Hawk Wings » shortcuts

Clever TextExpander clipboard snippet trick

Tim Gaden — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 10:20:32 +0000

The makers of TextExpander, a very clever time- and finger-saving snippet utility, have posted a nice tip on the company’s blog.

It explains how to make a “smart snippet” using TextExpander’s %clipboard variable, which is replaced by whatever is currently on the clipboard when the snippet is typed.

The original author of the tip uses it to create Amazon affiliate links for his blog on the fly, but obviously it has wider uses too.

For example, imagine you run a blog that attracts a lot of emails asking how to do this, that or the other thing.

You can quickly run up a snippet like this:

Then, when the emails start to arrive, all you need to do is navigate to the link, copy it to the clipboard and then type the snippet into the reply:

Suddenly more of your life is your own. Clever.

If I sat around here long enough I’m sure I could think of a dozen other applications for this tip, but you might have more fun thinking them up for yourself.

TextExpander costs USD 29.95 and is available from the developer’s web site .textexpander, textpander, productivity, snippets, shortcuts, tips, helpful apps, clipboard, mail.app, apple mailSimilar Posts:

Making Finder’s Toolbar work for you

Tim Gaden — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 13:37:48 +0000

Rubin emails to ask:

I was reading your new post on Address Book syncing and backup, and I noticed on the screen capture that you had a little Yojimbo icon on your Finder windows. I’m a Yojimbo user and a big fan too. How did you get this little icon and what does it do?

Fair question.

While the Finder Toolbar can be expanded with many useful pre-defined extras (Control-Click on Finder’s Toolbar and select “Customize Toolbar…”), you can also add your own favourite items:

I dragged some of the apps that I use a lot (TextMate, Terminal, Yojimbo) from the Applications folder onto the Toolbar. That creates a shortcut on the Toolbar. Now I can quickly launch the apps by clicking on these icons and, more importantly, I can drag files onto the icons to open them.

I’ve also added on the right some of the folders into which I often need to file things. When tidying up, I drag the files onto those folders and they’re filed.

Of course, there are other ways to do these things, not least Quicksilver, but another option is always welcome. not apple mail, finder, icons, shortcuts, productivity, yojimbo, terminal, textmate, toolbar, customizeSimilar Posts:

TextExpander auto-corrections list

Tim Gaden — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 15:14:33 +0000

One of the things that most helps me to move quickly and efficiently through my email messages is the text snippet manager TextExpander which handles all my signatures, pre-formatted replies, reply templates, impossibly long and complicated names, frequently-needed URLs and so on and so on.

SmileOnMyMac, the app’s developer, has just released a list of over 100 snippets for common typos. When imported into the app, these work as “auto-corrections”, replacing words you might mistype.

Download the free file from SmileOnMyMac and install it with the “Use additional snippets from:” option in TextExpander’s preferences pane.

If you make mistakes when typing (like me) but don’t want to part with the cash for a dedicated on-the-fly spelling corrector like Spell Catcher X (unlike me), this list will save you time and energy. mail.app, apple mail, snippet manager, shortcuts, productivity, textexpander, autocorrect, PEBKACSimilar Posts:

OpenMenu X: Roll Your Own Contextual Menus

Tim Gaden — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 12:59:00 +0000

Ever wanted to add services, scripts and other things to your Contextual Menus to make them smarter about offering the options you need rather than the ones that Apple thinks you deserve? Here’s how.

I’ve been keep an eye on this little gem to a while. Now it’s finally come out in a universal binary beta.

Open Menu X 0.92b installs itself as System Preference Pane that allows you to customise the contents of your contextual menus. You can add documents, applications, AppleScripts, Mac Os X Services and more so that they much more readily available:

For example, you could add your most frequently used Mail.app and other services, so that they are never more than a right-click (or âŒ˜-click for purists) away:

OpenMenu X supports dynamic browsing for volumes and folders, control key-free contextual menu popup, an easy-to-use menu builder and much more. It also includes over 50 helpful Sample Scripts.

OpenMenu X is shareware (USD 10). Try out the new time-limited free Intel-compatible beta from the developer’s web site .contextual menu, shortcuts, services, applescript, hacks, productivity, mail.app, apple mailSimilar Posts:

TextExpander: Update, Tips and Tricks

Tim Gaden — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 11:45:57 +0000

TextExpander, the utility formerly known as Textpander, has been updated.

The new version (1.4.1) fixes problems with abbreviations involving the Option key, describes named delimiters (space, tab, return, esc) properly in languages other than English and includes several other minor bugfixes.

Merlin Mann at 43 Folders uses this update as an opportunity to share some tips on the ways in which he uses the app to save time and fingers.

Also, TextExpander’s developers have posted a great suggestion from Timothy of Ohio on grouping shortcuts into contexts with distinct initial characters. Clever.

TextExpander costs USD 29.95 and is available from the developer’s web site .textexpander, textpander, productivity, snippets, shortcuts, tips, helpful appsSimilar Posts:

Script to pipe emails into Yojimbo

Tim Gaden — Mon, 04 Sep 2006 11:40:15 +0000

Jim Correia of Bare Bones Software has posted a script to the Yojimbo mailing list that will pipe a selected email from Mail.app into Yojimbo.

This is handy (a) if you use Yojimbo and (b) like me, you find it a bit of a pain to import emails with the “Save PDF to Yojimbo” option in the PDF section of the Print dialog.

The script will import the contents of the email and the sender, subject and date into a new Yojimbo note:

You can copy the text here:

on generateMessageText(m)
tell application “Mail”
set _sender to sender of m
set _subject to subject of m
set _date to date received of m as string
set _contents to content of m
set _messageString to “From: ” & _sender & return
set _messageString to _messageString & “Subject: ” & _subject & return
set _messageString to _messageString & “Date: ” & _date & return
set _messageString to _messageString & return & return & _contents
end tell
end generateMessageText

on run
tell application “Mail”
tell message viewer 1
set messageList to selected messages
set _name to subject of item 1 of messageList
set _contents to “”
repeat with m in messageList
set _contents to _contents & my generateMessageText(m)
end repeat
tell application “Yojimbo”
make new note item with properties {contents:_contents, name:_name}
end tell
end tell
end tell
end run

Or use this pre-complied version. Save it into the same place as the rest of your mail scripts, maybe give it a keyboard short-cut with FastScripts Lite or set a Quicksilver trigger for it or attach it to a Mail Act-on rule, and you’re done.

Nifty. A big thanks to Jim.yojimbo, mail.app, apple mail, applescript, script, importing messages, productivity, shortcutsSimilar Posts:

TextExpander bargain today on MacZOT!

Tim Gaden — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 11:18:11 +0000

One of my very favourite time-saving, finger-sparing, productivity-boosting apps is on sale at MacZOT! today.

You can pick up a copy of TextExpander, the text snippet manager, at a 33% discount.

Nothing else helps me whip through my inbox as quickly (I don’t use MailTemplate) or manages my signatures as well in Mail.app and elsewhere.

On sale. Just for today. USD 19.95 instead of USD 29.95.

Drop everything. Go get it .

[Thanks, Marcel]textexpander, productivity, snippets, apple mail, mail.app, text, shortcuts Similar Posts:

Thunderbird cheatsheet

Tim Gaden — Wed, 05 Jul 2006 12:37:42 +0000

Whether you’re a hard-core Thunderbird user or, like me, just dip into Thunderbird from time to time, you will benefit from Leslie Franke’s Thunderbird cheatsheet.

It’s hard to keep all those shortcuts in your head, so a single page that sets them all out by category is a great tool:

You can view it as a web page or download the PDF.thunderbird, cheatsheet, shortcuts, documentation, email, not apple mail, keyboardSimilar Posts:

Shortcuts 1.0: Contextual menu hotkeys

Tim Gaden — Fri, 16 Jun 2006 13:44:27 +0000

There are ways to assign hotkeys or keyboard shortcuts to just about everything.

Service Scrubber brings them to Services, FastScripts to AppleScripts, you can even roll your own for a Menu item in any app.

Now, using Shortcuts 1.0, you can add them to Contextual Menu items as well.

It only works with Contextual Menu items that are provided by plugins, like items Automator and Folder Actions add to the Contextual Menu by default.

Assigning the shortcuts is easy. The app’s window lists the items that can be assigned hotkeys. Here is a screenshot half-way through assigning one to the Automator action, “EmailObject” (something I used a lot before I discovered Quicksilver):

click on the image for a full-sized view

Another window pops up prompting you to define the keystrokes for that item, say, Command-Control-Option-E. That’s it.

Now all I have to do is highlight a file in Finder, hit the hotkey combination and the file is passed to a new message in Mail.app. Clever.

It comes with a plugin of its own, called “CocoaTextSelectionHelper” which is an optional helper to get text selection from the front text view in Cocoa applications.

Shortcuts is freeware and available from the developer’s web site where you can also find a fuller online explanation of how it works.productivity, contextual menu, shortcuts, hotkeys, keyboard shortcuts, automator, folder actions, cocoa textSimilar Posts:

Add a “Gmail this” bookmarklet to your web browser

Tim Gaden — Sat, 20 May 2006 13:00:36 +0000

This browser bookmarklet, “Gmail This“, creates a new Gmail message containing the URL of the web page you are viewing.

Just drag it to your Bookmarks Bar (Safari/Camino) or Command-click on it and select “Bookmark this link…” (Firefox).

That’s it.

[Via email.about.com ]gmail, email, bookmarklet, safari, camino, firefox, tips, shortcutsSimilar Posts: