5 Advanced Editing
Everything in this chapter is optional decoration on top of the plain name <location> :handler entry from Chapter 3. None of it is required to have a working bookmark — it’s there for when you want more out of one.
5.2 Shortcut keys
A single-character key, attached in parentheses right after a bookmark’s name, lets you open it without typing the name at all — see Chapter 1 for how keys are actually used once set.
recipes(r) <@allrecipes.com>There’s a shorter way to write this when the key you want is simply the bookmark’s own first letter: prefix the name with an underscore instead of writing out the brackets, and hande derives the key for you.
_recipes <@allrecipes.com>This is exactly equivalent to recipes(r) above — the underscore itself never appears in the final name, and the derived key always matches the bookmark’s own scope automatically, since it’s quite literally the name’s own first letter. It’s the quicker option day to day; reach for the bracket form instead when you specifically want a key that isn’t the bookmark’s first letter — commonly because that letter’s already spoken for by something else, e.g. chatgpt(p) once claude has already claimed c. You can’t combine both on the same bookmark — an underscore-prefixed name with a bracket after it is an error, since it’s genuinely ambiguous which one should win.
The underscore shorthand is a bookmark-entry convenience — something you write directly in a category file, whether by hand or via :add-bookmark’s freeform line. :add-key below always sets an explicit character; it doesn’t accept _ as shorthand for “derive it from the name.”
To give an existing bookmark a key, or change the one it has, without editing the file directly:
hlg> :add-key
Which bookmark? recipes
New shortcut key for 'recipes': r
'recipes' now has the shortcut key 'r'.:add-key is also available as :ak. The key’s case has to match the bookmark’s own scope — lowercase for a local bookmark, uppercase for a global one — and hande will tell you plainly if it doesn’t. A category, and a subcategory, can each carry their own shortcut key too, exactly the same way (see Chapter 2), though only in the bracket form — the underscore shorthand is specific to a bookmark’s own name.
5.3 Flagging a bookmark for search
A trailing ? on a bookmark’s name marks it as a search engine, usable by the ? trigger from Chapter 1:
google? <@google.com>Once flagged this way, a search bookmark is always reachable from anywhere, regardless of which category file it physically lives in, and regardless of whether its own name happens to be uppercase or lowercase.
5.4 Deactivating a bookmark
A trailing - on a bookmark’s name turns it off without deleting it — hande skips right past it as though it weren’t there, while leaving the line itself in the file for whenever you want it back. Just remove the dash to reactivate it.
old-project- <@old-project.example.com>This is the one flag that’s safe to combine with the search flag above — a bookmark can be a deactivated search bookmark at the same time, with the dash coming after the question mark.
5.1 Comment lines: description and tags
A line starting with
#, placed immediately above a bookmark, attaches a description, a set of tags, or both, to that bookmark:The description is free text; the tags are space-separated keywords inside square brackets. Either half can be left out —
# Just a description, or# [just tags], are both valid on their own.A comment always describes exactly the one bookmark right after it, so two comment lines can never appear back to back (a blank line in between doesn’t change this — it’s still “back to back” as far as hande is concerned). hande rejects a file like this at load time rather than silently attaching the first comment to nothing and confusing which bookmark the second one belongs to:
If you want more than one line’s worth of description or tags on a single bookmark, combine them into one comment line instead.
Tags are what the
/alias trigger from Chapter 1 searches. A description also does double duty: it’s shown in category listings, and it’s what an exported bookmark’s title becomes if you ever send it back out to a browser (see Chapter 6).To add or replace a bookmark’s description:
:add-commentis also available as:ac. To add or replace its tags::add-aliasis also available as:aa,:at, or:add-tag. Each of these only ever touches its own half of the comment line — adding tags never disturbs an existing description, and vice versa. If the half you’re setting already has something in it, you’ll be asked to confirm before it’s replaced.