Snippet Expander - text expander with Wayland support - feedback

TraceyC

Hey @ianmjones , I saw that Snippet Expander is now included in our repos, thanks to your efforts. Thanks for creating and submitting this! One of the few remaining points of friction for me with Wayland is that the text expander I had been using (AutoKey) doesn't support Wayland yet. It works but is glitchy.

The setup and UI is pretty intuitive, and I hope it gets even better. Folders would be great. I use those to organize my snippets in AutoKey by general context.

Unfortunately, snippetexpander doesn't expand text properly for me when I enter an abbreviation. I've found a couple of different bugs, which I'll send to the mailing list. It's not usable right now for me.

Related, the link on your website for creating a new post has a bad To line ~ianmjones/snippetexpander-discuss@lists.sr.ht

I see on the project website that the mailing list is the only way to report bugs or request features. The mailing list has no posts, so I couldn't see if anyone else might have reported this. Out of curiosity, are you open to having a web based issue tracker, or at least a way to view the mailing list via the web? Having to subscribe to a mailing list to report and track one issue is unnecessary overhead for users. Also, having to download archives to view previous messages is also unnecessary overhead, especially for people with slow internet connections and bandwidth caps (which is sadly still a thing).

Thanks again for making a Wayland compatible text expander and submitting it to our repos. May it see many improvements and wide adoption.

ianmjones

TraceyC thanks for the feedback, much appreciated.

TraceyC Folders would be great. I use those to organize my snippets in AutoKey by general context.

I think some form of organization in folders or maybe tags is a great idea for power users. I'd like to make that purely optional so that people can get started easily without the clutter of a hierarchy, but for those people with lots of snippets to manage, it could definitely be useful.

TraceyC Unfortunately, snippetexpander doesn't expand text properly for me when I enter an abbreviation.

Assuming you've turned on the auto-expander in the settings (it's off by default), it is unfortunately hit and miss as to what apps support abbreviation expansion. It very much depends on whether they are accessible or not. Which apps did you try auto-expansion in?

TraceyC the link on your website for creating a new post has a bad To line ~ianmjones/snippetexpander-discuss@lists.sr.ht

Alas, that'll be because your email program doesn't adhere to the standard, that's a valid email address. However, there is an alternate form: u.ianmjones.snippetexpander-discuss@lists.sr.ht that can be used instead. I should probably make a note of that somewhere, oops! 🤦

TraceyC Out of curiosity, are you open to having a web based issue tracker, or at least a way to view the mailing list via the web?

I've seen some projects use a mailing list to allow for discussion of features and bug reports, with an internal issue tracker for managing the confirmed bugs and accepted feature requests. At some point I thought that was a good idea, but on reflection, I think I agree with you that having an open issue tracker would be much more useful.

I've opened up the Snippet Expander tracker: https://todo.sr.ht/~ianmjones/snippetexpander

TraceyC Thanks again for making a Wayland compatible text expander and submitting it to our repos. May it see many improvements and wide adoption.

Thank you!

TraceyC

ianmjones Assuming you've turned on the auto-expander in the settings (it's off by default), it is unfortunately hit and miss as to what apps support abbreviation expansion. It very much depends on whether they are accessible or not. Which apps did you try auto-expansion in?

I sent an email to the list with details. I thought I had sent it before, but apparently not. It was a long time editing the draft. Sent now.

ianmjones Alas, that'll be because your email program doesn't adhere to the standard, that's a valid email address.

The email client apparently likes it, I hadn't tried it before because I hadn't encountered that kind of email before. I learn something new every day.

Thanks for considering the folder feature request, and for opening up the issue tracker. 🙂

ianmjones

TraceyC I sent an email to the list with details.

Hmm, I'm not seeing your email to the list.

If you don't mind, please create bug ticket at https://todo.sr.ht/~ianmjones/snippetexpander/ and we'll go on from there.

TraceyC

ianmjones

I don't know what happened to the email, I didn't get a bounce. I've submitted issues to the tracker.