Hawk Wings » Textpander

HTML snippet file for TextExpander

Tim Gaden — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 14:32:17 +0000

20/20 hindsight is a marvellous thing. One of the biggest mistakes in my life, in retrospect, was taking Latin instead of typing at school. I didn’t see the Internet coming.

I may well remember that all Gaul is divided into three parts (Mr Thompson, I salute you!), but it takes me a long, long time to tell anyone else about it in an email or document.

Luckily TextExpander saves my bacon hundreds of times a day. After Quicksilver and MailTags, it is the third biggest time- and finger-saving app on my Mac.

With just a few keystrokes, I can (at lightning speed) dump my mail signatures, frequently-needed URLs, often-typed chunks of HTML code, torturously long institutional titles and much more into almost anything I am typing in Mail.app and elsewhere. (Merlin Mann of 43 Folders fame has some actual examples to hand.)

The PR department at SmileOnMyMac kindly emails to tell me about a new ready-made collection of HTML snippets.

When you have imported them, typing “,a” will automatically expand to . As you can imagine, this kind of thing saves bucketloads of time every day.

You can get hold of these 60 snippets either by themselves or rolled into an earlier collection of 100+ common typos that TextExpander can recognise and correct on the fly.

TextExpander is not the only way to do this nor the cheapest (shareware — USD 29.95) but for ease of use — res ipsa loquitur!textexpander, textpander, productivity, snippets, saving time, text, HTML, mail.app, apple mailSimilar Posts:

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:

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:

Textexpander 1.4: Flexible delimiters, old logo

Tim Gaden — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 22:24:07 +0000

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, textexpanderSimilar Posts:

Developers? Let them eat cake!

Tim Gaden — Wed, 24 May 2006 14:53:24 +0000

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 donâ€™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 mailSimilar Posts:

TextExpander: Textpander makes good

Tim Gaden — Tue, 23 May 2006 12:28:52 +0000

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 appsSimilar Posts:

Jumpcut: Super slick clipboard extender

Tim Gaden — Fri, 05 May 2006 13:49:15 +0000

Some time ago, matonmacs mentioned the utility Jumpcut in a comment on a post about the Cute Clips clipboard extender.

I’d forgotten about it, until I came across Ryan Irelan’s post about using Textpander and Jumpcut in web development.

Jumpcut is a nifty little menubar utility that keeps a history of your clipboard. Its Preferences allow you to specify how many past clippings it should remember and display, how often it should save the list and the keyboard hotkey.

Although you can access the clips from the menubar, pressing the hotkey brings up a bezel display:

You can cycle through the clips using the hotkeys and then drop in the one you want.

It can save you a lot of time in Mail.app and elsewhere.

All that’s missing is the option to make the selections “sticky” like you can in CuteClips.

Jumpcut is open-source and a universal binary. It is available from the developer’s web site .clipboard extender, helpful app, productivity, mail.app, apple mail, textpanderSimilar Posts:

Textpander your sigs in Mail.app for speed and reach

Tim Gaden — Mon, 01 May 2006 13:04:35 +0000

Bob Monsour has discovered that signatures go better with Textpander.

Textpander is an app that saves time and effort by storing frequently typed text (or snippets), which you can then insert as you type with a user-defined abbreviation.

Bob tried Apple’s built-in signature feature, but “found it dreadful as the signature seleciton is “out of the way” of my focus when typing and requires selection from a drop-down menu.”

Using Textpander for signatures was the answer.

I use Textpander for signatures too. I find it the most elegant solution, especially if you run multiple aliases on the one account and have to manually select the sig you want from the drop-down menu. Textpander is faster and more efficient.

I also find more and more that I am wanting my sigs outside of Apple Mail in email forms, forum posts, webmail interfaces, in Entourage and so on. With Textpander the signatures are at my fingers tips whether I am in Mail.app or not.

Of course, Textpander does much more than this. Get it from Peter Maurer’s web site and start exploring all the efficiency it offers.productivity, signatures, apple mail, mail.app, tips, textpanderSimilar Posts:

Quickies

Tim Gaden — Mon, 27 Feb 2006 13:23:02 +0000

Paul Heinlein has updated his collection of tips on building and running pine under Mac OS X.

Paul Stamatiou has written a guide to installing RoundCube on your server. RoundCube is a webmail client with a Mail.app look.

Apple has published a technote that advises you to “avoid using spaces and the commercial at symbol (“@”) in passwords of iCal calendars that are published to an iDisk or a WebDAV server.” You need to use only letters and numbers.

Steve Gio joins the select few who are turning their backs on Gmail. He is returning to Mail.app as his main client. Why? Gmail offers no useable way to access email when offline.

Chris Marsden says some nice things about Hawk Wings (ta very much), where he discovered Peter Maurer and his software. Raves about Witch, Textpander, et al. follow.

In the Apple Mail Discussions, Tenacious MC wonders why Mail.app “seems to write to com.apple.Safari.plist for some odd reason”. So do I.

pine, mail.app, apple mail, roundcube, gmail, witch, Textpander, safari, ical, passwords, quickies, productivitySimilar Posts:

Textpander 1.2.2

Tim Gaden — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 23:12:12 +0000

Textpander is an app that saves time and effort by storing frequently typed text (or snippets), which you can then insert as you type with a user-defined abbreviation.

The developer has released it recompiled as a universal binary, ready to run on the new Intel Macs.

Textpander is donation-ware and is available from the developer’s web site.

(Witch, a neat window switching utility, has also been released as a universal binary).Similar Posts: