TextExpander: organize abbreviations by context

Philip Blog, TextExpander, TextExpander Tips

Timothy in Ohio sent us this detailed tip showing how he organizes his abbreviations into contexts:

I find that using different beginning delimiters for different contexts helps me to remember which ones they are. 
  1. For HTML shortcuts, I start with “<". For example: <3 =

    %|

    stuff (see below)
  2. For IRC (administrative commands), I start with “i” such as ikick or iban to fill in a kick or ban syntax, or /login to fill in the login stuff
  3. For chat shortcuts I start with “!”, eg. !yw (you're welcome) or !ty (Thank you!) or !bbin (I'll be be back in %| minutes)
  4. Email I start with “/” or “@” (I don't know why): /sig for my signature, /wsig for my work signature /add is my mailing address /phone fills in all my phone numbers: work home cell in that order because if I put my number in something I may want to give all my numbers, but I might not. If I want to just do 2, I use /phone and then just do shift + up-arrow to highlight and delete the cell, etc /yiwbt = Yes I will be there (I get a lot of “Can you come to the meeting?” or “Will you be at the meeting?”, etc).
Then I also have some of what I like to call “recursive” shortcuts which involve two shortcuts:
  1. I have shortcuts for each day of the week @mon @tue @wed etc which expand to “Monday at “
  2. I have another shortcut @remind: “Just a reminder we will be meeting ” and then I add @mon or @tue and then add the time too I prefer the phone to email, but sometimes you need to email someone and ask them to call you back when it's convenient for them, so I have some shortcuts for that too: @church = “Give me a call at the church when you get a chance – 740-446-1030” Similar for @cell and @home.
And then of course there are the dang typos that I make and now get autocorrected not just in word processing apps, but all apps: nad = and teh = the god = God And there are times that I want to have the real fractions rather than just 1/2 or 3/4. I could make a shortcut of “1/2” but then I can't type a literal “1/2” so what to do? I use two // instead of 1, for example:
  • I use a shortcut of 1//2 for ½
I think those are all my tips! Oh here is %|

Thanks, Timothy, for the good ideas.

First Annual SmileOnMyMac WWDC Party

Philip Blog, Public Appearances

Last night, we held our First Annual SmileOnMyMac WWDC Party: First Annual SmileOnMyMac WWDC Party

From left to right: Philip Goward (SmileOnMyMac), Jean MacDonald (SmileOnMyMac), Ken Case (OmniGroup), Chris Saldanha (Parliant), Jayson Adams (Circus Ponies), Alberto Ricci (Ovolab), and Kevin Hayes (Parliant). [Photo taken by Greg Scown (SmileOnMyMac).]

A little background on our fellow developers:

OmniGroup, based in Seattle, ships several wonderful products, including the new OmniPlan. My personal favorite is OmniDiskSweeper, which I use regularly to clean up my hard drive.

Parliant produces the productive PhoneValet Message Center, which integrates with our PageSender fax software. They’re based in Ottawa, Canada.

Circus Ponies makes the acclaimed Notebook software for outlining and organizing ideas. I learned that Notebook was originally written on NEXTSTEP and resurrected for Mac OS X. I learned that Jayson and I share the same alma mater.

Ovolab offers the Phlink, which brings your telephone into the Digital Hub and also integrates with PageSender. They’re based in Turin, Italy (that’s Torino in Italian). We had a lot of fun chatting with our fellow Mac OS X developers, and we all look forward to the Second Annual SmileOnMyMac WWDC Party.

Press Photos, Round 2

Philip Blog, Public Appearances

wrote of her difficulties in securing good press photos of Philip and me. She posted the photo I sent her of me swimming with dolphins in Ixtapa, Mexico. I was particularly pleased with Janet’s comment in my defense. In that spirit, I submit these pictures for consideration by readers of our humble blog. Greg at Poas Volcano, Costa Rica Greg at Poas Volcano, Costa Rica Greg on Sun Island, Lake Titicaca, Bolivia Greg on Sun Island, Lake Titicaca, Bolivia Greg at Machu Picchu, Peru Greg at Machu Picchu, Peru Greg at Igazú Falls, Agrentina Greg at Iguazú Falls, Argentina Feel free to comment on your favorite pic for Jean to use as my publicity photo. Thanks! ==> Greg

iChat AV for the rest of us

Philip Blog, Public Appearances

Mac Book can give you an inferiority complex. You see the beautiful people using their iSights to hold a virtual meeting. We are not the beautiful people, and I guess that’s why we look so blurry in iChat. Yeah, yeah, those people in the ads are clearly younger, smarter, more successful, and having more fun than we are, but the thing that really bugs me is that those people are also clearly clearer than us too. Philip, Greg and I use iChat for our weekly meetings. We all work with Mac Book Pros. If we can’t get that sharpness, I assume nobody can. Would it kill Apple to make their iChatAV product shots a teensy bit less sharp? (Yes, it probably would.) Personally, I don’t mind being a bit blurry, especially early in the morning…