Several years ago, I was approached by Smile Software, the then-owner of TextExpander, about discontinuing support for the TextExpander iOS SDK, which allows direct integration of snippets with Drafts.
I posted details about this change in the past. Over time, it seems TextExpander has had different priorities than iOS integration. I’ve let the integration continue to work for people still running old versions of TextExpander over the last couple of years. Still, I think it’s all the point that I need to remove that support from the shipping app as it’s getting long in the tooth, breaks in some cases, and I don’t think it is super commonly used.
I just wanted to give a heads-up to anyone still using this integration that they should plan on it going away in the next major update.
See my original post for some suggestions on ways to replace TextExpander.
PS: This has no effect on TextExpander functionality on Mac, which never required any direct integration.
I’ve made several enquiries over the years, yes, years as to whether the Textexpander keyboard is ever likely to come out of beta/Testflight. I only ever get a response that looks as if it’s likely a text expansion snippet.
You will still have the option to use their beta keyboard solution. Maybe a better solution, as it works in any app. Not sure what the status of that project is, since it has remained in beta for years – but it is available.
Hi!
I was coming here to see if there was any chance for this change to be stopped – given that the TE SDK integration (for me) has been working reliably for a long time, and it’s a part of my workflow.
I know that the direction that TE is taking is a different one, but to be honest I’m not that much of a fan of Yet Another Cloud Service (I’ve stayed in v5 to allow for “manual” sync of snippets)… and given that the SDK is working I thought it might be worth asking !!
And I do use it quite heavily - these are my statistics on 1 Mac only for this Month:
This has no effect on use of TextExpander on Mac. You can continue to use it on Mac as always – and TextExpander offers an alternative solution on iOS (albeit in beta).
It’s not viable for me to continue to offer this integration in the iOS app, however, as it was completely abandoned by TextExpander. The app you need to use hasn’t even been for sale in the App Store for some time, and the SDK itself is not open source and cannot be maintained or updated and is causing problems that effect the distribution of the Drafts.
I don’t take discontinuing features lightly – as you might note from the fact that I still maintain an integration with Evernote via an open source SDK they discontinued some 10 years ago.
Sorry if I came across as antagonistic; that’s not the case and I understand that supporting a product like Drafts means you have to cut the chaff every now and then…
I know and appreciate that you’ve been keeping the TE SDK in the product for a long time … I guess I was maybe thinking “why not a bit longer” …
I knew I’d have to face this change at some point (TE doesn’t seem to be evolving much if at all!), so sorry if I let my frustration with their situation get the best of me!
Thanks a million for all the work with Drafts for these many years!
(PS: Do you know of any good TE alternatives out there? If I have to change then I might as well consider a full change !! )
This is not meant to be canonical advice, but I can tell you I migrated off TE a couple of years ago, and what did was sort of split up the tasks. For shorter, static text items, I use Apple’s built-in text expansions (things like email address, names). For dynamic things (mostly date/time related), I use Drafts’ autocomplete. For longer text, I either moved them into macros in my support system, or use Keyboard Maestro on Mac.
Since I do most of my work-work on Mac, it’s not too problematic to rely on KM.
Thanks a lot for the suggestions – I believe that way approach makes a lot of sense
I’m not 100% sold on using Apple’s autocomplete as I’ve found it to be a bit slow/not that reliable in the iDevices (wish it worked better, as that’d give me some leve of “text snippets” on any app on iPhone/iPad)… but for my main TE use case in the iDevices (in Drafts - I have other TE SDK enabled apps but I use them waaaayy less than Drafts)
I’m sure I’ll have question on the autocomplete etc but I’ll shoot them on a different thread - thanks!
!!