I still need autocomplete for date insertion etc from the keyboard. So I was thinking about going back to TextExpander… before I do… does TextExpander work seamlessly with DT Pro (not DTTG), is there an alternative?
There are many alternatives in keyboard expansion on Macs, including our freeware WordService. Or you could roll your own.
PS: There’s no support for TextExpander (or the others), meaning we are developing to make them work. If they work in TextEdit, they’d likely work in DEVONthink.
We have discussed your word service before, but I don’t think I ever got it working with keyboard only. I think I have to go to the context menu. Am I remembering that right?
I am sure you can’t answer this… but any chance we will get macro expansion / auto complete in V4?
I use BTT. The app can expand/replace anything you want. It works perfectly with DT. However, BTT has a feature that I don’t know of any other app. It reliably knows which (text) field the cursor is in. This means that the same abbreviation can trigger different things in different text fields.
There is a lot you can do using the Keyboard text replacement feature in MacOS/IOS.
To replace a short cut with several lines of text, create the text in a text editor and then cut and paste it into the ‘Phrase’ field. System Settings won’t allow you to do multi lines in the Phrase field, but you can paste multiple lines of text in.
It won’t have things like adding the date or other fields, but for simple substitutes it works fine.
Here is an example:
Adds this:
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As @BLUEFROG notes there are a number of free options for basic text replacement.
I use TextExpander routinely for multiple reasons - yes it works fine with DT3.
One reaoson to use TextExpander is that it is multi-platform (Mac, PC, and web) and can share portions of your expansion library with others using any of those platforms. I use a Mac and my employees mostly use PCs so TextExpander works well for us to share expanstions that we share for collaboration reasons.
Another reason to use TextExpander is that it can do some sophisticated expansion including Applescript/JXA/Javascript support - this works well with DT3. For example when I write a report for my work often I need to list all of the documents I have reviewed. I have a Textexpander snippet which accesses a JXA script to output the name of all DT3 selected documents. I can use that directly in Word or Google Docs or anywhere else to insert those filenames directly into my document from DT3. It’s a very simple script but as it is something I do very frequently it’s extremely useful to me and something that many basic text expansion tools cannot do.
Typinator is even more sophisticated than Textexpander in terms of the ways you can combine it with Applescript/JXA/Javascript but it is Mac only and thus cannot collaborate via web or PC.
We don’t assign shortcuts. That’s up to the individual and can be done in System Settings > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > Services > Text.
I am sure you can’t answer this… but any chance we will get macro expansion / auto complete in V4?
I can’t but I also am uncertain what “macro expansion” means to you. If you’re asking if DT4 will compete with Keyboard Maestro, that would be a “no”.
Actually it does allow you to do multiple lines, but it’s a secret 
I am a happy user of Typinator
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Keyboard Maestro forever. Expansion and much more. No subscription.
I am trying out Typinator. Seems to do a lot I don’t need. But also does what I do want. So… we shall see.
Understood. I’ll look elsewhere for the functionality.
In another app… I can type //nd and it will expand the following in the document where my cursor is placed.
[[date|%A, %B %e, %Y (%j)]]
[[date|%H:%M]]:
Simple stuff. Not TextExpander level or Typinator. But I am sure does a lot of what many users need. I’ve included the UI from the Editor settings.
In DT you can do that with a simple script, for example:
(() => {
const app = Application('DEVONthink 3');
app.includeStandardAdditions = true;
const window = app.thinkWindows()[0];
const today = new Date();
const formattedDate = today.toDateString(); // Output: Fri Aug 23 2024
if (window.selectedText()) window.selectedText = window.selectedText() + ' ' + formattedDate;
else window.selectedText = formattedDate;
})()
The script can be configured to run with a keyboard shortcut.
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Interesting - what app is that?
I’m another Typinator user – I find it more congenial to use than TextExpander, but perhaps that is because I am used to it.
An alternative is aText. Alfred also gives you snippets and a whole lot more. Keyboard Maestro with Better Touch Tool allows you to use gestures to do all sorts.
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I’m testing Snippety (https://snippety.app). It’s $25 (one-time, no subscription) and works on both macOS and iOS. I’m coming from Espanso and Keyboard Maestro on Mac, but wanted something that can be used on iOS. TextExpander is out because snippet expansion is something I’m not willing to pay a subscription for.
So far it seems to work pretty well, but it’s only been a few hours, honestly.
I’ve got a Snippety license. It’s pretty good and works where macOS’ isn’t.
Does Snippety on iOS work with external keyboards?
That’s where TextExpander and Rocket Typist and other expanders I’ve tried that claim to work with iOS fail – they all require you to use a separate software keyboard which doesn’t work with the external one, so you end up spending more time changing keyboards than you save from the expansion.
No idea as I don’t use text expansion on mobile.
I try not to type on the IPhone, and always use the external keyboards on the iPads if I can. The idea of typing anything more than a couple of sentences on the glass keyboard is painful. As for keeping notes or writing in something like DTTG, Scrivener etc, it seems like an exercise in deliberate self-harm not to use a proper keyboard…. It would be good to have the same expander for macOS and iPadOS, but not at the expense of faffing around with software keyboards.
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