Substitute text :: Frequently used email responses

[ludwigschubert]

Ouch. bigcloits, you definitely CAN brain today, everything you said was spot on.

I didn't know about inserting regular .txt files – it works perfectly

If you rename them like I said (.clip.txt) LaunchBar will display them as such.

The use of native Mac OS X .textClipping files is a feature request I have already sent to Objective Development.

So… what on earth was this all about?!

[bigcloits]

Ouch. bigcloits, you definitely CAN brain today, everything you said was spot on.

I didn't know about inserting regular .txt files – it works perfectly

The thot plickens.

Today I am unable to reproduce the insertion of regular .txt files. It defies me. I could pretty much swear that I was doing it the last time I posted. It was the basis for an entire folder full of text files that I created for the express purpose of using LB to insert them hither, thither and also yon.

But I can't make it happen today.

I would think I was just going crazy ... except you backed me up, Ludwig! Can you do it still? Or did we both get fooled somehow?

[Dennis]

I have never been able to insert contents of a regular text file simply by selecting and hitting Return (as can be done with LaunchBar text clips). If that were the normal behavior, how would you open a regular text file with TextEdit or BBEdit without doing a send operation?

However, you can copy and paste the contents of a text file by selecting it in LaunchBar and hitting Shift-Option-Command-C.

But for me, text clips are far more convenient, especially if I'm going to have a folder full of files specifically designated for the purpose. Prepending .clip to the filename extension is a small inconvenience that'll pay off in the long run, I think.

-Dennis

[ludwigschubert]

Oh dear. That should have been obvious.
As Dennis mentioned correctly, how did we open .txts if it worked that way?

I guess we both did the following:

• Open TextEdit: a new text document is created automatically
• Select a .txt document in LaunchBar and press return
• The document will open in TextEdit
• We thought it was being inserted into the new text document

At least that was my fault.

So everything is back to normal
By pressing return we open .txts, insert .clip.txts and hopefully soon insert .textClippings, too.

regards, and I would always welcome additions to my script.
Ludwig

PS: If Objective Development could introduce a standard folder for .clip.txts, e.g ~/Library/Application Support/LaunchBar/Text Clippings, maybe the script could be included in LaunchBar's standard set of Actions?
Or do you think it's purpose is too exotic?

[bigcloits]

If that were the normal behavior, how would you open a regular text file with TextEdit or BBEdit without doing a send operation?

So logical. So true.

However, you can copy and paste the contents of a text file by selecting it in LaunchBar and hitting Shift-Option-Command-C.

And I think this is what I was actually doing that made me think that I was able to insert text files. I think. It's a bit blurry now.

But for me, text clips are far more convenient...

This is my conclusion also.

I guess we both did the following:
- snip -
We thought it was being inserted into the new text document

Speak for yourself! Ho ho. Actually, it's possible I did that too. It was a perfect little storm of misunderstandings.

However, despite the much-ado-about-nothing flavour of our last few posts (Dennis playing the role of "voice of reason"), I still think we've correctly established that the difference between clip.txt and .textClipping is confusing, and the documentation about it is also inadequate. It has literally taken me several days of daily experimentation to wrap my head around this. Granted, it might have all gone much better if I/we hadn't made some key errors in judgement along the way ...

Nevertheless, let's just say my mom would be completely stumped.

Not that LB is a product particularly aimed at moms ...

[Dennis]

I agree. Renaming the feature to something else to disassociate it from Mac OS X's .textClipping feature would be a step in the right direction. But what to name it?

Making good use of OS X's thesaurus:

snippets
fragments
extracts
excerpts
bits
particles
chips
shards
scraps
shreds
flakes
wisps

or my favorite, and the obvious winner: morsels

Yeah, LaunchBar Text Morsels. That sounds right. You could do something like this:

Example.morsel.text

What do you guys think?

-Dennis

[bigcloits]

What do you guys think?

Blurbs! You forgetted "blurbs"!



Teamwork: we has it.