![]() I try hard to keep my snippets to no more than 4 keystrokes to ensure speed and muscle memory. But longer snippets are harder to remember and to commit to muscle memory. Keep your snippet to no more than 4 or 5 letters - In theory, if you’re saving hundreds of keystrokes by using a 10-keystroke snippet, you’re still saving time.Each person’s preferences will vary here. I use the forward slash key myself, as I never use forward slash in my working day. Use double punctuation prefixes for extra clarity. ![]() Have the snippet start with some form of punctuation you don’t normally type - If you prefix a snippet with common punctuation or common letters, you may inadvertently trigger the snippet when you don’t want to.Up pops a dialog box which you can name, create a snippet, change the snippet’s collection, change some settings for the snippet, and input the text to expand when the snippet is triggered. To create a new snippet, click the + button on the bottom of the right box. So if one collection uses !! and another uses ::, you can set the prefix once rather than individually for all the snippets in the collection. You can double-click the collection in the right box to set a specific prefix for all the snippets in the collection. I’ve installed currency snippets and Mac-specific snippets to expand fun symbols like ⌘, ⌥ and ⌃. You can also click Get Collections to download some frequently used snippets from the web. The Default Collection is likely where you’ll keep all your custom snippets, but it’s cool to know you can separate like-snippets if you need to. * Automatically expand snippets by keyword: Make sure this box is checked to ensure your text snippets work.Īt the bottom of the window, you’ll find a box on the left showing all your collections and a box on the right that stores all the snippets for that collection. The Viewer Hotkey takes you straight there while the Snippet Keyword is one extra step. * Snippet Keyword: Sort of the same as the Viewer Hotkey, you can hit ⌘ + Space to bring up Alfred’s query field and type “snip” to bring up the same window as the Viewer Hotkey. * Viewer Hotkey: Here, you set the keyboard shortcut for Alfred to show all your text snippets in a long list. In this window, you can set a variety of settings before creating your first snippet. Navigate to Features in the left sidebar and click Snippets halfway down the menu. I do this by hitting ⌘ + Space (which I’ve hot-wired to replace the built-in Spotlight Search). They are a perfect example of one of those easy-to-automate tasks that can pay dividends instantly.įirst, you’ll have to open Alfred’s preferences. I use text snippets specifically for file naming conventions, but I also have a specific email I send to clients about 50 to 100 times a year saved as a text snippet as well. Text snippets are best used when you have tedious-to-type information over and over again, like your address, generic emails, or file naming conventions. When I type t1c, Alfred sees the text and instantly replaces the text with T1 Client Copy – 2021. For instance, I have a text snippet saved for renaming client tax return PDFs. Really quickly before we get into the weeds, we need to answer the ultimate question: What is a text snippet?Ī text snippet is a series of letters or punctuation you type that trigger an app like Alfred to instantly replace the text with a longer set of saved text. Here’s how I set up and used Alfred 4’s text expansion features this past tax season to save myself oodles of time typing out the same file types over and over again. Added workflows can control music playback, or insert a password from 1Password, or find a Bible verse instantly. A quick search can bring up any file or folder on your Mac. So off you go on the hunt for an app to either replace TextExpander or to jettison text expansion habits out the door entirely.įor a long while, I was able to go the jettison route - most of my text expansion needs were trivial and I could get by without the helpful workflows.īut new processes at the office this tax season instantly led me into Alfred 4’s text expansion features.Īlfred can do just about anything, it seems. ![]() But its feature set and price likely align it more for power users than for casual users like myself. TextExpander was one of those apps that made me feel like king of my Mac. ![]() It was even cooler when you triggered a little dialog box that let you type in a custom bit of text to be added into the text expansion. There was a little bit of magic every time one of those snippets expanded. I had my first taste of text snippet expansion way, way back when everyone could use TextExpander without the subscription cost.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |