I searched far and wide for a good snippets manager. I even wrote an old blog post about two snippets managers.

I wanted an easy way to get snippets in and out of my IDEs, or other places maybe. I liked being able to have notes and things like that but it wasn’t totally a must. I needed to create groups/folders so I could find things quickly.

I had often heard about TextExpander but didn’t want to pay for it, thought I wouldn’t use it much, and didn’t see how it would assist me in any practical way. Turned out to simply be a matter of understanding. I wasn’t quite sure what the app did and how it did it.

My way of using TextExpander may not be the most practical or common use of the app. But it works for me. Not long ago I was talking to another developer friend and mentioned how I have a needed snippet in TextExpander and they responded in a manner that implied they didn’t fully understand why I had my snippets in there. I briefly explained and it occurred to me that maybe I should write a post about this. Perhaps using it the way I am is less common that I thought.

So, hopefully you can find this beneficial in some way.

For the lay person, at it’s simplest explanation, I’m using TextExpander to hold and organize very large and very small snippets of code.

What does TextExpander do exactly?

basically you type a string of characters, configurable a few different ways, and once that string is typed, the text “expands” and turns into the content that you have associated it with in TextExpander.

For example, my favorite and most used snippet is very short. I use CSS borders on all sorts of elements to see exactly what they’re doing during the building and debugging phase. Maybe a topic for another post, but if you’re not using a simple CSS border on elements during the initial development phase you should start. I have done a hand ful of sites that browser tested perfect first try and spent no time fixing issues. I directly attribute that to using borders during the build before anything is broken.

In TextExpander you have 3 elements. The Content, the Label and the Shortcut.

So here’s an example of a snippet I use every single day:

• Content: “border:1px solid red;”
• Label: 1px red border
• Shortcut: “borred” (my abbreviation for border red)

once I’ve typed “borred” it turns into the associated content.

Another I use a lot is a simple case of a background replace on various elements like h1. Any time I need to remove text from an element and show a background image i use the following shortcut.

• Content: ”
  background: left top no-repeat;
  display: block;
  width:px;
  height:px;
  margin:0;
  padding:0;
  text-indent: -9999px;
  “
• Label: “Basic Background Replacement “
• Shortcut: “bgReplace”

As you can probably predict, I type the selector, brackets and then type my shortcut which deliberately has no width and height since those will be specific to each instance and boom. Time saved.

That’s the simple stuff that was obvious to me when I first got the app. Stuff that I was typing over and over. Another is “marpad” which turns into “margin:0; padding:0;”. What I found though was that I could put much longer items in there and then determined that I could group them together logically to aid in speed of use.

So the heavy lifting stuff is my “HTML5 Layout” group. Within that I house various common layouts in both the HTML5 variety as well as their associated CSS. For example. Most every site breaks down by having a header, content area, 1 or 2 sidebars and a footer. Once you create a bare bones browser tested starting point there’s no reason to recode those structures anymore. It may seem illogical to have CSS snippets in the HTML5 Layout folder but I do that to keep them grouped together. I don’t need the other CSS content in any situation than the starting point of building a site. So having it in the CSS folder for semantics makes little sense. It would take longer to find the needed CSS to use with the HTML5 structure if it were in the CSS group, likewise it would make it harder for me to find other things.

Might be important to note at this point, I have so many entries into TextExpander that remembering the shortcuts at this point is near impossible. The things I use every day, I’ve memorized. Like the ones above for example.
What makes this ok is that TextExpander adds an icon to the menu bar that makes looking up items very easy. You can both search or just drill down into the folders if you know where something is.

As you can see, I have many groups organized in a particular way with the most used at the top. Its easy to drill down into a group, click on the needed item and it expands wherever your cursor was in whatever text editor.

Here’s a view of the actual TextExpander app open looking into the HTML5 Layout group.

I think now you may have an idea of how I’m using TextExpander as my snippets manager. If you would like some more details specifically feel free to leave a comment or contact me. I’m happy to help.

With that, I’m going to wrap this up by sharing some ideas for snippets that you can use. It took me a while to think of using the app to this extent so you get to have my trial and error knowledge without the pain. Maybe it’ll lead you to some new ideas and you can come back to share as well.

Here are some snippet ideas.

HTML Tags:

• h1/ = <h1></h1>
• p/ = <p></p>
• em/ = <em></em>
• ul/ = <ul></ul>
• li/ = <li></li>
• a/ = <a href=”" title=”"></a>
• ?/ =  <?php ?> (yes i know it’s not html. Thought it would be helpful to include it)

I think you get the idea there.

The trick to making good shortcuts is finding things you wouldn’t normally type. I don’t believe I’ve ever typed “ul/” until using it in TextExpander.

URLs:

• h/ = http://
• h/w = http://www.
• h/goo = http://www.google.com
• h/dav = http://www.davidsparks.me

You see the many uses. I have all URLs that I may need to type on a regular basis. You may be saying “um… thats what bookmarks are for nerd”. Well, I first had this idea when i was sick of typing “http://” in various needs. Once I got to that point i found myself typing “h/w” many times and then following it up with something like this sites URL. Some needs are in comments, often you’ll be asked to list your site. Perhaps a forum, on twitter or tumblr. You start to notice how often you type URLs that aren’t in the address bar.

Email Addresses:

• @pem = Personal EMail
• @wem = Work EMail

I have a hand ful of email addresses that I’m always typing. Typing emails is freaking annoying. I hate having to type the whole “@gmail.com” or whatever. It sucks, it’s a lot to type.

I have shortcuts for CSS, HTML, HTML Emails, Facebook tab development, words I always misspell, HTML5 tags, jQuery, php, javascript etc etc etc.

Hopefully this has provided you with some ideas or a starting point on what you can do with TextExpander as a web developer. I’ve already saved myself 13.5 hours of typing since using it which is quite a lot.

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One of the things I did for my talk was provide everybody with the PSD file that i personally use when designing a new Twitter background. It has background mock up examples, guides, common resolution demonstrations and a twitter content area to simulate what things will look like live.

I figured others may also find this useful and maybe somebody forgot to write down the full url and hasn’t been able to download it etc. So here it is. If you would like to use the Twitter template I use, have at it!

Twitter Background Design Template PSD

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The truth is, that isn’t how people are using these services and those people who made those gripes are almost certainly members of Facebook who routinely make ports or spins on those blossoming trendy technologies and they’re now common place. First it was a reworking of their statuses. Then it was a reworking of the feed that looks just like twitter. then pictures and video showed up in your feed and you could check them out without leaving. Now twitter is reworking it’s feed to do the same. Now Places has been created to capitalize on Foursquare though Places has a glaring problem that gives FS an advantage. Places has no badges, specials or mayor ships. No incentives to using the service. To date people just keep using Foursquare and like services with a few exceptions.

Image via CrunchBase

Those same people that complained about those services now see their favorite site adopting those practices.

Geo Location/Tagging is much more interesting though because of the privacy challenges it will face as well as the eventual benefits it will provide when more advances are made.

For me personally, I’m very interested in politics, civil rights, being aware of what your rights are in general as a citizen and protecting them. One of those rights does include privacy however, the Internet has caused us all to rethink what privacy actually means. In ye olden days privacy meant you lived out on a farm a couple hours horse ride into town where nobody could see in your windows. Later it meant nobody could watch you change clothes in a department store dressing room. At the core though privacy has remained the same in 1 way. We as individuals decide what our personal privacy level is. Choice is the key word. Old timers chose to relinquish their privacy when they would ride into town. People chose to relinquish a little privacy when they step out of the dressing room in the new outfit to show a friend or look in the mirror. Today, we chose where we check in. Where and when we broadcast our location. There’s another level though and that’s who we allow that broadcast to be intercepted by which is the purpose of this post.

On facebook we chose who our friends are and within those sometimes we chose to hide certain things from them as well with privacy settings. On twitter you can have a private profile or not sync your foursqare to it. On foursquare you approve or decline friendship requests etc.

Recently I had an automated service retweet my foursqaure post without my approval. That service is locationtweet. Before that, months ago when i first started using foursqaure there was a website that was collecting twitter posts from foursquare and archiving them on their site. Without my permission. I tweeted them telling them that they remove my location tweets permanently because I didn’t grant them permission. They responded quickly letting me know it had been taken down. This twitter account, locationtweet did not respond to my demand to no longer list me in their service.

To me, this is the core of the privacy issue regarding location services and the first thing that needs to be addressed, by whom, I’m not sure. Government, isp, foursquare or twitter them self. I’m not particular about who does it but I absolutely want it to happen. It may seem harmless and insignificant but entertain me.

I broadcast my physical location to the world, but I do so understanding in generalities who can see it. I have a decent understanding of my twitter followers, who i’m friends with on Foursquare and Facebook. Sometimes I check in without sharing with friends. Sometimes I only share it with Foursquare, sometimes just Foursquare and Twitter. The point is I’m in control and every check in is a conscious decision to do so while understanding the conditions.

Services like locationtweet and the other i mentioned exploit this use of technology without the permision or choice of the individual. Their obvious argument is that it’s there for all to see anyway. My response is that yes, all can see it, but i know who all generally is, all aren’t seeing it and their aiding in others seeing it i have no idea about. You’ve likely heard about the pleaserobme.com which now appears to be shut down. The premise was them posting your location implying that you’re not home so go break into my house. I can appreciate the humor in such an effort but it’s also offensive, potentially dangerous and could end up putting some body’s life in danger. Maybe unlikely but all that aside it gets to the core of what I’m talking about. Services should not be allowed or permitted to use my location, my content and the content i generate for services I’m a willing member of for their personal gain without my permission. If foursquare gave them permission to do so, I would look at what they offered and brought to the table. If nothing I would try to opt out and if I couldn’t i would legitimately stop using the service.

Privacy is choice. The conscious decision to share information about yourself and your location. It’s no longer living in your house with the doors and blinds shut. Services that remove my choice from me is an exploit and violation of my privacy and it’s wrong.

There are exciting things in store for location based services. It is the next frontier but something will have to be done on this front to protect our choice in the hopefully near future.

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So I’m not sure when this happened, but I just noticed it.

While doing an image search for iPhone Wallpapers I noticed one of my favorite digital artists’, James White‘s images on the page. At first I thought that was really bizarre that google would just happen to show one of my favorite artists stuff in the results. Then I noticed that they added something new. I wasn’t sure how exactly they figured out any kind of connection with James White but upon clicking “My Social Circle” I discovered the quite lengthy answer.

It appears google uses 3 ways to created connections.

1. gChat and Gmail contacts
2. Contacts found through your extended network via google profile. Meaning, I have my facebook and twitter linked to my Google Profile among other sites. It checks for matches through whatever sites i seemingly have listed on my Google Profile and gets relevant content.
3. Other people. Information pulled from other peoples links. So if I pop up in your information and have some pictures on my flickr or blog you might be looking for, there they are.

Quickly scrolling through, it would appear about 80% of my connections are established through my Twitter account while the other 20% is split up between Flickr and my email contacts.

This is pretty interesting and provides for some cool opportunities. If my friend posts a picture I thought was funny and I wanted to find it again, this should make that process MUCH easier. With everybody branching out more and more in terms of how many services their a part of, remembering if my friend posted that lolcat on Facebook, in an email or on Twitter might be unnecessary now. as long as Google knows how many connections I have with that person, it should be able to find the images.

My Social Content.

The other aspect of the new feature is seeing what content you’re providing. A quick look at the links you’ve listed on your google profile and you get a broad picture of where content is coming from. Maybe you want to add some more, maybe you need to take some off. I’ll be adding my Tumblr accounts for sure.

All cool new features that i think are very welcome to most. Should make some aspects of searching a lot easier. And that’s why we use Google in the first place.

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Many moons ago I ran a website called OurMemphis.net. You can read the history of that site and how it eventually turned into YourMemphis.net on the YourMemphis Back Story page. Since it’s already there I wont go on and on about it here but in short the url holds some sentimental value. Only a few months ago I turned down an offer for the domain name that priced at a couple thousand.

The purpose of YourMemphis is to have a place where anyone can submit ideas on how to make Memphis a better place to live, work, play and raise a family. You can also vote on others ideas as well as comment on them and discuss at length. It’s like Digg for Memphis improvements. The cool thing is you can log in using many of the services you’re already a member of like Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Google, WordPress or many others. You sign in with those and it automatically creates you an account on YourMemphis and you’re ready to go! Couldn’t be any easier.

So be sure to go share your ideas on how you would like to improve Memphis. Maybe it’s something you wish Memphis had. More museums, a theme park, something cooler than Bass Pro in the Pyramid etc etc. The List is endless and you can submit every idea you have even if its silly. Then Promote your idea by getting your friends to vote and comment on it.

I can also tell you that important people in the city government are already looking at this and are hoping it can become a useful tool for development so you’re voice will not only be heard, but it’ll be heard by people you want it to be heard by. It’s like the Pepsi Refresh project but exclusive to Memphis. Submit ideas and vote on others.

A great way to encourage discussion on what this city needs as well as letting elected officials know what the public wants, what they don’t want and allowing them an easy way to stay in touch with the community.

So spread the word! Tell your mom ‘n them!

First up! Snippley. It’s lightweight, bare bones and does what it does well. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say it’s superior to Code Collector Pro. For one reason and one reason only. Snippley allows you to create Snippet Groups, Within that many snippets and within the snippet; a headline, description as many code and note entries as needed. It’s this aspect that sets Snippley appart from Code Collector Pro.

As you can see in the image above, theres snippet groups on the right. In the top pannel there are different snippets. In the bottom panel you can see the headline bolded, a description below that. After the description is where the good stuff is. you can see a note, some code which i can designate what kind of code it is, javascript, css, php etc. More notes and more code if needed. just simply click on the add note/code button and thats all there is to it.

Code Collector does one thing that is very much needed which is Import and Export. allowing you to sync up multiple coppies. Very valuable. You can also enable sharing which allows you to send links to your code which is pretty cool. It also supports more languages than Snippley does. Not the ened of the world, Snippley has a plain text area, but I think its pretty stupid that i “have” to label html as plain text. I’d like to label it as html with text coloring. I end up naming html php sometimes just to take advantage of the color highlighting even if i need to add a note saying its html and not php hah.

So these are my complaints. Both applications fall short in my opinion and this severely pisses me off. I’ve really had it with apps that are designed for something and don’t have a very important or helpful feature.
CCP lacks a great helpful feature that I cant live without more or less and Snippley is lacking a fundamental app function of import/export which leaves me so dumbfounded I end up ranting about it on tumblr.

So this is my pettition/cry for help. One of these 2 developers please fix your software to do what I’m in need of. Preverablly CCP since theres a better network with the sharing feature and support having an actual site instead of a google code download link and links to 2 developers who have no personal sites.

If anybody out there knows of another Snippet app that will save the day for me. Please let me know! send me a message on twitter. @DigitalSkraps