Magic Text
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1. The Preferences window will let you customize the app behavior to really suit your needs You can open this window with e The main toolbar Preferences button e Use the Magic Text gt Preferences menu item e Use the 86 keyboard shortcut Expansion eoo Preferences cog ars Expansion Appearance Storage V Activate snippet expansion Trigger expansion with key None 4b 4b Play sound after expansion Pop Figure 6 Expansion preferences Activate snippet expansion This option enabled by default will allow you to temporarily turn off snippet expansion without having to close the app Trigger expansion with key If set the snippets will only expand after you type your shortcut followed by the key of your choice Space Tab Return Or Escape The default is None meaning that your snippets will expand right after you type the last letter of your shortcut Play sound after expansion Magic Text can play a sound after a snippet has been expanded Two sounds are bundled with the app the default being called Pop 13 Magic Text User Manual v1 3 0 You can turn off sound by selecting No sound in the drop down list Appearance m 00 Preferences 1 53 RERO B Storage Start app with session Show app icon in Dock only Figure 7 Appearance preferences Start app with session Checking this box will allow the app to automatically2. number of placeholders in your snippets To insert a placeholder in your snippet use one of the following methods e Position the cursor wherever you want to insert the placeholder in your r3 e Type the Input label gt gt tag in your snippet body Our previous example snippet body should now look like Dear lt lt Input label Friend s name gt gt 19 Magic Text m User Manual When expanding this snippet a window like this one will appear eoo Dear friend v Friend s name O 1 1 v cance Done Figure 10 Placeholder input window Snippet label Placeholder name This is the label you have typed for your lt lt Input label tag Current placeholder Total placeholders If you have multiple placeholders in a snippet this will help you know which placeholder you are currently filling and how many you have to fill Text input This is where you enter the actual value for the placeholder 7 Once you have provided a value for the last placeholder the window will close and You can validate move to the next placeholder with the enter key or cancel move to the previous placeholder with the escape key your snippet get expanded with the correct values in place of the input tags Rich text snippets Remember when we were discussing about snippets type Now it s time to talk about the Rich text amp images type When switching to th
3. Just to give you a taste of cool things you can do with shell script snippets here is a simple Python snippet that will randomly expand one snippet among three snippets of your choice usr bin env python import random sys define our list of candidate snippet shortcuts shortcuts snippetl snippet2 snippet3 randomly choose a snippet shortcut and write a Snippet tag to output sys stdout write lt lt Snippet shortcut random choice shortcuts 21
4. e A manual copy of your snippets that you made for archiving purposes in case you change your computer for example e A snippets file a friend sent to you to save you some time e An automatic backup that you d like to restore You will learn to locate your current snippets file in Chapter 3 Preferences Storage To import a snippets file you can e Use the snippet list P toolbar button e Use the File gt Import data from file menu item e Use the dO keyboard shortcut A file chooser will then appear Navigate to a valid snippets file and choose Open You will be prompted what to do with the snippets contained in this file all your existing snippets or append the new snippets and keep the existing ones r3 Import data from file im N What would you like to do with the snippets found in this file You may replace Cancel Replace all snippets Append snippets Figure 5 Import data from file You have the choice to replace all your existing snippets with the ones contained in the file you selected or you can append the groups and snippets to the existing one In the latter option the newly added groups will be prefixed with COPY so that you can easily identify them Keep in mind that after import all changes you make to your snippets will be saved to your current snippets file and the file you used for import will remain unchanged 12 Magic Text User Manual v1 3 0 Chapter 3 Preferences
5. Text i35 User Manual The sorting options available are e Order by creation date 1 e Order by modification date 262 e Order by last used 96 3 e Order by most used 364 e Order by label 365 e Order by shortcut 966 Deleting a group snippet To delete a group or snippet select it and e Use the main toolbar Delete button e Use the Xl keyboard shortcut A confirmation message will appear in order to make sure you know what you re doing since a deleted item can t be restored If you realize that you have deleted some data by mistake there s still a chance to get your data back thanks to the built in backup system described in the following section Snippets backups Magic Text comes with a built in backup system to make sure you never lose some valuable data The backup files are stored on your computer in this directory Library Application Support MagicText The app maintains 4 types of backups in 4 different files with the snippets extension e Hourly magic hourly backup snippets e Daily magic daily backup snippets Weekly magic weekly backup snippets e Monthly magic monthly backup snippets 11 Magic Text User Manual v1 3 0 Once you ve located the file you want to import read the next section to learn how to get your data back Importing data Importing data is a useful feature to easily populate your snippets list with an existing snippets file The snippets file may be
6. start when you boot your computer and your session starts Show app icon By default the app icon will only appear in your Dock as a regular app You also have the option to have the icon only appear on your computer s Status bar near the clock or even both in the Dock and Status bar If you decide to have the status bar icon appear here s how it will look like E S 1145 Q Open application Disable snippet expansion Preferences Quit Magic Snippets Figure 8 The status bar icon and menu You can quickly open the application s main window toggle snippet expansion enabled and access the Preferences window When snippet expansion is disabled you will notice that the status bar icon changes 14 Magic Text m User Manual Storage e000 Preferences 7 Ue Expansion Appearance Storage Current snippets file Users quillaume Library Application Support MagicSnippet s magic snippets Save to another location Open a snippets file Figure 9 Storage preferences By default the app stores the snippets in a file named magic snippets located into this directory Library Application Support MagicText You can change the location of the snippets file by picking a different directory using the Save button To open the contents of another snippets file use the Open button All changes you will make to your snippets will be written to this file You ca
7. R PH MEINEM N 17 Simulating KEY SOKS oon sicncdantsaccavansseoesdestennagnbaleneaedssasononssactsansaevesceradacasentnene aoe 17 POSTEO TU Els Oy cessit pudet iind eiu shrew aed ae 18 Pasting CIO ACC OVO RR TETTE TO DR TEM 19 USS PNAC SONOS 6 st cessat eise at hear im dit rurtedr tede eth v pEOS NN DUM NUI IIS eU n CUM 19 Rich COKE SIMO CUS xs sacacaceraceaasseranrancoemnacsnseeneseteccuannetrcanceyaiessscaune cance OMM OcdMEMEI MN Mn OG Un 20 Sell Serpt SnipDOls 2999999925 9 3 09 xPISEnEstopsio Secum bI eO Uster Ide ceder dC esos Ur SN EIS EOS eae 21 Magic Text User Manual v1 3 0 Chapter1 Getting started Are you tired of typing the same pieces of text over and over all day long Are you tired of looking after this email just to copy paste it to another email We have the perfect solution and it s called Magic Text Introducing Magic Text Magic Text is the easiest way to type long and repetitive pieces of text called snippets with just a few keystrokes called shortcuts on your Mac Snippets may be plain text or even rich formatted text with colors images custom fonts and alignments Imagine how you can increase your productivity by letting Magic Text handle these for you e Standard email responses e Current date time e Commonly misspelled words and typos Signatures email addresses phone numbers The actual limit is your imagination and we hope this user manual will help you discover the infi
8. VEIR KSA User Manual Learn how to get the most out of a Pct f Magic Text for Mac OS X with this euismod risus guide LU Mu n ullamcor 0 From install to advanced usage be wll y prepared to learn a lot Version 1 3 0 witiz 2012 All rights reserved Magic Text v1 3 0 User Manual Chapteri Getting started eee 3 introducing Magic TEXTE RTT 3 ADOTT DOOK eara A E A E 3 Downloading and installing cancssacdisnassevetnereteseisneavcseadseatcudevesatteaksssanabanseateasavaisae TA a 4 Running Tor tHe TINSE UTE sronda e i a a 4 Lhapbero Basic Core 0 i OS onii 6 Main window user interfaCe sscsissssiiciirririsriirsirseinint risoo ri Kan nE N TIR SEV NI A K AE 6 Creatine 2 2 OUD eerren E RE 7 Croan a SMPO C Ec E E 8 E panding O a A E E ere 10 D plicating a group SMPPE asics scacctieeivacdinnadsbucaanniaieesanheveusiwsiinvaieadesletsenrdobeetiewnatdciaurstsecton 10 Ordering the snippets St enerne eath eiaa Naaa 10 Deleting agroup SIIB DEE asssieneisii risian aan E EE N Ea 11 SADDEST morc e eU IR een m TTE EE 11 PONDE lt gt NEED A mm 12 0 ah 0 eas uw eee nee meen nr o iene oem earn 13 mde qae 13 POCA ANG T 14 S9 15 Glaprere Advanced Snippets aea eani nc Patines ui ein Seres cine tuer ce ioci uos een ai 16 merung aS ASI TET 16 PSST SDIDDOLS 3osssssroiemed vadam std
9. have created your snippets you can close the Magic Text window but make sure the app is still running Now to expand your snippets simply open any app a web browser a text editor a word processor Place your cursor in a text field type an existing shortcut and voil Your snippet content will appear in place of the shortcut Duplicating a group snippet To duplicate a group or a snippet just select it in the list and select the duplicate option e Use the snippet list P toolbar button e Use the File gt Duplicate menu item e Use the 86D keyboard shortcut If you duplicate a group a new group with the same label will be added to your list containing duplicates for all snippets in the original group When duplicating an individual snippet a new snippet will be added to your list with the same label type and content as the original The shortcut will be left blank to avoid duplicates and it will be up to you to provide one before using the new Snippet Ordering the snippets list The groups are always ordered in ascending alphabetical order If you need to have control over their order you can modify their names to start with numbers On the other hand you have total control on the snippets order in each group You can select an order using one of these methods e Use the snippet list H toolbar button e Use the View gt Order by menu items e Use the 361 to 8656 keyboard shortcut 10 Magic
10. he lt lt Tap key gt gt tag in your snippet body This feature is particularly useful if you want to automatically fill some forms Think of a simple form with two text fields To move from Text field 1 to Text field 2 you usually just have to press the tab key Now imagine a snippet with the following body This text goes in field 1 lt lt Tap key tab gt gt this one in field 2 Now if you expand the snippet in text field one you will get the two text fields filled with the appropriate text This seems a lot of work to just fill 2 fields form but you will love this feature if you spend a lot of time filling the same long forms over and over Positioning the cursor After expanding a snippet the input cursor will be positioned after the text that just got expanded Even though this is a perfect behavior for most situations you will sometimes want to immediately reposition the cursor somewhere in the body of you snippet To specify the cursor position in your snippet use one of the following methods e Position the cursor wherever you want to insert the cursor position in your snippet body and select Cursor in the snippet toolbar icon e Type the lt lt Cursor gt gt tag in your snippet body For example imagine you want to create a sample email snippet starting with a greeting and ending with a signature Obviously you will want your cursor to reposition between those in order to start typing your actual email conte
11. is type a new icon will appear in your snippet toolbar to let you format your snippet To apply formatting select the text you want to format and select the formatting feature in the snippet toolbar 20 Magic Text User Manual v1 3 0 Formatting includes pictures and text alignment font size color bold italic underline styling Of course when expanding a rich snippet the destination app must support styling If not a plain text equivalent will be expanded instead the text will remain the same minus the styling Shell script snippets Shell script is another type of snippets that you can select in the type dropdown list When switching to Shell script type the content text area will change its background color to a dark gray so that you don t accidentally think it s a plain text Snippet A shell script snippet is a snippet that you write using a programming language Unlike other types of snippets upon expansion a shell script snippet will first execute itself and consider its output as a snippet that will be processed like other snippets This implies that a shell script snippet can return an output containing tags such as a DateTime tag a Snippet tag an Input tag a Tap tag We will not cover here how to program a shell script as this could be the subject of a book on its own but you can use any shell programming language you are comfortable with Bash Python Perl etc
12. n easily share your snippets if you are using different computers Just put your snippets file in a shared network directory or in a Dropbox directory and make sure every instance of the app points to that same directory 15 Magic Text User Manual Chapter 4 Advanced snippets At this point you should be quite comfortable with using Magic Text and already feel like the app saves you a lot of typing hassle But did you know that you are still far from mastering the full power of Magic Text This chapter will show you the most advanced features of the app make you a genuine Magic Text Jedi Inserting a date time You can easily insert the current date and or time in a snippet during expansion in any format you want Magic Text comes with a few built in useful formats but you can fully customize how you want a date time to be displayed To insert the date time in a snippet you can use one of the following methods e Position the cursor wherever you want to insert the date time in your snippet body and use the i snippet toolbar icon e Type the lt lt DateTime format gt gt tag in your snippet body The format string uses the format patterns from the Unicode Technical Standard 35 so feel free to customize the built in formats to really suit your needs Ex The snippet lt lt DateTime format yyyy MM dd at HH mm gt gt will expand in a string like 2001 01 02 at 13 00 http unicode org reports t
13. nite possibilities offered by the software Magic Text will expand your snippets in any open app on your Mac your browser mail client word processor text editor About this book This book has been written to help you master the full power of Magic Text If you think some parts are unclear or need to be updated or if you can t find the information you need please visit our support site at http witiz com support and leave a support request there Magic Text VIS User Manual Downloading and installing Magic Text is available on the Mac App Store and will work on any computer with Mac OSX 10 6 and above this includes Snow Leopard and Lion The installation is quite straightforward as no action is required after purchase Once download and install is finished the Magic Text app icon will be located in your Applications folder Running for the first time When first starting the app a warning window may appear telling you to enable access for Assistive Devices if not you may skip this and move on to the next chapter Enable Access for Assistive Devices To continue please enable access for assistive devices in the Universal Access pane in System Preferences Then relaunch the application Quit Open System Preferences Figure 1 Assistive Devices disabled Before we explain how to get rid of this message you must understand what the issue Is In order to properly work Magic Tex
14. nt right after the snippet expanded You snippet will look like this Hello lt lt Cursor gt gt John Doe john doe com 18 Magic Text V5 User Manual Pasting clipboard contents If you need to include the pasteboard contents in your snippet you can do so by including the appropriate clipboard tag To do so use one of the following methods e Position the cursor wherever you want to insert the pasteboard contents in your snippet body and select Clipboard in the E snippet toolbar icon e Type the clipboard tag in your snippet body Using Placeholders Sometimes you can t predict every part of a snippet Say you have an email snippet that starts with Dear Tom because you often write to Tom But what happens if you need to send the same mail to Annie Sure you can duplicate the snippet but that s a lot of work to just change one word And what if you need to send it to Bill Alex Julie Steve Don t worry Magic Text has the solution and it s called placeholders In the previous example you will position a name placeholder in your snippet and every time you expand this particular snippet a prompt will appear on your screen to let you input the actual name Best of all if you use the same placeholder multiple times i e placeholders with the same label in the same snippet you will just have to type the value once and it will get replaced everywhere Oh and you can use an unlimited
15. ou may notice that there is no need to save your changes explicitly by pressing a Save button Indeed the app automatically saves changes as you type If you need to cancel or undo some typing you can do so by using the Edit Undo Typing menu Magic Text User Manual v1 3 0 Creating a snippet Before creating a snippet make sure you select the appropriate group though you will be able to change the group later To create a snippet you can use one of the following methods e Use the main toolbar button e Use the snippet list P toolbar button e Use the File gt New Snippet menu item e Use the 3N keyboard shortcut A new entry will appear in the snippets list and the content pane will refresh showing you the empty snippet form e eoo Magic Snippets e NE g New snippet New group Delete T MIN Y Magic Snippets Welcome to Magic Snippets itsmagic Label Empty o Quick Start Help dq o Y Sample snippets Y hd With best regards cC Group Sample snippets gt Order confirmation Type Plain text 0 Shortdate j GE J o oo o I Long date Cy OO Hello shell script Empty Last updated Feb 16 2012 2 46 PM Figure 4 Creating a snippet Label The label is an optional short name that you can give to your snippet in order to easily locate it in the snippets list If you leave this field empty the first letters of the snippet body will instead appear in
16. r35 tr35 10 html Date_ Format Patterns 16 v1 3 0 Magic Text User Manual v1 3 0 Nesting snippets Sometimes you will want to reuse some text in multiple snippets Sure you could copy paste it but that s both painful and hard to maintain if you ever want to change that text later Magic Text has a clean solution and allows nesting snippets To insert a reference to another snippet you can use one of the following methods e Position the cursor wherever you want to insert the reference in your snippet body and use the H snippet toolbar icon e Type the lt lt Snippet shortcut gt gt tag in your snippet body For example say you have an email signature snippet with a esign shortcut Now you want to create an email snippet and include your signature at the end of this snippet Your email snippet would look like this Dear Friend Thank you so much for your present lt lt Snippet shortcut esign gt gt Simulating key strokes Magic Text has the ability to simulate keystrokes during snippets expansion The currently supported keys are e Tab e Return e Space e Escape e Up arrow e Down arrow e Left arrow e Right arrow 17 Magic Text User Manual v1 3 0 To insert a keystroke in your snippet use one of the following methods e Position the cursor wherever you want to insert the keystroke in your snippet body and select the appropriate key in the snippet toolbar icon e Type t
17. re information about your product Oe i v Last updated Feb 1 2012 2 24 PM Figure 3 Main window The main window is made up of 4 main parts O Main toolbar This toolbar gives you access to the most common features of the app like creating a group a snippet deleting the selected group or snippet and opening the Preferences window Magic Text v1 3 0 me User Manual Snippets list The list lets you browse your snippets Snippets are organized into groups that you can expand or collapse For every snippet the list shows both the snippet label and the associated shortcut x List toolbar This toolbar gives you access to features that will help you manage your snippets Add snippet Add group Duplicate Import data and reorder them as you like Content pane The content pane is where you actually edit a group or a snippet This pane gets refreshed according to the selection in the Snippets list Creating a group Snippets are organized into groups Hence before creating snippets the first thing to do is to create a group To do so you can use one of the following methods e Use the main toolbar button e Use the snippet list P toolbar button e Use the File gt New Group menu item e Usethe N keyboard shortcut A new entry will appear in the snippets list and the content pane will refresh showing you an empty box Just give your group a name and that s it o Y
18. stive devices _ Show Universal Access status in the menu bar Figure 2 Universal Access preference pane Make sure you check the Enable access for assistive devices checkbox at the bottom of the window This is just a one time check and you won t have to do it again on subsequent launches You may now try to reopen Magic Text The app s main window should appear You can also access this window anytime by opening the System Preferences on your Mac and then selecting the Universal Access icon Magic Text m User Manual Chapter2 Basic features Magic Text is designed to be as simple to use as possible To keep things simple all major features are available from the main window This chapter will show the basics of snippets management and text expansion Main window user interface e000 Magic Snippets a 9 019 c L New snippet New group Delete T ad Preferences Y Magic Snippets Y Welcome to Magic Snippets Mic mis ww Label Order confirmation Manic Start Hep Shortcut orderconf Sample snippets With best regards Group Sample snippets Order confirmation orderconf Type Plain text a Short date me n v v liv Long date P Gy Gv iU Hello shell script helloscript Dear Input label Customer name Thank you for purchasing Input label Product name ws Feel free to contact our support service supportG doe com for mo
19. t needs to listen to your key presses so that it can trigger snippet expansion when a shortcut is typed For obvious security purposes by default Mac OSX prevents an app to do that Nevertheless this feature can be enabled on your system o We understand that at this point you may be worried to enable a sensitive feature on your system We want to reassure you Magic Text only listens for a few consecutive key presses just enough to match a shortcut never stores this information on your computer and most important never ever connects to the Internet http itunes apple com app magic text id498239115 Magic Text m User Manual To enable Access for Assistive devices you should click on the Open System Preferences button The Universal Access preference pane window will appear eoo Universal Access aLe Show A Qu When using this computer would like assistance with Seeing Hearing Keyboard Mouse amp Trackpad For difficulties using the mouse or trackpad Mouse Keys _ On Off Use the keyboard in place of the mouse Press the Option key five times to turn Mouse Keys on or off To control mouse pointer movement rm Initial Delay I Short Long Maximum Speed p I Slow Medium Fast For difficulties seeing the cursor Cursor Size p I I Normal Large Trackpad Options Mouse Options 7 v Enable access for assi
20. the snippets list Magic Text vim User Manual e Shortcut These are the letters you will later type to expand the snippet Your shortcuts should contain no space remain short easy to remember and unlikely to be typed by accident 7 Shortcuts are case insensitive and must be unique If you use the same shortcut more than once the shortcut bubble will appear in red in the snippets list Group The group to which your snippet belongs You can also change the group of a snippet by dragging and dropping it from one group to another Type Magic Text allows you to use 3 types of snippets e Plain text the basic snippets with text only e Rich text amp images formatted snippets with custom fonts colors pictures e Shell script execute a script written with a programming language and use the output as a snippet In this chapter we will only focus on plain text snippets as this is a basic introduction The other types will be described in Chapter 4 Advanced Snippets Snippet Toolbar The toolbar allows you to insert special tags or apply formatting to your Snippets Once again we will discuss these advances features in the Advanced Snippets chapter Q9 Body Content This is where your actual snippet content goes Feel free to type any text you d like to be expanded when you type the snippet s shortcut Magic Text ES User Manual Expanding snippets Now that you
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