Dr. Drang posted this week about the value of throwaway macros and snippets. He’s a fan. So am I. I’ve referred to this before on the Mac Power Users but never posted on it here. Whenever I find myself doing anything remotely repetitive, my nerd-senses kick in and I look for automation. With text, that’s usually done in TextExpander. For example, a few weeks ago I had to ask a series of repeated questions that involved a rotating set of variables.

1. Where’d you get the ACME dynamite on Contract #X?
2. Did you leave the dynamite in Y’s expected path?
3. Was it the same dynamite from Contract X?
4. Did Y run over it?
5. Did Y blow up?

My questions were actually a little different but I needed to ask them many times with various combinations of Xs and Ys.

In this case, the contract numbers were a 25 character string of gibberish and I already had a text file with all of the contract numbers in it. So I made the snippet with TextExpander’s clipboard function for the X. (Did you know TextExpander will insert the clipboard contents in a snippet? The syntax is %clipboard.) Before starting the snippet, I’d go to the text file and copy the contract number into my clipboard for my X.

For they Y variable I used a fill-in snippet. Don’t forget that you can have the same fill-in snippet repeat multiple times in a single TextExpander snippet. To do so, simply copy and paste the snippet syntax (e.g. %filltext:name=Sample Fill In%) in the snippet wherever you want it to appear. Then, when you trigger the fill-in snippet typing it once in the first instance fills it in at all of its other instances. Building the snippet took some time but once it was right, populating the questions (there ended up being hundreds of iterations) was fast and there were no mistakes. Overall, it took a fraction of the amount of time I’d have spent doing it manually and was much more accurate. Afterwards, the snippet was completely useless and went into the TextExpander dust heap but for a little while, it was my moon and my stars.

Speaking of TextExpander, did you know I have a whole page of downloadable snippets?

I’ve started writing up little mini-reviews for myself when I finish watching a movie or reading a book (or comic). I am currently saving these to a text file in nvALT but I also like the idea of saving them to Day One. I originally got the idea from Tulio Jarocki but when I finally got around to it, his site appears down under re-construction. 

Anyway, the snippets all call up some fill-in fields and option fields letting me describe, rate, and review each media. Since I read quite a bit, I find these little notes helpful when recommending books to friends and to confirm whether or not I’ve read a book already, which, sadly, sometimes takes me 100 pages to realize. 

On the subject of TextExpander, they just released version 4.1 with 100% more EMOJI.

Click Here to Download Media Review Snippets

At Macworld I sat on a panel with Jeff Taekman, my spirit brother from the medical profession. Jeff sits in on a lot of meetings and talked about how he uses TextExpander snippets and Drafts to speed up note taking. He even wrote it up for Macworld. I took notice and came up with my own meeting snippet, which you can download here.

Meeting Information

 Jeff uses a text description to make the note a header in Notesy (for searching elsewhere), like meetx-david and katie re show. I don’t store meeting notes that way. I keep a bigger note per project that contains a list of meeting notes throughout the project. Text is cheap and it is easier for me to access it all in one place so the meeting information portion of my meeting snippet is pretty simple: description, date, and time.

Attendees

I use fill-in forms for attendees. Since I work in a small office, I actually do this with an Optional eSlection for my co-workers and a few additional fill-ins for additional attendees. The purpose of these fill-ins is to allow me to use the names again below. Don’t forget how lazy I am.

Issues

My meetings often revolve around issues. My notes are typically a few bullet points per issue. This structure has evolved and works for me. It may not for you. You’ll need to get creative here.

The Checklists

I love having checklists from meetings. I love even more when other people know I have checklists. I used to just make it my checklist but now I add checklists for everyone in the meeting. Note how I’ve repeated the fill-in forms here. With checklists—as well as issue lists—I populate the template with many entries. It is much easier to delete than add, particularly on the iPad.

End Time

I like keeping track of how long meetings go. Subconsciously, the fact that I’m going to write down the end time helps me keep things moving, to the extent I have any power over that.

Next Meeting

If I’m really on the ball, at the end of the meeting we’ll agree upon the next meeting date (if necessary) and a preliminary agenda.

After the meeting…

I usually open this snippet in drafts. When the meeting is over, I can email it off to the attendees that have follow up items. I also copy the text and save it my nvALT file for the particular matter the meeting surrounds. On iOS, I can do it through WriteRoom, which is syncing to nvALT on my Mac.

Enjoy and let me know if you’ve got any improvements.

If this snippet is useful, you may also like my conference call snippet.

Download the Meeting Notes Snippet Here.

Organizing conference calls used to be a lot of trouble. It required a pay service, multiple telephone numbers and access codes (that were always changing), and the simple act of getting word out to everyone about the details always took more time than it should have. Times are changing. I recently started using freeconferencecalls.com for conference calls. It’s a great, free service that gives you a single call-in number and access code that never changes. You don’t have to schedule anything with the service. You just send out the number, access code, and time to your call participants and get back to work.

At first I just kept these numbers in my contacts list and used a bit of copy and paste when necessary. After doing this a few times, I realized TextExpander was a much better solution. I’ve now put together a clever little TextExpander snippet that sends out the conference number, access code, and date and time for the call.

I’ve also added a fill-in snippet for the conference call agenda and a pop-up menu for the estimated length of time. I find that if you give people an agenda and time estimate going into a conference call, you’re much more likely to stay on the agenda and complete it within the estimated time.

Now when I have a new conference call to setup, I just open up an email to all the participants, fire off the TextExpander snippet, and send it off. In addition to saving me a lot of time, I think it scares the other participants to the call just a little bit.

I’ve actually got two of these snippets because I have two freeconferencecall.com accounts. One is for the day job (which gets shared with other participants at my office) and the other is for MacSparky.

Here is the snippet in action:

You can download the TextExpander snippet here.

Last week Smile released version 2.0 of TextExpander touch, which I really dig. Yesterday Smile gave me five free download codes to give away for the new app. I put the word out on Twitter to send in favorite snippets for codes and got some really great ones. In fact, I got too many and feel bad about leaving some people out but here comes the winners. Thanks everyone for playing along.

1. MultiMarkdown? Yes thank you.

Sayz Lim submitted a MultiMarkdown snippet to maintain a figure tag in MultiMarkdown. One of the things I like about this snippet is the way he uses the same fill-in snippet twice. I do this often too and I’m not sure everyone knows you can do that.

![ [%filltext:name=Figure Caption%][] ](%clipboard)

[%filltext:name=Figure Caption%]: %clipboard

2. Let Me Know

Trent sent in this simple yet useful script.

ppp = Please let me know if you have any questions.

3. The Breakfast Club Special

Reader Oscar is an educator and needs to send out notices for students that get Saturday detention. He uses this in conjection with an AppleScript that pulls a list of names from a Dropbox text file and works its magic.

The following students have zeros in %fillpopup:name=Classname:Physics:Aquatic Science:default=Forensics% for the week of: %@-9D%m/%d/%y:

%fillarea:name=Student Names%

They need to be assigned to Saturday D-hall on %@+3D%m/%d/%y.

4. Testing, Testing

Michael has a snippet that looks very useful for testing stroke victims. It uses pop ups and several other features. This may not be useful to you but I’m betting there is something in your life that would get easier if you made your own snippet like this one.

NIH Stroke Scale %snippet:.date% %snippet:.time%

1a. Level of Consciousness:%fillpopup:name=1a.:default=0 (Keenly responsive.):1 (Arousable with minor stimulation):2 (Requires strong stimulation):3 (Comatose)%

1b. LOC Questions:%fillpopup:name=1b:default=0  (Answers both questions correctly):1  (Answers one question correctly):2  (Answers neither question correctly)%

1c. LOC Commands:%fillpopup:name=1c:default=0  (Performs both tasks correctly):1  (Performs one task correctly):2  (Performs neither task correctly)%

2.   Best Gaze:%fillpopup:name=2:default=0  (Normal):1  (Partial gaze palsy):2  (Forced deviation)%

3.   Visual:%fillpopup:name=3:default=0  (No visual loss.):1  (Partial hemianopia):2  (Complete hemianopia):3  (Bilateral hemianopia)%

4.   Facial Palsy:%fillpopup:name=4:default=0 (Normal):1 (Minor paralysis):2 (Partial/Central paralysis):3 (Complete paralysis)%

5a. Motor Left Arm:%fillpopup:name=5a:default=0 (No drift for 10 seconds):1 (Drift without touching):2 (Some effort against gravity):3 (No effort against gravity):4 (No movement):0 (Amputation or fusion)%

5b. Motor Right Arm:%fillpopup:name=5b:default=0 (No drift for 10 seconds):1 (Drift without touching):2 (Some effort against gravity):3 (No effort against gravity):4 (No movement):0 (Amputation or fusion)%

6a. Motor Left Leg:%fillpopup:name=6a:default=0 (No drift for 10 seconds):1 (Drift without touching):2 (Some effort against gravity):3 (No effort against gravity):4 (No movement):0 (Amputation or fusion)%

6b. Motor Right Leg:%fillpopup:name=6b:default=0 (No drift for 10 seconds):1 (Drift without touching):2 (Some effort against gravity):3 (No effort against gravity):4 (No movement):0 (Amputation or fusion)%

7.   Limb Ataxia:%fillpopup:name=7:default=0 (Absent):1 (Present in one limb):2 (Present in two limbs):0 (Amputation or fusion)%

8.   Sensory:%fillpopup:name=8:default=0 (Normal):1 (Mild to moderate loss):2 (Severe loss)%

9.   Best Language:%fillpopup:name=9:default=0 (No Aphasia):1 (Mild to moderate):2 (Severe aphasia):3 (Mute or global aphasia)%

10. Dysarthria:%fillpopup:name=10:default=0 (Normal):1 (Mild to moderate):2 (Severe dysarthria):0 (Intubated or other)%

11. Extinction and Inattention:%fillpopup:name=11:default=0 (Normal):1 (To one modality):2 (Profound loss)%

5. The Moxy Award…

… goes to Barry for this.

NTET = Need TextExpander Touch

Are you still waiting to check out TextExpander touch 2.0? Shame on you. You should be watching this clever video.

TextExpander touch 2.0 from David Sparks on Vimeo.

The new version of TextExpander touch is now available for download and it’s fabulous. The big new features are rich text and fill in snippet support. Although this is a version 2.0, it is free for people who already purchased the prior version. The fill-in snippet support is huge for me. I use fill-in snippets every day. Federico did a nice extended review at MacStories and I made a short screencast showing off the new version. Enjoy.

TextExpander touch 2.0 from David Sparks on Vimeo.

Here is another group of my TextExpander snippets.

My date snippets fall in a few categories:

Shortcuts

Why type August when “xm8” is faster?

Date Math

I don’t remember when TextExpander added this feature but I really like the relative date function. If I want yesterday’s date for instance, I type “d–“

Date Stamps

Because I date stamp notes from conversations in nvALT notes and they are always a heading two, I have two different versions of the date stamps, one with and one without markdown headings.

AppleScript Date Snippets

These are magic.

xdnm  gets next Monday

xdnw gets the date range next week

xdns gets next Saturday

xdnf gets next Friday

I’ve written most of these and collected others from the Web. All of the AppleScript based date snippets are courtesy of Ben Waldie. Also honorable mention goes to Tim Stringer, who sent in his list. If you think you’ve got me licked with something better, send it in and I’ll include it with the next update.

Download the Date Snippets

I’ve updated the foreign thanks TextExpander snippets to Version 1.2. Now I’ve got even more languages, including important additions like binary and Klingon.

buy’ ngop

Thanks everyone for the tweeks and additions to the foreign thanks snippet set. I’ve updated it in the original post and TE Snippet page.

I’ve also received some nice snippet lists from readers for future posting. If you’ve got something you’d like to share, send it my way.