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Do these requirements sum up what you're looking for? 1. an OS X app 2. one settable global hot-key to save your currently selected text as a snippet 3. one

Do these requirements sum up what you're looking for? 1. an OS X app 2. one settable global hot-key to save your currently selected text as a snippet 3. one settable global hot-key to show a list of all your saved snippets, to select one, which will be inserted into the otherwise-currently-selected text box (i.e. much like the "paste" command) 4. must be saved in and loaded from Github Gists, rather than Dropbox Are these correct? Am I missing anything? Also, I have the following questions: 1. Should snippets have names (for searching them easily)? Or should it just be a list of unnamed snippets that you select from? 2. How should snippets be selected when you want to paste it? Should (a) there be one hot-key to bring up a window which lets you select which one to paste, or (b) should they each have their own hot-key (probably numbered, limits to a small number of snippets), or (c) should they be expanded any time you type their abbreviation into any text box, without needing to bring up a window at all? 3. How much are you willing to pay for it? ($0 is an acceptable answer.) Let me know, and I'll give it a shot. This sounds like a fun small project.

victorhooi 12y ago
I'd pay money for that - $20? The thing is - obviously I'd prefer it to be open-source (not from a free perspective) but because I believe in OSS, and personally it's kind of neat being able to trawl through the source yourself to see how things were put together. However, I'd gladly Gittip or donate that amount to a project.
- sdegutis 12y ago
  Okay, but what about the other questions I had at the bottom? I'm trying to visualize how you's like to use this thing.
  - victorhooi 12y ago
    1. Names should be optional - as in, you can name a snippet, but not all snippets need to have a name. 2. Having a different shortcut key for every snippet would probably become unwieldy quite quickly. Your idea about having a shortcut to popup a window is quite neat - I'd definitely want to have shortcut windows to navigate through and paste the snippets. The problem I see with this is, it breaks up your workflow, and it won't feel instant. One way I've seen others do it is your (c) - for example, in Dash, each snippet has an abbreviation. If you type that abbreviation in, then press the backtick (`), it will auto-expand it to the snippet. One thing I noticed about Dash is, sometimes it can seem a bit slow to delete your existing abbreviation, and replace it with the snippet - the author mentioned this is something to do with non-accessibility aps on OSX. (In this case, it was the Chrome Browser). I'm not sure if there's a way around it. Can you think of any other ways of selecting/pasting a snippet?
    - sdegutis 12y ago
      Accessibility APIs may indeed be the limiting factor in this situation. The only way that I can currently see making this work is by manually sending "Cmd-C" and "Cmd-V" signals to copy/paste selections. Pasting a snippet would in fact just overwrite your clipboard with the contents of the snippet and then send the keyboard signal "Cmd-V" to paste it as if you did it yourself. It's hacky, but if you're okay with it ruining your clipboard on both save-snippet and paste-snippet actions, then it shouldn't be a problem. Option C is actually not much different from option A. In option C, it watches what you just typed, and finds the snippet with that name. But in option A, it pops up a window and lets you type the name, and selects one that matches (by substring comparison), and filters/selects it as you type. So actually not only is option A easier to write than option C, but it's easier for you to use also. Anyway, I'll open-source it and do all the work in this github project: https://github.com/sdegutis/osx-snip https://github.com/sdegutis/osx-snip Donations would be appreciated, but gittip is weekly whereas I would prefer one-time donations only. And I don't know of any other service that does one-time tips/donations, so just don't worry about it.
      - victorhooi 12y ago
        Hmm, yeah, I guess I'm ok with it blowing away the clipboard - however, probably don't make it the default, and warn users when they turn it on that it's a side-effect. But you'd still need to delete the abbreviation text they used to trigger it right? Well, unless we went with option (a) and the popup. Hmm, I see what you're saying with (a) - it actually could work pretty well, as long as it was fast and responsive, and seemed seamless. Yes, happy to do a one-time dontation. Have you considered doing a Magic Backlog like these guys? http://robomongo.org/backlog http://robomongo.org/backlog
        sdegutis 12y ago
        Yeah, option A can indeed be fast, responsive, and seem seamless. So let's do that. Hadn't seen http://robomongo.org/backlog http://robomongo.org/backlog before, thanks for the link. Let's move further discussion to the project's issues page: https://github.com/sdegutis/osx-snip/issues https://github.com/sdegutis/osx-snip/issues

victorhooi 12y ago

I'd pay money for that - $20? The thing is - obviously I'd prefer it to be open-source (not from a free perspective) but because I believe in OSS, and personally it's kind of neat being able to trawl through the source yourself to see how things were put together. However, I'd gladly Gittip or donate that amount to a project.

sdegutis 12y ago
Okay, but what about the other questions I had at the bottom? I'm trying to visualize how you's like to use this thing.
- victorhooi 12y ago
  1. Names should be optional - as in, you can name a snippet, but not all snippets need to have a name. 2. Having a different shortcut key for every snippet would probably become unwieldy quite quickly. Your idea about having a shortcut to popup a window is quite neat - I'd definitely want to have shortcut windows to navigate through and paste the snippets. The problem I see with this is, it breaks up your workflow, and it won't feel instant. One way I've seen others do it is your (c) - for example, in Dash, each snippet has an abbreviation. If you type that abbreviation in, then press the backtick (`), it will auto-expand it to the snippet. One thing I noticed about Dash is, sometimes it can seem a bit slow to delete your existing abbreviation, and replace it with the snippet - the author mentioned this is something to do with non-accessibility aps on OSX. (In this case, it was the Chrome Browser). I'm not sure if there's a way around it. Can you think of any other ways of selecting/pasting a snippet?
  - sdegutis 12y ago
    Accessibility APIs may indeed be the limiting factor in this situation. The only way that I can currently see making this work is by manually sending "Cmd-C" and "Cmd-V" signals to copy/paste selections. Pasting a snippet would in fact just overwrite your clipboard with the contents of the snippet and then send the keyboard signal "Cmd-V" to paste it as if you did it yourself. It's hacky, but if you're okay with it ruining your clipboard on both save-snippet and paste-snippet actions, then it shouldn't be a problem. Option C is actually not much different from option A. In option C, it watches what you just typed, and finds the snippet with that name. But in option A, it pops up a window and lets you type the name, and selects one that matches (by substring comparison), and filters/selects it as you type. So actually not only is option A easier to write than option C, but it's easier for you to use also. Anyway, I'll open-source it and do all the work in this github project: https://github.com/sdegutis/osx-snip https://github.com/sdegutis/osx-snip Donations would be appreciated, but gittip is weekly whereas I would prefer one-time donations only. And I don't know of any other service that does one-time tips/donations, so just don't worry about it.
    - victorhooi 12y ago
      Hmm, yeah, I guess I'm ok with it blowing away the clipboard - however, probably don't make it the default, and warn users when they turn it on that it's a side-effect. But you'd still need to delete the abbreviation text they used to trigger it right? Well, unless we went with option (a) and the popup. Hmm, I see what you're saying with (a) - it actually could work pretty well, as long as it was fast and responsive, and seemed seamless. Yes, happy to do a one-time dontation. Have you considered doing a Magic Backlog like these guys? http://robomongo.org/backlog http://robomongo.org/backlog
      - sdegutis 12y ago
        Yeah, option A can indeed be fast, responsive, and seem seamless. So let's do that. Hadn't seen http://robomongo.org/backlog http://robomongo.org/backlog before, thanks for the link. Let's move further discussion to the project's issues page: https://github.com/sdegutis/osx-snip/issues https://github.com/sdegutis/osx-snip/issues