Snippy - poor mans text snippet expander

sessy · 2009-05-11 10:17:54

Since I could not find any type of text snippet expander for Linux/Arch, I've hacked together a few tools already available. The goal: having quick access to commonly used text snippets, like email signatures, email addresses, canned responses, etc.

Meet snippy

With this small script, you can type an abbreviation for the snippet, invoke snippy with a hotkey and have the required text expanded/replaced. It only works in X applications that understands control+x for cut and control+v for paste. The good thing is that it will work for (almost) all your apps, in OpenOffice, Firefox, Thunderbird, etc. No need to rely on the app-specific solution.

Install

1) Snippy needs xsel and xdotool, so get them via

pacman -Sy xsel xdotool

2) Create a test snippet in the snippets directory (.snippy), like

mkdir ~/.snippy
echo "Hello World!" > ~/.snippy/hw

Save this code to a file in your $path (than chmod +x):

#!/bin/bash
# read the abbreviation
xdotool key ctrl+shift+Left
xdotool key ctrl+x
sleep 0.2s # to work reliably in Firefox
SELECTION=`xsel -b`
# read snippet file
xsel -b -i < ~/.snippy/${SELECTION}
# paste snippet
xdotool key ctrl+v
xdotool key BackSpace # delete the last blank line, so we stay inline

Assign a keyboard shortcut to the script, or use alt+f2 for testing...

Open a text editor (like kedit, mousepad, gedit, but not gvim, vim, etc.), type hw and push the hotkey (or run snippy with alt+f2).

Hello World! should appear.

Thats's it I hope some will find it useful.

Remark: the main source of inspiration was snippits. It seems to be abandoned.

EDIT small change from cat to echo by Mr Green

Psychedelic-Squid · 2009-06-30 03:07:07

Excellent stuff, can't believe noone has responded yet.

sessy · 2009-06-30 07:13:20

Thanks, good to hear someone likes it!

mikesd · 2009-06-30 08:05:00

Fantastic idea! Setting this up now.

zandaa · 2009-06-30 08:53:53

I'm trying it, but all that happens is that the last letter is being backspaced, no replacement whatsoever o.O am I doing something wrong?

EDIT:

Nevermind, I changed the keybinding in openbox's rc.xml and now it works... for some reason using Alt-F3 made it act weird on me o.O now I'm using Shift-F2

Last edited by zandaa (2009-06-30 08:58:16)

hbekel · 2009-06-30 11:11:45

Nice tool... The problem with xdotool is that any modifiers pressed by the user while it runs will be mixed in to the key send, so in zandaa's case the ctrl+x might really have been ctrl+alt+x since he was still holding down alt.

I've reported this issue to the author of xdotool and he said he'll provide a way of reliably sending only the requested keyseq in the future, regardless of current modifier state.

As a workaround you might sleep a little before sending the key, giving the user time to release any modifiers. Not a solution, but less likely to fail.

Barrucadu · 2009-06-30 15:18:33

Nice tool, I use the compose key for this - but I see how it'd be useful for text which isn't always the same.

sessy · 2009-07-11 22:18:47

hbekel wrote:

Nice tool... The problem with xdotool is that any modifiers pressed by the user while it runs will be mixed in to the key send, so in zandaa's case the ctrl+x might really have been ctrl+alt+x since he was still holding down alt.
I've reported this issue to the author of xdotool and he said he'll provide a way of reliably sending only the requested keyseq in the future, regardless of current modifier state.
As a workaround you might sleep a little before sending the key, giving the user time to release any modifiers. Not a solution, but less likely to fail.

Seems to be fixed in the latest release: http://semicomplete.googlecode.com/file … 710.tar.gz

Dieter@be · 2009-07-12 09:20:42

Hi,
1)Why use cut/paste? since you already use xdotool can't you just backspace until you find the space and then "type" with xdotool the string (instead of pasting it) ?

2)I would expand on this idea and check if the file inside ~/.snippy/ is executable. if it is you can do this:

~/.snippy/${SELECTION} | xsel -b -i

so the script could generate dynamic output depending on some context ( eg it could echo "good evening" , "good morning" etc depending on current time)
Also, this way the user could program some arbitrary actions with xdotool himself, such as what was possible with snippits (but snippits reinvented the wheel ;-))

3) Instead of letting the user type a string that he has to know by heart and then erasing it anyway, wouldn't a procedure like this be better:
- user types his normal (not to be expanded) text
- user presses keybind to start snippy
- snippy lists all files in ~/.snippy/ and presents them in dmenu
- user can then navigate or search in dmenu to find the shortcut he wants, and selects it
- all you need to do now is insert the contents of the file

I think this would be easier, especially if the user has a lot of snippy items

Last edited by Dieter@be (2009-07-12 09:26:11)

sessy · 2009-07-12 14:50:31

Good ideas, thanks! I really like the idea about dmenu, will give it a try when I have the time.

robmaloy · 2009-07-13 09:01:20

Dieter@be wrote:

3) Instead of letting the user type a string that he has to know by heart and then erasing it anyway, wouldn't a procedure like this be better:
- user types his normal (not to be expanded) text
- user presses keybind to start snippy
- snippy lists all files in ~/.snippy/ and presents them in dmenu
- user can then navigate or search in dmenu to find the shortcut he wants, and selects it
- all you need to do now is insert the contents of the file
I think this would be easier, especially if the user has a lot of snippy items

#!/bin/bash

DIR=${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}/snippy
DMENU_ARGS="-b"

FILE=`/bin/ls $DIR | /usr/bin/dmenu ${DMENU_ARGS}`

sleep 0.2

TEXT="`cat ${DIR}/${FILE}`"

for WORD in ${TEXT};
do
    xdotool type --delay 0 --clearmodifiers ${WORD}
    xdotool type --delay 0 --clearmodifiers ' '

done
xdotool key --clearmodifiers BackSpace

sessy · 2009-07-16 13:05:30

Is it true that xdotool can't type non-ascii chars?
I've tried helloöüóőúéáűbello and the result is: hellobello.
Got the same result with latin2 and utf8.

robmaloy wrote:

Dieter@be wrote:
3) Instead of letting the user type a string that he has to know by heart and then erasing it anyway, wouldn't a procedure like this be better:
- user types his normal (not to be expanded) text
- user presses keybind to start snippy
- snippy lists all files in ~/.snippy/ and presents them in dmenu
- user can then navigate or search in dmenu to find the shortcut he wants, and selects it
- all you need to do now is insert the contents of the file
I think this would be easier, especially if the user has a lot of snippy items
#!/bin/bash

DIR=${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}/snippy
DMENU_ARGS="-b"

FILE=`/bin/ls $DIR | /usr/bin/dmenu ${DMENU_ARGS}`

sleep 0.2

TEXT="`cat ${DIR}/${FILE}`"

for WORD in ${TEXT};
do
    xdotool type --delay 0 --clearmodifiers ${WORD}
    xdotool type --delay 0 --clearmodifiers ' '

done
xdotool key --clearmodifiers BackSpace

sessy · 2009-07-16 13:14:59

Dmenu really makes this experience cleaner. Having a list of choices is always good, plus it permitts to give the snippets some "human friendly" names, instead of short ones like es1 (email signature 1). Since xdotool seems to skip non-ascii chars, I have come up with this mule:

#!/bin/bash
DIR=${HOME}/.snippits
DMENU_ARGS="-b"

FILE=`/bin/ls $DIR | /usr/bin/dmenu ${DMENU_ARGS}`

xsel -b -i < ${DIR}/${FILE}
xdotool key ctrl+v

sessy · 2009-07-16 13:32:46

Hitting ESC in dmenu will result in no output:

#!/bin/bash
DIR=${HOME}/.snippits
DMENU_ARGS="-b"

FILE=`/bin/ls $DIR | /usr/bin/dmenu ${DMENU_ARGS}`

if [ -f ${DIR}/${FILE} ]; then
  xsel -b -i < ${DIR}/${FILE}
  xdotool key ctrl+v
fi

lolilolicon · 2009-09-12 09:40:22

sessy wrote:

Is it true that xdotool can't type non-ascii chars?

Seems true to me, what a shame...

Dieter@be · 2009-09-12 18:40:55

So i wrote a tool, insipred by this script but with my own ideas in it (eg dynamic and static snippets, dmenu selection, xdotool type, xdg spec, zenity for storing new ones, ..)
I also want to integrate clipboard management into it ('volatile snips').

package:
http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=30071
code:
http://github.com/Dieterbe/snip/tree/master

sessy: if you let me know your real name i can give you credit

Last edited by Dieter@be (2009-09-12 18:44:00)

firecat53 · 2009-09-12 23:25:30

@Dieter@be -- awesome! works great so far. I'm gonna integrate the little caching script that brisbin33 wrote for dmenu, so the most commonly used snips appear first.

Scott

Peasantoid · 2009-09-12 23:27:55

With regard to original post:

cat "Hello World!" > ~/.snippy/hw

Shouldn't this be `echo`?

Dieter@be · 2009-09-13 10:09:45

Peasantoid wrote:

With regard to original post:
cat "Hello World!" > ~/.snippy/hw
Shouldn't this be `echo`?

indeed

Dieter@be · 2009-09-13 14:23:50

firecat53 wrote:

@Dieter@be -- awesome! works great so far. I'm gonna integrate the little caching script that brisbin33 wrote for dmenu, so the most commonly used snips appear first.
Scott

what about `ls -tu` ? this sorts files by access time. no need for extra caching scripts or files.
that said, I think the default behavior of ls (sort by name) is also fine. maybe i should introduce a config file for snip where you can set DMENU_ARGS and LS_ARGS

V for Vivian · 2009-09-13 15:15:40

It's really sad that xdotool can't handle special characters. I took the script from the AUR and changed it to avoid this problem. For me it uses now xclip to copy the string to the clipboard and pasts it with xdotool. The original clipboard is saved and restored afterwards. It's a bit clumsy but works for me. Oh, and I've removed the check for executability because I thought it wouldn't be necessary this way. Maybe I broke something...

#!/bin/sh
if [ x"$XDG_DATA_HOME" != "x" ]
then
    snips=$XDG_DATA_HOME/snip/snips
else
    snips=$HOME/.local/share/snip/snips
fi

[ -d $snips ] || mkdir -p $snips

if [ x"$DMENU_ARGS" == "x" ]
then
    DMENU_ARGS='-p snip: '
fi

if [ "$1" == 'load' ]
then
    #if [ "$2" == 'name' ]
    snip="$snips/$(ls $snips | dmenu $DMENU_ARGS)"
    if [ -f $snip ]
    then
                cb=`xclip -o -selection clipboard`
                xclip -i -selection clipboard $snip
                xdotool key ctrl+v
                xdotool key BackSpace
                printf $cb | xclip -selection clipboard
    fi
# this only works for (and is only useful for) static snips
# make dynamic snips manually
elif [ "$1" == 'save' ]
then
    txt=$(xsel)
    if [ x"$txt" == 'x' ]
    then
        txt=$(zenity --title "Save snip" --entry --text "Text to put in snip")
    fi
    name=$(zenity --title "Save snip" --entry --text "Filename to save snip as")
    echo "$txt" > $snips/$name
else
    echo "No valid arguments passed" >&2
    exit 2
fi

Dieter@be · 2009-09-13 16:12:34

V for Vivian wrote:

Oh, and I've removed the check for executability because I thought it wouldn't be necessary this way. Maybe I broke something...

well, it was there for a reason. see http://github.com/Dieterbe/snip/blob/master/README for more info

V for Vivian · 2009-09-13 16:40:50

Oh, right, so I have kind of crippled it. Second try.

#!/bin/sh
if [ x"$XDG_DATA_HOME" != "x" ]
then
    snips=$XDG_DATA_HOME/snip/snips
else
    snips=$HOME/.local/share/snip/snips
fi

[ -d $snips ] || mkdir -p $snips

if [ x"$DMENU_ARGS" == "x" ]
then
    DMENU_ARGS='-p snip: '
fi

if [ "$1" == 'load' ]
then
    #if [ "$2" == 'name' ]
    snip="$snips/$(ls $snips | dmenu $DMENU_ARGS)"
    if [ -f $snip ]
    then
        if [ -x $snip ]
        then
                        cb=`xclip -o -selection clipboard`
                        printf `"$snip"` | xsel -b -i
                        xdotool key ctrl+v
                        printf $cb | xsel -b -i
        else
                        cb=`xclip -o -selection clipboard`
                        printf `cat "$snip"` | xsel -b -i
                        xdotool key ctrl+v
                        printf $cb | xsel -b -i
        fi
    fi
# this only works for (and is only useful for) static snips
# make dynamic snips manually
elif [ "$1" == 'save' ]
then
    txt=$(xsel)
    if [ x"$txt" == 'x' ]
    then
        txt=$(zenity --title "Save snip" --entry --text "Text to put in snip")
    fi
    name=$(zenity --title "Save snip" --entry --text "Filename to save snip as")
    echo "$txt" > $snips/$name
else
    echo "No valid arguments passed" >&2
    exit 2
fi

edit01: Um, well, it seems to be broken in some cases anyway, please ignore everything I've posted...

edit02: Ok, it kinda works, but the snippet files have to end with a linebreak and it doesn't perform in a shell.

edit03: update - now can't handle multiple lines. but works better

Last edited by V for Vivian (2009-09-19 22:16:05)

firecat53 · 2009-09-13 20:14:49

Dieter@be wrote:

what about `ls -tu` ? this sorts files by access time. no need for extra caching scripts or files.

Well, that would work, except it wouldn't sort by frequency which is what brisbin33 solved w/ his caching script. I like having my regular dmenu pop up with my most used programs first, instead of alphabetical or most recently accessed (which is not necessarily most used). I don't think that would necessarily be important to other people, but it certainly could be an option.

Here's the code for launching dmenu with the caching feature (.dmenurc is sort of like your $DMENU_ARGS)

#!/bin/bash

if [ -f $HOME/.dmenurc ]; then
  . $HOME/.dmenurc
else
  DMENU='dmenu -i'
fi

TERMI='urxvt -e bash -lic'
CACHE="$HOME/.dmenu_cache_recent"

touch $CACHE
MOST_USED=$(LC_ALL="C"; sort $CACHE | uniq -c | sort -r | colrm 1 8)
RUN=$( (echo "$MOST_USED"; dmenu_path | grep -vxF "$MOST_USED") | $DMENU) && \n(echo $RUN; head -n99 $CACHE) > $CACHE.$$ && \nmv $CACHE.$$ $CACHE

case $RUN in
    *\;) $TERMI ${RUN/;/} & ;;
    *)   $RUN &             ;;
esac

exit 0

.dmenurc:

# makes dmenu identical across all scripts by sourcing this file
# aur/dmenu-vertical-xft required for xft fonts

DMENU='dmenu -i -fn xft:Inconsolata-10 -r -x 0 -y 17 -nb #303030 -nf #909090 -sb #909090 -sf #303030'

Again I take NO credit for this code!! I'm just passing it on because I like it Thanks brisbin33! What would be really cool is generalizing the caching script so any use of dmenu could use it (have different caches) -- for example -- normal dmenu, snippy, mpc playlist launcher.

Scott

Last edited by firecat53 (2009-09-13 20:17:06)

Dieter@be · 2009-09-14 19:18:15

firecat53 wrote:

What would be really cool is generalizing the caching script so any use of dmenu could use it (have different caches) -- for example -- normal dmenu, snippy, mpc playlist launcher.
Scott

I think I saw a patch in C for dmenu sometime that allowed a commandline arg to use a specific cache file. So that's probably exactly what you're looking for.

Personally I've never felt a need for it though

Oh btw, for those guys who use uzbl, I wrote snips which let you pick url's from your uzbl history/bookmarks. see http://github.com/Dieterbe/snip/tree/ma … les/snips/

Arch Linux

#1 2009-05-11 10:17:54

Snippy - poor mans text snippet expander

#2 2009-06-30 03:07:07

Re: Snippy - poor mans text snippet expander

#3 2009-06-30 07:13:20

Re: Snippy - poor mans text snippet expander

#4 2009-06-30 08:05:00

Re: Snippy - poor mans text snippet expander

#5 2009-06-30 08:53:53

Re: Snippy - poor mans text snippet expander

#6 2009-06-30 11:11:45

Re: Snippy - poor mans text snippet expander

#7 2009-06-30 15:18:33

Re: Snippy - poor mans text snippet expander

#8 2009-07-11 22:18:47

Re: Snippy - poor mans text snippet expander

#9 2009-07-12 09:20:42

Re: Snippy - poor mans text snippet expander

#10 2009-07-12 14:50:31

Re: Snippy - poor mans text snippet expander

#11 2009-07-13 09:01:20

Re: Snippy - poor mans text snippet expander

#12 2009-07-16 13:05:30

Re: Snippy - poor mans text snippet expander

#13 2009-07-16 13:14:59

Re: Snippy - poor mans text snippet expander

#14 2009-07-16 13:32:46

Re: Snippy - poor mans text snippet expander

#15 2009-09-12 09:40:22

Re: Snippy - poor mans text snippet expander

#16 2009-09-12 18:40:55

Re: Snippy - poor mans text snippet expander

#17 2009-09-12 23:25:30

Re: Snippy - poor mans text snippet expander

#18 2009-09-12 23:27:55

Re: Snippy - poor mans text snippet expander

#19 2009-09-13 10:09:45

Re: Snippy - poor mans text snippet expander

#20 2009-09-13 14:23:50

Re: Snippy - poor mans text snippet expander

#21 2009-09-13 15:15:40

Re: Snippy - poor mans text snippet expander

#22 2009-09-13 16:12:34

Re: Snippy - poor mans text snippet expander

#23 2009-09-13 16:40:50

Re: Snippy - poor mans text snippet expander

#24 2009-09-13 20:14:49

Re: Snippy - poor mans text snippet expander

#25 2009-09-14 19:18:15

Re: Snippy - poor mans text snippet expander

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