Link to Original Document
What is a card?
- A card is any addressable object that exposes a deep link and a title.
- Cards are not just files. They include:
- OmniFocus actions, projects, tags, perspectives (
omnifocus://…)
- Craft pages, blocks (
craftdocs://…)
- Markdown notes, headers (
file:///…)
- DEVONthink records (
x-devonthink-item://…)
- Email messages, calendar events, PDFs, web highlights
- If you can deep link to it, you can treat it as a card.
The system: a web of linked cards
- I don’t care about “the app,” I care about the content inside it.
- Every app becomes a card engine. Cards live in engines, but they link to each other across silos.
- Instead of trying to store everything in one monolithic app, I have a network of cards connected by URLs.
- Examples:
- An OmniFocus task links to a PDF in DEVONthink
- That same PDF links back to a Craft note where I summarized it
- The Craft note has a backlink to the original task
Why cards need titles and links
- Spotlight is the universal search index. A good title makes the card retrievable regardless of app.
- Links make cards composable. They allow you to:
- Jump from a project to its references
- Surface context
- Build dashboards across tools
Linking cards across engines
- I use Hookmark on macOS to quickly copy or hook links between cards.
- On iOS, I prefer apps that expose stable custom URL schemes.
- Linking isn’t just for documents. OmniFocus perspectives or DEVONthink groups can be cards too.
- I still use folders in tools like DEVONthink to organize project materials. Links just sit on top of that structure to connect meaningfully related items.
- It aligns with contextual computing: the object is the anchor, not the app.