LinkBack

LinkBack is an open source framework for Mac OS X, produced by Nisus, The Omni Group, and Blacksmith. The idea is that it provides something similar to the old Publish-and-Subscribe mechanism from System 7, where one app can embed the content from another in a frame, and you can double-click the embedded content to open it for editing in the original app. E.g. you could put an OmniGraffle illustration in your Nisus Writer Express document, then later on double-click the graphic to open it in OmniGraffle for editing.

It’ll be interesting to see if something like this can take off, given that it’s a community project rather than an official Cocoa framework from Apple.

(It’s also a weird name — when I think “link”, I think web. My first thought was that “LinkBack” was some sort of alternative to TrackBack.)

★ Friday, 4 March 2005