How to work around conflicting shortcuts

Questions and Help
1

I only have a handful of snippets and I'm already running ragged trying to make unique shortcuts. If they even start with the same character it causes an issue. I spend most of my time managing the shortcuts, just so they are unique, with no intention of using them. This prevents me from spending time saving time.

I think I'm missing something about the way this is supposed to work. Any help is very much appreciated because the rest of the app is awesome!

2

Hi Jason,

A Text Blaze shortcut should be start with another Text Blaze shortcut.

For example, this means shortcuts like \t, \f, .f, and \cat are all fine together. However, if I have a shortcut \t and a shortcut \tab then I would have conflict as "\tab" starts with "\t".

This is problematic because if you want to type the \tab shortcut, you'll need to start by typing "slash-T" which would trigger the \t shortcut. This would prevent you from ever typing the \tab shortcut.

Let me know if that clarifies things!

3

I like to change the starting character according to "categories"

For example, anything related to task X, starts with a plus sign, while anything related to task Y starts with a minus sign.

I also like to group multiple snippets into one, then use a dropdown menu to decide which one should be run.

Here's a template for you:

{note}{formmenu: name=type; Create Promo; Post Promo; Create Announcement; Post Announcement}{endnote}
{if: type=="Create Promo"}{import: [create_vlog_promo]}{else}
{if: type=="Post Promo"}{import: [post_vlog_promo]}{else}
{if: type=="Create Announcement"}{import: [create_vlog_announcement]}{else}
{if: type=="Post Announcement"}{import: [post_vlog_announcement]}{endif}{endif}{endif}{endif}

Here's what's happening in there:

  1. I created 4 snippets with very descriptive shortcuts and square brackets:
    1.1 [create_vlog_promo]
    1.2 [post_vlog_promo]
    1.3 [create_vlog_announcement]
    1.4 [post_vlog_announcement]
  2. These shortcuts aren't intended to be used. The whole point is for me to have a unique shortcut name that is easy to identife
  3. In the main snippet, I created a dropdown menu that imports a snippet based on my choice in the menu. So now, all I need to remember is the shortcut +vl

Try this approach. If you have any difficulty creating the dropdown menu, let me know and I'll help you out.

4

Wow, I really appreciate the detailed response. I can see you have thought through this idea of how to make calling up a shortcut easier.

I'm not sure I fully understand but I'm going to test some of the things you've come up with here and see what I can do. Thanks again for the great idea.

5

You're most welcome. I'm quite notorious for trying to break things lol, so if you need any help, always feel free to tag me. We can even jump on a call if you want. And where I fall short, I can guarantee @scott will be able to come up with something. He's very responsive to community feature requests.

6

Hi Scott,

With almost a hundred shortcuts eliminating options for shortcuts names because there is initial letter overlap is really non-starter for me and makes me regret having upgraded to Pro.

I have a whole sub-set of snippets that start with /n which means that I can have multiple snippets with minor text changes to meet the needs of my various clients, in this case the Co name starts with a N. I have another client who's starts with V and the have variations on the same snippets that start with /v

In the other text expanders I use, this is no problem as nothing happens until I type a 'space" then the expansion takes place.

In my case I'm not interested in learning different abbreviations for my different systems so that leaves Text Blaze of little use to me.

Too bad as I was really hopping this would be THE text expansion tool for my Chromebook.

7

Hi Tom, and welcome to the forum! :slight_smile:

You can set your snippets to require being followed by a space or some other word break. I think that will get you the behavior you want.

Here are instructions:

8

Many thanks, Scott.

Works like charm.

My apologies for not taking the time to read the documentation.

Your patience is very much appreciated.

Tom

9

@Tom_Balaban - there's something else you can do, since you've got the pro version.

I'm gonna make the assumption that the whole subset of snippets starting with /n that you're talking about, are related in some way.

Here's how I handled that:

  1. Create a "master snippet" with an easy-to-memorize shortcut
  2. Change the shortcuts for all related snippets to something descriptive withing square brackets (I'll show you an example shortly)
  3. In the master snippet, create a dropdown field, and reference each option to those related snippets.

Now here's a practical example that I personally use:

{note}{formmenu: name=type; Create Promo; Post Promo; Create Announcement; Post Announcement}{endnote}
{if: type=="Create Promo"}{import: [create_vlog_promo]}{else: trim=yes}
{if: type=="Post Promo"}{import: [post_vlog_promo]}{else: trim=yes}
{if: type=="Create Announcement"}{import: [create_vlog_announcement]}{else: trim=yes}
{if: type=="Post Announcement"}{import: [post_vlog_announcement]}{endif}{endif}{endif}{endif}

What you see above is the "master snippet".

Then I have 3 other snippets with the following shortcuts:

[create_vlog_promo]
[post_vlog_promo]
[create_vlog_announcement]
[post_vlog_announcement]

I don't need to remember the shortcuts for those snippets, because now I have the master snippet do all the work for me.

Hope this helps :slight_smile:

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