[mumblingsages]

Any plans to support text expander in OF for iPad? or iPhone for that matter?

[Brian]

We've got feature requests open on supporting it in both iPad and iPhone editions - interested parties can email our support ninjas and let them know they'd like to see the change. Items with more customers attached tend to bubble up the priority list.

Thanks!

[lmsboy]

Originally Posted by mumblingsages

Any plans to support text expander in OF for iPad? or iPhone for that matter?

Who really want's to use another App to write a text and transfer this to something like OF? I don't think that this is productive. I never understand, why people really wants TE support on any App...

[Steves71]

Originally Posted by lmsboy

Who really want's to use another App to write a text and transfer this to something like OF? I don't think that this is productive. I never understand, why people really wants TE support on any App...

I don't think you realize what the OP means by textexpander support. As it stands, if you use textexpander with OF for iPad/iPhone you need to do as you mentioned, type it up in textexpander then copy/paste into OF. If support for textexpander was added it would eliminate this need to switch apps as OF would be able to use any of the shortcuts. It's basically a workaround to the sandboxing nature of the iOS and allows it to work like it does on a Mac.

I am another that would benefit by OF enabling support for textexpander.

[lmsboy]

So does it mean it would work in background? I thought Apple disallowed this to Apps, so I was thinking, that you'll always have to use copy/paste/AppSwitch which would be very bad ;)

[Steves71]

It doesn't work in the background as such, you don't have to have textexpander running in the background to make it work. I'm not a developer so don't know how this link between two programs is executed but from the user side of things it appears that if an application is developed to include textexpander support it can read outside it's own environment and see the shortcuts created in the text expanded application folder.

A few application that I have used that provide textexpander integration are Appigo ToDo, Twitter for iPhone (formally Tweetie 2) and Twittelator Pro. One of the main reasons this would be helpful to me is for phone numbers. I could set up a list of frequently used phone numbers within textexpander then within OF when creating a new event to phone someone all I have to do is type the shortcut that I predefined. This would save a huge deal of time jumping back and forth between OF and the address book app and when I see an event to make a phone call I could initiate it directly from within OF on the iPhone.

That's just one example but there are many more ways in which it would save time.

[lmsboy]

That sounds really good!! So yes, please support it ;)

[whpalmer4]

Originally Posted by Steves71

One of the main reasons this would be helpful to me is for phone numbers. I could set up a list of frequently used phone numbers within textexpander then within OF when creating a new event to phone someone all I have to do is type the shortcut that I predefined. This would save a huge deal of time jumping back and forth between OF and the address book app and when I see an event to make a phone call I could initiate it directly from within OF on the iPhone.

I'm not sure I see any huge advantage in this particular example. If you go to the Address Book app, you can tap and hold on the desired phone number, and select Copy. Now go to OmniFocus and paste it into the note of the action to call someone. When it comes time to actually execute that action, you can just tap the phone number and the iPhone will call it.

Your scheme might save a bit of tapping but at the cost of remembering a bunch of abbreviations for various phone numbers. Measured as a percentage of the total number of taps to enter the action, shortcut, etc. going to the Address Book might not be much marginal overhead. Streamlining this by allowing you to pick contact cards directly from the Address Book database while in OmniFocus would seem like a friendlier solution.

Not to say that Text Expander support wouldn't be welcome, of course!

[mumblingsages]

Just sent a follow up request to the ninja's on this. Bumping here as well.

[gameboy213]

I am still desperate for this to be added to both the iPad and the iPhone.

I'm actually kind of shocked that it isnt already something that Omni is using. Seems like a no brainier to me really.