SmileOnMyMac Blog

I’ve been playing with some new AppleScripts in TextExpander, courtesy of Bakari Chevanu at AppleMatters. He wrote an extensive post on how you can use TextExpander to launch applications and control them.

The snippets are really simple and they really work. With a short TextExpander abbreviation, you can open or quit a program, navigate to a website, close all Finder windows, and more. While operations like Open or Quit have a built-in shortcut, the program has to be active before you can use the shortcut. These AppleScripts activate the programs for you.

Best of all, you don’t have to be a true geek to use these. Bakari recommends testing the AppleScripts in Script Editor first, before pasting them into a TextExpander snippet, but this is very easy to do.

1) Open Script Editor (it’s in the AppleScript folder in Applications).
2) Paste one of Bakari’s scripts into the editor.
3) Click “Run.”

If the script did what you wanted it to do, you’re good to go. Paste it into a new TextExpander snippet (be sure to change the format to AppleScript), assign a short abbreviation, and try it out.

My favorite is this one for opening up Twitter in Safari without having to be in Safari or use a bookmark:

tell application "Safari"

	activate

	open location "http://www.twitter.com/"

end tell

I set the abbreviation to ‘tw (I’m using the apostrophe as a leading character in all my AppleScript snippets, and that seems to be working nicely).

If you have any creative ideas for using AppleScript to control programs with TextExpander, share them in the comments.

TextExpander 2.4.1 is now available. In the course of fixing the memory leak for 2.4, I made a mistake on the code for handling the case of abbreviations. Once again “tiat” and “Tiat” can expand to “This is a test.” Yay! To all those affected, sorry for the trouble, and happy typing!

TextExpander user Mar shared a collection of AppleScript snippets he found very useful while helping a friend with a tedious recordkeeping task that required a lot of dates.

Say you need the date for next Monday; type “`nmo” (or “‘nmo” depending on the date format), and TextExpander gives you the date, 08/18/2008.

Tomorrow is `d1, a week ago is `d-7, etc. There’s 31 formulations in the group. You can download the .zip files here:
International date format
U.S. date format
Unzip the file and then choose “Add Group From File…” in the plus (+) menu under your list of snippets.

You could also link directly to the groups on our server. Choose “Add Group from URL…” and enter one of these URLs:
International: http://www.smileonmymac.com/te/Dates.textexpander
U.S.: http://www.smileonmymac.com/te/DatesUS.textexpander

Thanks to Mar for sharing these. As he notes, they are modifiable, so if you have your own special date needs–and are not afraid of a little code– download the file and customize it!

Or better yet, create a new and exciting snippet group and share it with the rest of us. (Send them to me at jean@smileonmymac.com.)

Mac Geek Gab wrapped up its poetry contest. Five winners got their choice of SmileOnMyMac applications to celebrate our 5th birthday. I posted the first three winners last week. Here’s a couple more.

(Also, I have to compliment Bryan Chaffin at Apple Weekly Report. For the birthday giveaways on that show, Bryan used D&D* dice to select the winners! LOL )

Ron Miller wrote this spare gem of a poem:

Form meets function here
What I can think, I can Mac
Beauty still within

–

And from Joshua Horne, an epic haiku (is that a contradiction in terms? Oh well…)

A story in haiku

Back in the dark times,
Computing gave no delight
I was on Windows.

A friend saw my plight
He enlightened my poor soul
“Get a Mac”, he scolds.

iMac? Mac Mini?
What could all of these names mean?
I said, “I’ll start small.”

I received my Mac;
It was so white and so slick.
Mouse, Keyboard and all.

Was simple at first
But issues always arise,
Who could now guide me?

I needed some help,
I turned to podcasts for it,
Two gabbing Mac geeks.

Once I was clueless,
Computing was not my thing.
Then a Mac I bought.

Mac Geek Gab taught me;
I’m now a master of Mac,
Where once I was not.

Thanks to everyone who wished us the best on our 5th anniversary. “Five years and still smiling” as we say!

* D&D = Dungeons & Dragons (but everyone knows that, right?)