TextExpander: Video Review and Giveaway
Every day, I find myself typing commonly used phrases over and over again. Whether it is my address, my name, my email, or even “Thank You”. While it may not take long to type these things, at the end of the day, I find that a lot of my time goes to these tedious, repetitive phrases. Then I found TextExpander. TextExpander allows you to choose short snippets that you can type, and they will be automatically expanded into longer, more commonly used phrases. Whether you use this for your address, email, name, or HTML tags, is up to you.
While there are many applications on the Mac that can do things like this, TextExpander is the most advanced, allowing you to set the cursor and clipboard as well as use other variables. Let me show you how powerful TextExpander can be in your workflow.
[display_podcast]
SmileOnMyMac, the developers of TextExpander, have generously offered 2 licenses of TextExpander to giveaway to our readers. In order to enter this giveaway, you must comment on this post with 3 of the most repetitve phrases that you use every day. Make us laugh. Alternately you can add some suggestions on what features you would like to see with TextExpander. If you don’t win a license, and see that TextExpander could be useful to you, you can purchase one for US $29.95 from their store.
The giveaway will end at midnight EST on Saturday, December 22th, with the winners being announced shortly after that. Good luck!
Voice! It would be awesome if I could just say a shortcut and it would paste.
Great app and that would make it even better.
My three most daily used phrases:
1. Genialt! (means fantastic or clever in Norwegian)
2. Ratt oppatt! (means to move a thing where it is supposed to be in Norwegian)
3. Tits up!
My 3 most used words are:
1) per così dire
2) eccetera, eccetera
3) ad ogni qual modo
My three most used phrases are:
1) Huh?
2) Let them go..
3) I’m hungry!
“…but how am I going to make pencils that taste like bacon? Or maybe I should make bacon that tastes like pencils… Narf.”
“Mmmmm. Kittens.”
“Yowzaa!”
I want to see this features in TextExpander:
- Clipping managment
- Voice.
- Bash commands, I type “bash killall Dock” somewhere in the system, and TextExpander automatically start Terminal, with this command.
Another example, I type “sysprefs” and it starts System Preferences, or even an applscript or something like that.
A form of overlay on the screen to give hints/prompts while you’re typing so you know which snippet you want to use.
Most used posts:
isgt = “Are you sure this is an appropriate use of my time?”
llunch = “What are we doing for lunch?”
mycat = “My cat’s breath smells like cat food” (I use this one as a reply to people who make grandiose statements of the obvious)
1.) Sweet fancy Moses! (sfm)
2.) And I’m paraphrasing myself here, but … (ppmy)
3.) You did WHAT? (ydw)
I love TextExpander. Love it love it love it. I could stand to have easier on-screen displays of available shortcuts, though. Maybe a hotkey to invoke a panel (think Quicksilver) that allows me to tab through bundles and expand them.
Of course, this becomes pointless once you memorize the shortcuts you use most, but having it available would make learning those shortcuts easier.
My three first replacements to implement would be:
1. Huh?
Translation: I think I didn’t get your question completely, can you provide some more background information?
2. Fuck Off
Translation: Unfortunatly I am currently not in a position to answer your request, maybe you can check back later?
3. Why me?
Translation: Thank you for your Email. After a thourough analysis of this topic I think the most knowledgeable person on the planet to solve your problem would be ….
And as a bonus (there is always a bonus):
4. thank you
Translation: It is awesome that I am the winner of one of the available licenses as my contribution was a funny as I can get and still you considered me as a winner
- ok
- yep
- ha ha
1) fthisplace: Thank you for the opportunities that you have afforded me. Unfortunately it is time for me to move on…
2) idiot: I am excited that you have expressed interest in our services. Unfortunately we have a policy against providing free mockups…
3) yourliesmakebabyjesuscry: Sweetie, I believe you when you say you didn’t put a virus on my computer trying to download episodes of Project Runway on my laptop.
every day, every email: “peace out, word to the mutha, dave” (should just be: powm
i could use it to Complete forms..
like
1)mymail
>mplampla@gmail.com
I usually need some call numbers and i can not remember them so..
2)callSofia
>sofia’s call number
etc..
I would like to see this feature..
If you use a delimiter..
When you write something and match an
abbreviation you had write i would like to see the letters to be coloured
or
auto-completed in a way similar the spell check does.
Hello
My three most-used phrases are:
1) Sorry I forgot the attachment
2) Your cheque’s in the post
3) No, I didn’t change your password Mother.
What can I say? She’s getting forgetful.
1. cpool- see you at the pool!
2. bmom- have a beautiful moment…
3. psl- the “S” is silent…
My top 3
1.) `l = ï¼Å“a href=”%clipboard” target=”new”ï¼Å¾%|ï¼Å“/aï¼Å¾
2.) `proud = ï¼Å“(￣︶ï¿£)ï¼Å¾
3.) `thank = è¬Ã¨¬Ã¦š¨Ã¥º°^^
[...] Mistretta at MacApper has posted a very good video review of TextExpander’s features. It covers the new TextExpander 2, so it makes a great sequel to Merlin Mann’s demo at [...]
I’d love to see the following:
- mixed media snippets (combining rich-text formatting, images)
- statistics about usage (e.g. how many keystrokes saved, ranking of snippet usage)
- easy way of toggling expansion state on and off, for those unusual times that you don’t want any substitution at all
Three phrases I say most often are:
Tanfastic (Fantastic Dixlexia Style)
Yeah Baby (pronounced Be’Be’)
Rad, Super Rad and Super Fricken Rad (different degrees of “Radness”)
well here’s mine:
1. Go raibh maith agat.
2. supercalifragilisticexpealidocious
3. macapper.com (well duh of course!
I would love this for use at work, since I work at an ISP. Im always coding in HTML CSS and PHP.
1 php if functions
2 html doctypes
3 irc commands
1. How appropriate. You fight like a cow.
2. I’m selling these fine leather jackets.
3. That’s the second biggest monkey head I’ve ever seen!
I’d like to see a kind of auto-complete list in a growl bubble – so, as I start typing in a TextExpander keystroke, it will give a me a list of possible completions. This would be helpful for the keystrokes that I don’t use very often.
Three sayings?
1. Sorry I’m late.
2. Turn off the TV and do your homework.
3. I just need a few more minutes to install this app.
paperhat – You want fries with that?
dvorak – I get no spam.
vista – That never happens on a Mac.
Top 3.
 OMG-O my god
 WTF-What the f***
 LOL-Laughing out loud
Great Review!
I use:
-Lol. (Laugh Out Loud.)
-Stfu. (Shut the f*** up.)
-Omg. (Oh My God.)
I would really like to see a mind reader thing where I can think something and it types it.
I would REALLY like to see continued sentances. Like there are things I like to say like “Yeah, I know.” Or “Yes, I agree.” I would like to see that available.
I also agree with NichM. Voice would be great, if the voice recognition was good. (Not like Vista’s) ;-P
My 3 most used everyday words are:
1: arghhhhhhhhh….!
2: pfffffffff….. !
3: tsssssssss…….. !
I can safely say this would be amazing for use in my coding, As I’m sure its easier to define things in this than textmate (and I prefer subethaedit anyways).
as for what I say most? “blarg”. I guess I could shorten that to “b”… bwahahaha.
Voice input!
1) it puts the lotion in the basket or else it gets the hose.
2) again, I was unaware that jedi robes did not constitute “formal attire”.
3) pics or it didn’t happen
My three most used phrases are:
supcal – Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
bb – Baja la basura
yastoy – Ya estoy llegando…
I use these 3 phrases the most:
gmaill – yonghweefoo@gmail.com
blogg – http://www.thesecondpress.com/blog/
aycu – http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/
1. Yes Dad, Macs can do email.
2. Throw away that P.O.S. mouse it came with.
3. You have to get out of Time Machine to print Dad!
Feature Suggestion: Ability to change the format of text after typing shortcut with an additional letter.
I frequently use my favorite pick-up lines… I play the law of averages that one day someone will respond.
1. I can’t find my puppy, can you help me find him? I think he went into this cheap motel room.
2. If you’re going to regret this in the morning, we can sleep until afternoon.
3. Do you have a library card? Because I’d like to check you out.
- Free your Mind and your Ass will follow! -> fass
- Whoa! Hey! Are you contagious?! -> wont
- I want to believe! -> wieve
…and voice recognition would be wonderful.
I would love to see the ability to run apple scripts after a snippet has been expanded. E.g., send an email, submit a web form, or save a document.
Voice would definitely be cool. Saying the snippet and having the expanded version appear would save a lot of time.
Fun product. I would like to see better support for indenting source code. I plan to use TextExpander for Python coding (tho indentation is important in most any kind of coding). If I want to expand a method definition, and the cursor is already indented 4 characters, I want the new expanded text to be appropriately 4 characters in, and subsequent lines indented properly from that point. If I have to go back and correct the indentation, that will slow me down.
My top 3 phrases:
1.Email Signature: “Armageddons on inbound port’s so i’m not networking the fridge!”
2.”I wish people would stop asking the question, why is my mac not working?”
3.”i’ve been thinking, no, seriously!”
1) (Maybe this works in triggered snippets but I use the default because I want it to happen as soon as I type) Maybe there should be an option to always expand a snippet of text in typed in any context. For instance right now if I were the type “ddate” it would not expand because of the quotes. I common example for me is I will open QuickSilver, and to enter text mode I have to hit “.”, and to paste my contents if Cmd-V don’t work (because of a bug) then I will use my “ppaste” snippet. That would not work because I really pushed “.ppaste” (so I had to make a new snippet to handle that situation).
2) Finally, a cancel hotkey. What if I really do want to type “nname” however rare. A simple ctrl+alt+cmd+z for undo snippet would work just fine for me.
1. ‘That’s creepy.’ > If something is indeed creepy or otherwise strange.
2. ‘I’m hungry.’ > Self explanatory.
3. ‘Ouch.’ > Used a. to express pain. b. when something bad happens to someone.
This application gets four gold stars on its forehead. I’m gonna go blog about it right now. But first…Here are three of my most often used phrases:
1. Sorry Fabio, but I CAN believe it’s not butter.
2. No I will not make out with you.
3. Wow Mr. Car Salesman, that trunk is big enough for at least 7 bodies.
[...] There is also a modified spell-checker which automatically fixes often-misspelled words on the fly. And for those of you who write code, there is a group of snippets specifically for HTML markup. If I tried to explain all the little tips, this post would be way too long. Instead, sit back and enjoy a short video tour that I found this morning at MacApper.com. [...]
The main feature I would like to see in TextExpander is:
* Functions: I should be able to say bl(x) or bl_x and define it to expand to x.blogspot.com. This would be really handy for me while browsing. Another way of implementing this would be prefix matching. Say if i append two ww before anything, expand to www.*.com. So wwgmail expands to http://www.gmail.com.
* Also it might be good to have some set of expansions that can be restricted to certain apps only. Eg the above url expansions may make sense in a web browser only.
* Another suggestion I have is that it might make sense to have multiple translations for the same phrase and cycle through them using a hotkey. This would really reduce the number of phrases to remember. Eg. Suppose the hotkey was a tab. If I map all my email addresses to “em”, writing em expands to my first email and pressing tab keeps going on to the next one till I have the one I need.
Track what you’re typing, and have it notice that you’re typing the same things a LOT. The bad part of this is that you have to realize that you can use this more than you actually would. It’d be great to put it into a “training mode” where it will see that “hey, you’re typing ‘first post’ a lot. it sure would be a lot better if you just had to type ‘fp’, wouldn’t it?”
this shouldn’t be an annoying popup or something but something that shows in the preference pane… “what you’ve been typing a lot of recently”… etc.
integrating with 1passwd (or your own passwd manager) so that your password can be typed out would be cool too
The giveaway is now over. The winners will be posted shortly.
[...] week we ran a video review and giveaway for TextExpander, a really great application that lets you choose certain phrases that will [...]
Great video, esp. the advance part. You saved me some more time by explaining the more advance way of using the href snippet, Now I don’t have to cut and paste as much as I was.
A cat is a curious animal and you probably all know the phrase: “curiosity killed the cat”. Well, a cat can climb every where, and he will probably want to explore every spot in your home.
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