TextExpander, formerly known as Textpander and my third favourite time-saving app in Mail.app and elsewhere, has been updated.

The new version includes an option to use the old Textpander menubar icon, which according to the release notes has “quite a few vocal fans”.

User-definable delimiters (the keystroke which triggers the expansion) help you to simplify your workflow:

For example, I currently use spacebar for TextExpander expansions and the tab key for TextMate snippets. I could now change the TextExpander delimiter so that my “muscle memory” only has to remember one key for all expansions.

TextExpander 1.4 also offers better importing of snippet lists and the ability to sort snippets by the date they were created or last modified.

TextExpander is shareware (USD 29.95) is available from the developer’s web site .productivity, mail.app, apple mail, snippets, text, textpander, textexpander

TypeIt4Me is a snippet and text expansion utility like TextExpander (once Textpander).

These utilities speed up the typing in Mail.app and elsewhere to an unbelievable degree, and save me more time than anything else except, perhaps, Quicksilver.

Version 3.0 which was released yesterday is a major update. It is now a universal binary and its user interface has been completely rewritten in Cocoa.

Major new features include support for Rich Text Format in snippets and the clever ability to make individual snippets active only in particular apps.

The interface is clear and can be grasped as once by anyone who has used TextExpander. The preferences pane shows some of the app’s other features:

It can now import clippings files from TextExpander and Typinator and offers nested snippets, the ability to wrap the contents of the clipboard within a snippet improved support for images in snippets and more.

Devoted productivity nuts will be glad to know that they are no longer restricted to 2,700 abbreviations.

I noticed something else excellent straight away; TypeIt4Me does not suffer the occasional one or two second delay that afflicts TextExpander. Nice.

TypeIt4Me is shareware (USD 27) and a 30 day unlimited demo is available from the developer’s web site .snippets, text, productivity, typing, give your fingers a break, textexpander, typeit4me, text expansion

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

RapidoWrite is a snippet manager like TextExpander.

It allows you to store text strings that you type repeatedly and to insert them into your typing with ease and speed. I find that these apps make me much more productive in Mail.app and elsewhere.

The Preferences set-up will be familiar to users of Text(Ex)pander:

Through it, you enter your frequent text strings and an abbreviation to identify them.

When you are typing, a pop-up window appears when the app’s input manager recognises a matching keystroke combination:

If you have several snippet with abbreviations that begin with the same keystrokes (as above) it offers you all the options.

Its great advantage over TextExpander is its cost—it’s free.

However, unlike TextExpander it only does text. Support for images is planned for a future release, the developer says, but for the moment TextExpander has the edge.

RapidoWrite is freeware and is available from the developer’s web site .mail.app, apple mail, snippets, textexpander, text strings, typing acceleration, productivity

I was surprised today by the reception that greeted Textpander’s re-emergence as TextExpander, in particular by the response to the app’s new USD 29.95 price tag.

Posts on MacUser , TUAW and comments here on Hawk Wings all lamented the new cost and the passing of what some of them called “freeware”.

One even implied that Peter had “let down” the whole Mac community by selling Textpander on.

Two things about this were surprising. First, the idea that Textpander was ever “freeware” in the first place. A request for donations is prominently displayed on the web pages of all Peter’s apps. And rightly so.

Probably like three other developers I have spoken to, only 1-2% of the people who downloaded his stuff actually donated. 98% were happy to take the software and run.

Ironically, people who equate donation-ware with freeware may well be a key factor in Textpander’s sale. When SmileOnMyMac turned up, Peter may finally have seen the adequate return for his time and energy which the Mac user community by and large refused him.

Secondly, I am surprised that people find the new price too high.

I don’t think that the price is too steep for something that offers such productivity gains.

Say that it helps me work 5% faster when I am writing. I only have to earn USD 600 for it to have paid its way, and after that I am reaping the benefits in perpetuity.

Mail.app is beautiful straight “out of the box”. But the existence of fabulous plugins makes it even more beautiful, more powerful and more useful.

It’s worth remembering that developers make these plugins. They do not fall like manna from heaven out of the sky. Real people make them and maintain them with time stolen from their families and jobs and other projects and passions.

So, pay up. Pay up in acknowledgment of the work that goes into donation-ware. Pay up to make sure that someone will create the plugins of the future. Pay up just to remind yourself how lucky you are to have this software on your Mac at all.

Here endeth the sermon :)

UPDATE: Peter himself also has something to say on the subject.freeware, donation-ware, Textpander, textexpander, productivity, developers, labourers deserve their wages, mail.app, apple mail

Peter Maurer’s text snippet manager, Textpander, is my third favourite productivity app after Quicksilver and Spell Catcher X .

I save enormous amounts of time by using it to store my various email signatures (and much more).

Peter sold the app to SmileOnMyMac a few weeks ago where it has now reappeared officially as TextExpander .

The new version (1.3) has gained some new features. You can now reference other snippets as variables via “%snippet:[abbreviation]%” and create snippets directly from selected text by means of the TextExpander Service. An initial Japanese localisation has also been added.

TextExpander is shareware (USD 29.95). SmileOnMyMac is offering free registration to everyone who gave money when the app was donation-ware. If you did, you should be getting an email containing the registration key for the new version.

UPDATE: See how TextExpander ranks among the five apps that most boost my productivity in a post on X Factor .textpander, textexpander, snippets, productivity, helpful apps