When writing code for websites you often type pieces that you have to type quite often. Like the standard HTML document or gradients in your stylesheet (with all the prefixes and such). A great way to improve your workflow and shorten the time you’ll spend on coding websites is buying an application that can type all that for you. In this article I recommend you TextExpander, a great application for Mac.
Do I really need an application that can type for me?
To me, the answer is yes. I use it quite a lot, when I’m coding websites. Before I used TextExpander I just copied or typed the standard HTML document, but that took time. Now it is typed for me. The only thing I have to do is typing an abbreviation. It’s also possible to click on a snippet from your menu bar.
You can decide for yourself if you need such an application. TextExpander costs $35, but you can download a free trial to test it out. There are also some free alternatives like Presto, yType or Kissphrase. If you’re running on a Windows system maybe PhraseExpress, Texter (both free) or Breevy ($35) is something for you.
TextExpander’s userinterface
TextExpander is very easy to use. In the application you can manage your snippets, group them in folders, set which abbreviation to type for the snippet etc.
You can also search for snippets and select in which applications the snippet must (or must not) expand. The preferences window is very extensive and has got a lot of options.
It is also possible to set a variable that you can define when expanding the snippet. So, for example, when you want to set the color of a gradient you can use the “fill in” command. In the snippet within TextExpander you have to add the following bit of code: %fill:name-of-variable%, in the following picture I choose “fallback”, “from” and “to” as variables.
As a little bonus feature in TextExpander, you can view statistics about how many snippets you have expanded and how many hours it saved you.
As you can see, I haven’t expanded that many snippets, but that’s because I was experiencing a bug a while ago that was deleting all of my snippets every time I started up my Mac. Luckily, that is fixed right now, so I started adding my old snippets yesterday. Tell me what you think of TextExpander in the comments. Also if you have other text expanding applications that you want to share with the world: tell it in the comments!
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