Category: Templates

Save on typing with the Auto Text feature

Auto Text is a new feature in WhizFolders that will save your typing time for often used words, phrases and even whole text blocks. All you need to do is make up a WhizFolder document containing your Auto Text mnemonics and their expanded text or text snippets. Then set this document as an Auto Text reference list. It can’t get easier than that, thanks to WhizFolders two-pane document design.

The new version 6.3.6 of WhizFolders has an Auto Text feature. Auto Text is a feature that will save your typing time for often used words, phrases and even whole text blocks. All you need to do is make up a WhizFolder document containing your Auto Text mnemonics and their expanded text or text snippets. Then set this document as an Auto Text reference list. It can’t get easier than that, thanks to WhizFolders two-pane document design.

If you set up Auto Text, you can type a word and then press Ctrl-Space to have it replaced by any text replacement, even a big block of text having many paragraphs.

For example, you type “inf” and press Ctrl-Space to have it replaced by the text “information.” In this article, I will call such a short word inf–a mnemonic and information–its expansion.

You might have seen such a feature in word processors but the best part in WhizFolders is making up the list of mnemonics and their expansion. Here is a step by step example:

  1. Create a new WhizFolder document called “my mnemonics.”
  2. Add a topic with the name “inf” and its text as “information.”
  3. Click on Tools–General Options–Editor, Auto Text. Then click “Select Document” to select the above document. That’s it. You’re done.

    Save on typing effort with auto text feature

  4. Now open a topic for editing and type “inf” then press Ctrl-Space. It will be replaced by “information.”
  5. Now another convenience of using WhizFolders. To add more mnemonics or to modify one, just reopen your document created above. Add or change stuff then press Save All. As soon as you do that, your new mnemonics are in effect. It’s the extra convenience of changing and testing right there that really matters.

Since this is a new feature, we would like to get more ideas on how to improve this and whether some things don’t work correctly.

Using templates (canned text or boilerplate text)

Many times you may want to reuse the text for another topic with some minor changes. Earlier, in the Pro version, you did this by copying topics via clipboard or drag and drop. But we have made this easier and more powerful with the use of “text templates.” You can set up a WhizFolder document to contain templates and then reference this document to insert boilerplate text in other documents.

The topics from this template document appear in a collapsible list on the right of the document as shown in the following picture.

List of template topics

Select any topic from the above list, and click on a button “Use.” This makes up the canned text from that topic and inserts it at the current editor position or as a new topic (if you are not editing).

Advanced users will be delighted to know that you can insert some tags in this canned text. These tags can be date, time or entry fields. If entry fields are present then as soon as you click, a form comes up where you enter the field values and the text is created from them. See examples below.
List of template topics

List of template topics