Comments on: Typinator and Xcode http://www.fruitstandsoftware.com/blog/2009/03/typinator-and-xcode/ Thu, 10 Nov 2011 00:32:28 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Martin Kühl http://www.fruitstandsoftware.com/blog/2009/03/typinator-and-xcode/comment-page-1/#comment-60 Martin Kühl Wed, 18 Mar 2009 17:43:11 +0000 http://fruitstandsoftware.com/blog/?p=211#comment-60 As noted on Twitter, you could just use .xctxtmacros to accomplish basically the same thing. The main reasons to prefer them over your set of abbreviations that I can see: • When written properly, Xcode’s text macros can adapt to your coding style (as defined by the XCCodeSenseFormattingOptions defaults dict). • A single macro can be set up to insert either a placeholder or the current clipboard/selection (I’m not sure which at the moment…), which is nice for bracketing expressions, say. (You’d have to create one abbreviation for a placeholder and a second one for the clipboard with Typinator.) • You can bind keys to your macros in the Xcode Preferences. For example, I have ?[ set up to insert brackets, ^( for matching parens etc. The downside seems to be that you can’t use non-alphanumeric abbreviation triggers for xctxtmacros (at least my Xcode won’t autocomplete them although they show up in the completion pop-up). You might also want to check out ODCompletion Dictionary[1], if only for the huge set of abbreviations they provide. Or wait for me to tidy up my set of xctxtmacros (I’ve ported pretty much all of ODCompletionDictionary and still want to add a few TextMate-inspired scripts; ETA: Real Soon Now ;-). In any way, thanks for sharing! Cheers, Martin (who needs an abbreviation for his name—it’s insane how often I mistype it…) [1] http://obdev.at/products/completion-dictionary/index.html As noted on Twitter, you could just use .xctxtmacros to accomplish basically the same thing.
The main reasons to prefer them over your set of abbreviations that I can see:
• When written properly, Xcode’s text macros can adapt to your coding style (as defined by the XCCodeSenseFormattingOptions defaults dict).
• A single macro can be set up to insert either a placeholder or the current clipboard/selection (I’m not sure which at the moment…), which is nice for bracketing expressions, say. (You’d have to create one abbreviation for a placeholder and a second one for the clipboard with Typinator.)
• You can bind keys to your macros in the Xcode Preferences. For example, I have ?[ set up to insert brackets, ^( for matching parens etc.

The downside seems to be that you can’t use non-alphanumeric abbreviation triggers for xctxtmacros (at least my Xcode won’t autocomplete them although they show up in the completion pop-up).

You might also want to check out ODCompletion Dictionary[1], if only for the huge set of abbreviations they provide. Or wait for me to tidy up my set of xctxtmacros (I’ve ported pretty much all of ODCompletionDictionary and still want to add a few TextMate-inspired scripts; ETA: Real Soon Now ;-) .

In any way, thanks for sharing!

Cheers,
Martin (who needs an abbreviation for his name—it’s insane how often I mistype it…)

[1] http://obdev.at/products/completion-dictionary/index.html

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