Tuesday, September 2, 2014

TextExpander Snippet Expansion Comes to Every App in iOS 8

Smile Software (via Federico Viticci):

Prior to iOS 8, only apps which implemented the TextExpander touch SDK could expand snippets directly.

Under iOS 8, the TextExpander keyboard will work system-wide and reliably share snippets with the TextExpander app. The keyboard will also include full VoiceOver accessibility support.

Update (2014-09-02): Clark Goble:

The keyboard I’m most looking forward to myself is SwipeSelection. Apple even changed the keyboard API to make keyboards like SwipeSelection possible in iOS 8. If TextExpander including sensical cursor movement in their keyboard ala SwipeSelection I’d probably get it immediately. Although it should be a selectable option.

It’s what’s possible now, but it seems like a custom keyboard is not really the best way to integrate TextExpander into iOS. Why should I have to use their keyboard user interface (and forego other custom keyboards) just to get their code to see what I’m typing?

4 Comments RSS · Twitter

Matt Deatherage

I haven't read the entire iOS 8 SDK, but other than a custom keyboard, what other methods are available to make sure TextExpander gets a chance to see all text input in every application?

@Matt As far as I know, none. What I was rather clumsily trying to say is that iOS should offer a different type of API so that TextExpander and similar apps don’t have to create custom keyboards.

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