I just got a short tip from Austin in Carlow, Ireland:
I have all my abbreviations ending with “z” so that there is little chance of them getting confused with a word I don’t want substituted. It makes them easier to remember, and not many words (quiz is the only one that springs to mind) end in z.
This is the first tip where someone has suggested using the last character in an abbreviation to differentiate it from actual words.
When we first started posting TextExpander tips, we got a fairly extensive one from TJ on organizing abbreviations by context. That tip inspired me to use the forward slash (/) as the first character in all my abbreviations for URLs, i.e. /somm = http://www.smileonmymac.com, /gm = http://maps.google.com. [1]
I’ve started using “x” as a leading character for a lot of miscellaneous snippets, on the theory that not many words begin with “x”. I’d have to rewire my brain to think like Austin, using the last character as the differentiator.
What about you? Share your TextExpander abbreviation strategies in the comments.
[1] You might wonder how I can type my abbreviations without expanding them. The trick is to move the cursor using the arrow keys backward and forward once before you get to the end of the abbreviation. I learned this in a tip from Greg.
I use a mixture, organized by context. Generally, if I’m using a non-letter character to differentiate them, it will be at the end. If it’s a letter or short letter sequence, then it’s at the beginning.
For instance, all my URL snippets are very short and end with a backslash:
b/ = http://beckism.com/
My email address snippets (which I use a lot) are usually the first part of an address (or abbreviations, for longer email addresses) followed by the @ sign:
ian@ = ian@mydomain.com
And finally, my salutations for emails end with a comma:
hf, = Hey folks,
Then I have a number of work related snippets that start with “tt” because I work for a company called Tierra Technology, but I actually find it harder to remember those. The last character works really well for me because so far I’ve been able to use characters that I associate with the context or that I need to type anyway.
At the moment, for most of my snippets I use the first letter twice. For example, my personal email address is eemailp and my work on is eemaili (the company name begins with an I).
For web sites I use ‘www’ and then a short code, so my personal site is wwwbu.
I actually find that longer snippets are more easily remembered than short ones and an extra character or two doesn’t slow me down too much.
@ Simon: Good point about longer abbreviations. Sometimes I might be I’a bit compulsive about using the shortest possible (and increasing my “time saved” stats by a character or two…)
I am a physician who switched from PC to Mac two months ago. I was heavily reliant on Robotype for the PC which I still feel is superior to TextExpander. However, now having happily moved to the “dark side” I am using TextExpander. My tips after years of using this kind of software are the following.
1. For all addresses with other contact info I use the person’s last name with a zero at the end. For example, for myself it would be strum0. I use a space as a delimiter. So.
strum0, space would be
Stephen B. Strum, MD
XXX Street
Ashland, OR 97520
T: 541-xxx-xxxx
F: 541-xxx-xxxx
M: 541-xxx-xxxx
E: stephen@xxxxxxxxx
For any URL I use what it the URL relates to and end the abbreviation with url. So, if I need to tell a patient or a physician that they need a special vitamin D level done at a particular lab, I can indicate that with vitDquesturl. Expanded with spacebar tap it looks like:
http://cas2.questdiagnostics.com/scripts/webdos.wls?MGWLPN=TBCWP65&wlapp=DOS&OrderCode=17306X&SITE=4&SearchString=VSaturday&tmradio=title
For my emails in closing I would type “sr” for Sincere regards,
Stephen or “mbty” for
My best to you,
Stephen
For medical terms I use the zero after the abbreviation; for example: PSADT stands for PSA doubling time. I use snippet PSADT0.
Thus, expanded “psadt0″ = PSA doubling time (PSADT)
I hope this helps,
Regards to all,
Stephen
I mainly use the semicolon at the end of many (90%) my text and AppleScript Snippets. Works very well and it’s part of the home key. A very powerful and expandable system.
It never, ever expands falsely unless I type wrong. Makes typing very quick.
It also allows much expansion. It is very powerful when used with AppleScripts to resize windows, open Preferences, examples below.
Examples:
as; → AS
aas; → AppleScript
tap; → tell application “”
d; → down arrow symbol ↓
u; → up arrow symbol ↑
tte; → TextExpander
It also allows me to not have to use the shift key for caps, and I also add an extra trailing space so I don’t have to hit the spacebar:
i; → I (trailing space)
im; → I’m (trailing space)
some abbreviations (medical below), I don’t use the semicolon:
lvh → LVH
copd → COPD
Pressing tab key first clears the key memory so that I can from any application run an AppleScript.
Cheers.
I forgot to give example AppleScripts:
here is to open my Documents folder using “dc;”
tell application “Finder”
activate
open folder “Macintosh HD:Users:tonyamini:Documents”
end tell
here is to center the front window to the screen using “wc;”
tell application “System Events”
set fma to first process whose frontmost is true
end tell
tell application (name of fma)
set fmwBounds to bounds of first window
end tell
tell application “Finder”
set desktopBounds to bounds of window of desktop
end tell
set fmwWidth to (item 3 of fmwBounds) – (item 1 of fmwBounds)
set fmwHeight to (item 4 of fmwBounds) – (item 2 of fmwBounds)
set desktopWidth to (item 3 of desktopBounds) – (item 1 of desktopBounds)
set desktopHeight to (item 4 of desktopBounds) – (item 2 of desktopBounds)
set newX to (desktopWidth / 2) – (fmwWidth / 2)
set newY to (desktopHeight / 2) – (fmwHeight / 2)
set newBounds to {newX, newY, newX + fmwWidth, newY + fmwHeight}
tell application (name of fma)
set bounds of first window to newBounds
end tell
To open System Preferences using “sp;”
tell application “System Preferences”
activate
end tell
To open TextExpander Preferences using “tp;” (maybe different depending on each person’s computer):
tell application “System Preferences”
activate
set current pane to pane “TextExpander”
end tell
tell application “System Events”
tell process “System Preferences”
click radio button 2 of tab group 1 of window “TextExpander”
end tell
end tell
To open iCal using “ic;”
tell application “iCal”
activate
end tell
tell application “System Events”
tell process “iCal”
keystroke “0″ using {command down}
end tell
end tell
I love AppleScript and TextExpander together. I also like how it does not perform backspaces to delete the snippet abbreviation. Other text expansion software adds backspaces when using AppleScript. This is a deal breaker as it can disrupt the AppleScripts themselves.
Cheers.