Nesting Snippets In TextExpander.

For those who don't know, TextExpander provides a systemwide handler which automatically explodes short 'snippets' into commonly used blocks of text . If that didn't make any sense, here's an example with my email signature. At the end of emails I type "dicsig" which magically gets replaced by :

Gavin Montague
Web Development
Design Is Central

23 Argyle Court
1103 Argyle Street
Finnieston
Glasgow
G3 8DN
http://www.designiscentral.com
+44 (0)141 847 0077 
+44 (0)7XXX XXXXX

The tip

The current version of TextExpander allows snippets to be nested inside each other. One snippet can call another, which can call another and so on. Let's look at the code behind my email signature.

%snippet:mme%
Web Development
%snippet:dicname%

%snippet:dicaddress%
%snippet:dicurl%
%snippet:dictel%
%snippet:mymob%

My email signature is really a compound snippet; it's composed of six useful snippets (my name, company, office address, URL, telephone number and mobile) plus some fluff.

Similarly, my mobile number, skype handle and home email all combine to make up my personal email signature.

Gavin Montague
Web Design & Development

http://www.leftbrained.co.uk
+44 (0)7XXX XXXXX
Skype:  gavinmontague

%snippet:mme%
Web Design & Development

%snippet:myurl%
%snippet:mymob%
Skype: %snippet:myskype%

Nested snippets make it easy to keep all your other snippets up to date. If we move office I don't have to update the snippets for my email signature, packing label, letterhead and so on separately; I just update the master copy in dicaddress and I'm done. If I change my mobile number I only have to update mymob and both my email signatures are up to date.

NB: Yes, I really do have a snippet to generate my own name. The number of people who received email from "Gaivn Monaygue" before I had TextExpander is quite embarrassing.

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