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    Colemak compatible text expander?

    • Started by Empty
    • 4 Replies:
    • Reputation: 0
    • Registered: 12-Apr-2013
    • Posts: 3

    Hi folks,

    I'm using the pkl (on Windows 7) and I'd really like to add a text expander/autocompleter to my efficiency arsenal.  I've tried texter, PhraseExpress and Breevy.  They were all a lot a bit wonky or didn't work at all when I had Colemak running.  And I refuuuuse to give up Colemak. 

    Any suggestions for troubleshooting or for a different/better (yet reasonably priced) text expander?

    Many thanks in advance!

    -Empty

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    • From: Sofia, Bulgaria
    • Registered: 05-Mar-2011
    • Posts: 387

    By text expander, do you mean you want to type a few characters and a software to replace them with predefined text? Maybe the easiest (also free) way of doing that is using AutoHotKey. It can do that, and a lot more and it's fairly easy to learn even for non-programmers (like myself). The pkl is actually autohotkey script.

    If you're looking for something that will check your spelling and will autocomplete the words for you though (like on smart phones' keyboards), I don't know of anyone who has done a complete script for that with AHK. I'm running a universal AHK spellchecker on Windows but I don't know if that is what you're looking for.

    Last edited by pafkata90 (12-Apr-2013 13:52:22)
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    • Registered: 12-Apr-2013
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    Hi pafkata90,

    I was hoping for something that could do both the spell checks, smartphone-style autocomplete suggestions and/or type a few characters and replace.  :)  I know, I'm demanding.  So far the ones I've found haven't played nicely with Colemak. 

    I'll definitely check out AutoHotKey - thank you very much for the recommendation!!!

    If there are any additional all-in-one solutions, I'd love to hear those, too!

    -Empty

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    • From: Viken, Norway
    • Registered: 13-Dec-2006
    • Posts: 5,362

    Thing about using PKL though - if you run two keyboard hooks simultaneously with AutoHotKey they'll compete. So if you want to use completion you should do it by including your stuff into the PKL source then recompiling.

    There are several autocompleters already written using AHK. Search the AHK forums for instance.

    If you want the autocomplete to be fully automatic I don't see a way around this. If all you want is some template strings I suggest using PKL's Extend functionality instead (e.g., pressing Caps+h will write out your standard header).

    *** Learn Colemak in 2–5 steps with Tarmak! ***
    *** Check out my Big Bag of Keyboard Tricks for Win/Linux/TMK... ***

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    • Registered: 12-Apr-2013
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    Ah, I see.  Thanks for the information, DreymaR!  That's very helpful!

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