| # Help: Grouping Snippets and Importing Groups TextExpander lets you organize your snippets into groups, as well as import snippet groups from files and the web. Preferences can be set by group, including application exclusion, expansion behavior and sounds. (See "Group Settings" below.) When you first launch TextExpander, you are provided with one group of sample snippets. ### Creating A New Group To create a new group, click on New Group or choose File > New Group from the menu. You can add snippets to the group by clicking on New Snippet in the toolbar or choose File > New Snippet from the menu. You can also drag snippets from other groups into the new group's folder. (For more about snippet creation, see "Creating Snippets") ### Add Group from File You can add a group from an existing file of snippets. Choose File > Add Group from File... from the menu. Find the snippet file that you want to import as a snippet group. Click Open. The allowable snippet file formats are: TextExpander TypeIt4Me (v2 and v3) Text files (comma- and tab-separated) RTF files (comma- and tab-separated) RTFD files (comma- and tab-separated) ### Add Group from URL You can add a group from a file of snippets hosted on the internet. Choose File > Add Group from URL... from the menu. Enter the URL of the snippet group you want to import from the web, e.g. http://www.smilesoftware.com/te/example.textexpander. Click OK. The allowable snippet file formats are the same as listed above. ### Add Predefined Group TextExpander offers several snippet groups that you can link to. To add a group: Choose File > Add Predefined Group from the menubar. Click on one of the groups in the list. You will see that group added to your list of snippet groups. Alternately, you can access this menu by clicking the plus "+" in the lower left corner of the the TextExpander window. The groups you can choose from are: Accented Words Over 50 English words of non-English origin that are spelled using diacritical accent marks. HTML & CSS Snippets HTML tags and special character codes, CSS selectors and declarations. Internet Productivity Snippets Shorten URLs automatically using services like bit.ly; validate URLs. To use one of these snippets, copy a URL, then type the abbreviation of one of the productivity snippets. A shortened URL will expand. Symbol Snippets Insert common symbols, such as ®, ©, and €. AutoCorrect Snippets Over 100 of the most commonly-misspelled words in English. AutoCorrect Snippets (Deutsch) Over 100 of the most commonly-misspelled words in German. AutoCorrect Snippets (Français) Over 100 of the most commonly-misspelled words in French. TidBITS AutoCorrect Dictionary 2400+ English-language misspellings based on the exhaustive AutoCorrect Dictionary created by TidBITS publisher Adam Engst and collaborator Micah Alpern. (For more details, go to http://db.tidbits.com/article/6103.) Note: For best results when using AutoCorrect files, TextExpander should be set to expand "immediately when typed" instead of "at delimiter". See Preferences: Expand Abbreviations for more details. ### Group Settings To access a group's settings, select the group in the list on the left. The following preferences appear on the right: Name You can rename the group here. Location This indicates where the group's snippet file is located, whether "Local" (within your TextExpander preferences), "External File" (elsewhere on your hard drive) or "URL" (online). Expand in You can disable TextExpander to prevent it from working in specific applications. The default is set in TextExpander > Preferences under the Expansion tab, but you can customize which applications work with specific TextExpander groups. The options are: All Applications Enables a group to work with all applications. This overrides any exclusions set in the Preferences Pane. All Applications, Except... Excludes certain applications from working with this group's snippets. Only These Applications... Specifies which applications will work with this group's snippets. No Applications (Disable) This group's snippets will not work in any application. Sound Choose the sound that is played when a snippet is expanded, or choose "none". Expand After Expansion options are set on a per-group basis. They determine whether an abbreviation is expanded or not, depending on what precedes the abbreviation. Whitespace The abbreviations are expanded only when preceded by a space. This is the default option. All but letters and numbers The abbreviations are expanded when preceded by any character, excluding letters and numbers. All characters The abbreviations are expanded wherever they are typed, even in the middle of a word. Use this option cautiously. Include when suggesting abbreviations Uncheck this box if you do not want the abbreviations in this snippet group to be included when you ask TextExpander to provide suggestions. See Using TextExpander: Suggest Matching Abbreviations for more information about using this feature. Update (for URL-based groups only) TextExpander can check whether a URL group's source file has been updated. You can set the frequency to Never, Daily, Weekly or Monthly. |
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