialog appaears, allowing me to select a destination. - I pick the folder I want to add the shortcut to, and save. - A text file with the note title as name and the extension .url is created: `Note Title.url` (*The file has a variation of the NotePlan icon, which clearly indicates this is a "shortcut" and not a Note itself.*) - The content is: ``` [InternetShortcut] URL=noteplan://x-callback-url/openNote?filename=Path/Note%20Title.md . ``` (*n.b.: there needs to be a closing line feed—not a "."—, apparently important*) - Upon double clicking this file, macOS will open the x-callback-url as expected. This little mechanism already works from the macOS side. Just need NotePlan to quickly generate the shortcut file. :D Found this functionality here: http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=2004011120011463… **Why** I may use NotePlan to manage projects, but those projects do not live in NotePlan. They have their own folders elsewhere on my computer. Adding a quick-access shortcut to the project's note in my project's finder folder, allows me to access the note quickly. :D **Bonus Level** Dragging Note from Noteplan sidebar "file explorer" to Finder creates the shortcut where it is dropped. 💯👍🏼
PendingPending
Oct 4, 2021

Interesting, I never heard of this macOS feature. Seems to be veeeery old. Possibly a plugin could do that? We need a the “save file…” dialog though, then it could be possible to build a very simple plugin.

Oct 5, 2021

Eduard Metzger: Because this is conceptually, from the user experience side, a direct "manipulation" of NotePlan notes (aliases to them), it feels like a core feature, not a plugin (or an official plugin?). In effect it is like creating a Finder alias, with the additional bonus that it very specifically opens NotePlan and not whatever app is set as default by the user for opening .md files (I currently run multiple MD editors, and NotePlan is not my default for that :) "Deep Links" are effectively "on-OS hyperlinks" and are very powerful. We do not see them yet very much because most OSs don't make the capability a "first class" UX pattern (the exception having been "tiles" on Windows Phone and maybe Windows itself?). URL Schema allow us to bring this functionality, in this case via a little known mechanism (the ".url" file).