TextExpander

New TextExpander snippets for fast HTML

Merlin Mann — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 14:17:52 -0400

TextExpander: Customizable Typing Utility Saves Time! (TextExpander snippets)

TextExpander nerds, rejoice! Your friends at Smile on My Mac have added a couple new snippet sets that can be imported into our favorite keystroke-saving preference pane.

The HTML Code Snippet File adds “over 60 common HTML tags and special character codes” to your collection. So by typing, say, “,h2”, you can generate a matched pair of <H2> tags, while typing “,span” will generate “<span id="%|" class=""></span>” (where “%|” equals your cursor), so you can quickly style a string of text. I can see where these will really come in handy for generating HTML outside a text editor — especially when you have to do a bit of quick markup in a web page’s textarea.

Second, you can now download a file that includes both the new HTML Snippets as well as the previously mentioned AutoCorrect Snippet File (which will automagically fix a bunch of the most common typos on the fly and in any program). If you’re a geek who’s new to the magic of TextExpander, installing this file can have a pretty profound effect on your typing productivity, I assure you.

One of my favorite time-saving tools. Do check it out.

”New TextExpander snippets for fast HTML” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on April 10, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Text Expander for automagic typo correction

Merlin Mann — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 07:04:05 -0400

TextExpander AutoCorrect Snippet File

Recently, I was emailing with our friends over at Smile on My Mac about how I use Text Expander as an automatic spelling and typo corrector, and I realized that there wasn’t a canonical location for the user-created “snippets” file you need to import in order to get this feature working.

Jean and her elves not only set up this handy dandy page but also edited the heck out of the snippets source file (zip) — removing any entries that “step on” each other, as well as generally tidying things up.

If, like me, you’re a TE fan with fat fingers, this is a terrifically useful way of cleaning up after yourself.

Also, keep an eye out — we having an upcoming episode of Mac Break that’s all about Text Expander. I am a fan.

”Text Expander for automagic typo correction” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on October 23, 2006. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

TextExpander: Essential Mac shortcut utility

Merlin Mann — Tue, 05 Sep 2006 10:16:47 -0400

TextExpander just got an update that adds a few features and fixes to this already essential OS X PreferencePane. Via email:

Abbreviations with characters requiring the Option key are fixed

Named delimiters (space, tab, return, esc) appear in other languages

Other minor fixes

I have to say, I just love TextExpander (formerly “Texpander”). Its functionality is not unique — users of, say, TextMate, TypeIt4Me, or Windows’ popular ActiveWords (Hi, Buzz), or for that matter, Vim, will recognize the similarities. But, brother, is it ever easy to setup, modify, and use.

At the heart of it, TE gives you system-wide text shortcuts that, when typed, explode into much longer bits of text or can even, say, paste in an image, like your scanned signature. So, for example, if you’re sick of retyping a new email sig, you can store it in TE and assign “emailsig” as the trigger to paste in the full text for you.

A screenshot of the control panel, courtesy of the Smile on My Mac site:

There’s just too many uses for TextExpander to try and catalog here, but I’ll share a few that I particularly like…

your full mailing address - mine pastes in my address, correctly formatted for USPS standards
your name - In one usage I like, typing MERLIN (note the caps) pastes in my name exactly as it appears on my credit card — all in caps and no punctuation. And, of course, as previously noted, it also helps prevent you from serially misspelling your own first name.
boilerplate responses - Although I’m partial to MailTemplate for more sophisticated templating in Mail.app, it can be very handy to have, for example, a nothanks snippet that explodes into your carefully worded two-paragraph epistle about how you’re too busy to accept a given project.

Then there are just all those little bits of code and functionality that it sucks to type manually all the time — especially if you live and type in a web browser all day. I use this for things like HTML tags and date-stamp formats, the latter of which make it super-simple to label versions of new documents and do fast ad hoc backups.

Here’s the actual code for a few of my favorites.

what it is	TE code	Abbr. I use	Notes
html image	`<img src="%\|" border="0" />`	imgg	As with many of these, I use an abbreviation that, by itself, is unlikely to appear anyplace but as a typo. And see that little “`%\|`”? That’s a placeholder that tells TE where to position the cursor after the snippet is pasted. Awesome.
html link	`<a href="%\|"></a>`	ahreff	Can’t even tell you how much time this saves me every day.
generic URL	`http://www.%\|.com/`	urll	Ditto
Finder-friendly long date	`%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S`	fdate	This “colon-free” format lets me mark versions of files in the Finder (and is also friendly for letting you sort those versions by date/time)
short date	`%Y-%m-%d`	sdate	Sometimes I don’t want all the flibbety-gibbety of a long date, so this snippet gets a lot of use for helping me remember when I created or changed something.

Like I say the uses are endless, and with recent versions, things get even sexier; you can make the snippets CaSe-dependent, and, although I haven’t played with it yet, you can now choose delimiters so you aren’t accidentally stepping on “real words” or, for example, other abbreviations in your text editor or IDE.

TextExpander 1.4 requires Mac OS X 10.4, costs $29.95, and is available for download as a 30-day, full-feature demo. Try it and see what you think. It’s saved me way more than $30 worth of idiotic typing time.

”TextExpander: Essential Mac shortcut utility” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on September 05, 2006. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Textpander: An end at last to email from 'Melrin'

Merlin Mann — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 07:41:54 -0400

Peter Maurer [Textpander]

It took me about 5 seconds to fall hopelessly in love with Textpander.

Like so many wonderful things in the world (*waves to Unix apps*) it does exactly one thing: it replaces text you type with other text (or images). So, how would you use this? God, how wouldn’t you? Here’s the bullets from the Textpander page:

Insert standard greetings, text fragments, and signatures — including formatted text and pictures.

Insert the current date and time in any format you prefer.

Use editor-independent code templates and have Textpander position the cursor just where it needs to be.

Type special characters without having to launch any special characters palette.

Have Textpander correct typos automatically.

Import text snippets from other typing utilities.

This is huge for me for two reasons. First I date everything with a stamp (like 2005-09-17 07:43:53), and second, I constantly mistype my own name (“Melrin”). I automated both of these timesucks in less than a minute in Textpander, and now I’m the happiest boy in the world.¹

Did I mention it’s donationware? I’ll definitely be crossing the palm of one Peter Maurer (also the developer of the wonderful Butler, it would seem).

Get this. Use this. Pay Peter.

[via Lifehacker via Slacker Manager ]

Notes

Update 2005-09-17 11:00:12: Check out how Justin uses Textpander to make footnotes. ↑

”Textpander: An end at last to email from 'Melrin'” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on September 17, 2005. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"