Typinator is a great complimentary tool to Keyboard Maestro.
Version 7 was just released, and, while I haven't upgraded yet, it looks to be a huge update that I look forward to.
Typinator 7 comes packed with more than 40 new features and improvements. The changes do not only affect the big "power features", but also many places in the user interface of Typinator.
Free upgrade for recent purchases
If you purchased a license for Typinator 6.x on or after January 1st 2016, we are making the major new version 7 available to you for free. No purchase is required - your license key covers Typinator 7.0 and all further minor 7.x updates. Just download the new version and enjoy.
Mark, the best way for me to communicate that is to point you to the Typinator web site, where you can get a quick understanding of its features.
Keyboard Maestro can definitely provide the text expansion function, and it may be all that some users need. However, if you have lots of text expansion snippets (> 1,000), then you may find Typinator a better tool to use and manage these.
I should also note that I use KM for a number of complex text expansions, that require RegEx and/or scripting.
Chris Stone (@ccstone), one of the long-time KM masters and advocates, also suggests using Typinator for certain classes of use cases. Hopefully Chris will jump in here, and provide his thoughts on Typinator.
I totally get that, and have the same concern.
However, I have evolved my Mac tools down to these, all of which I feel are indispensable for my workflows:
Keyboard Maestro
AppleScript / JXA
LaunchBar
Typinator
I'm still learning how to best use all of these, in particular the last two.
If you're just a casual user of snippets then there is little benefit to using a dedicated snippet manager – Keyboard Maestro is no slouch...
However. Typinator eats Keyboard Maestro's lunch in both snippet usage and management – so – if you're a really heavy user of snippets (as I am) it's a no-brainer to have a dedicated utility fine-tuned for the job. (I currently have about 50,000 snippets, although many of those are spelling corrections).
Advantages of Typinator:
Easy to learn UI.
Keyboard shortcuts for adding new snippets.
Quick Search pick list for snippets with global and set-specific filtering (sold me after 10 minutes use).
The app is AppleScriptable.
Support for AppleScript and other scripting languages that run and produce a result in snippets.
Compliments Keyboard Maestro – as KM cannot use text insertion macros when its own user-entry dialogs are running.
Fillable forms – again compliments Keyboard Maestro.
HTML expansions that allow sophisticated templates for rich-text capable email clients like Apple Mail, Microsoft Outlook, Airmail, Thunderbird...
Regular Expression triggers.
Auto-Correction.
Many pre-defined packaged sets for the user to choose from.
I've only covered the tip of the iceberg...
As of today I have 75 different sets of snippets in Typinator.
I've been using snippet-expansion utilities since TypeIt4Me came out in 1990. It went through a fallow period several years ago, and I used TextExpander for a while. TextExpander was too buggy, had a poor search (at the time), and I had several bad experiences when communicating with its developers.
One day I was fussing about having too many snippets to remember, and I discovered Typinator with its excellent Quick Search. After 10 minutes usage I bought a copy and have been a pretty happy user ever since. The developers are quite responsive and have implemented a number of my ideas and requests over the last seven or eight years.
I would feel almost as lost without Typinator as I would without Keyboard Maestro (almost).
But as I mentioned – I'm a heavy snippet-user.
There's a demo.
The website covers much more of Typinator's functionality than I have above.
-Chris
EDIT: Typinator is up to version 8.9 as of 2021/09/09 20:30 CDT -ccs
I'm torn. I love Typinator, and use it many times every single day, but I don't think I'll upgrade. I upgraded with no hesitation when v6.0 came out because I value it so much, but I don't think I'm really getting the power use out of it that I should. I probably could have stuck with v5.0, for that matter...
I am trying to see if KM will do the job now... I can always upgrade later. Or just go back to v6.x if I really don't need the new features.
Support for AppleScript and other scripting languages that run and produce a result in snippets.
Fillable forms – again compliments Keyboard Maestro.
Regular Expression triggers.
Auto-Correction.
I can do each of these in KM, without much effort. I don't have a huge amount of these, though, so maybe Typinator is better at volume. I like the popup forms in KM a little better - at least in Typinator 6.x
Many pre-defined packaged sets for the user to choose from.
KM is no slouch for this either!
One thing that might be a key feature is rich text expansions in Typinator. I have one snippet that explains in detail a feature of software to our clients that uses a few paragraphs and about 5 screenshots. Not sure if KM will do that.
I think it's generally easier to run Automation JavaScript from Keyboard Maestro,
but it may be worth knowing that the "JavaScript" of Typinator inline scripts has access to the Automation object, so for a snippet that pasted the active URL of Chrome, for example, you could, if you wanted, write:
or
(I personally use Typinator mostly for plain snippets, and KM for everything else)
I used TextExpander first, then KM. When TextExpander announced a for-cost upgrade, I dropped TextExpander and put my expansions in KM. It wasn’t the money, I wanted to reduce the user interfaces that I have to know. Works for me, but I have only about 20 expansions. I noticed that KM is slow to do the expansions.
BTW, I just noticed that Typinator is from Ergonis Software. That name sounds familiar… Oh, they make KeyCue, which I bought, use, and highly recommend. When you hold down the Command key, KeyCue displays all the currently available keyboard shortcuts.
I am at the opposite end of the scale to you. I would say I was a power user but just barely. I am down to a similar set: I really streamlined recently. However my set is similar to yours along, of course, with native apps. Launchbar, Keyboard Maestro and keycue to help me with learning snippets. I appreciate the reasons for a dedicated text expander, but I really don't have enough, only about ten at present: I never think I will exeed 100, I use spell checks for typos really too.
I dropped textexpander, I quit it a few months ago, it is still there but I won't renew the licence, I have Karabiner for the hyper key, nothing else. I also use DEVONthink and Ulysses for everything nearly now and LaTeX suite with texpad. I keep a couple of things to write on. Mellel for example, I will see how long I keep them
