On my eternal quest for free OS X apps to make my life easier and increase my productivity, I stumbled across a nifty free program called RapidoWrite, released by the software developer app4mac. At first sight, it seemed like a tool that would only make my life more confusing. However after using it for the past week, I came to the conclusion that I could not have been more wrong in my assumption.
The idea behind this tool is that every day, computer users repeatedly type a set of phrases, lists, sentences and so on. To save time, increase productivity and allow for even more ease of use, RapidoWrite allows the user to enter several classifications of text. Within these classifications, shortcuts can be defined with groupings of text, including sentences, phrases, lists, paragraphs, and much more tied to them.
With RapidoWrite running, all that is necessary to enter one of the user-defined text selections is to begin typing the custom shortcut where that text is to be inserted. Automatically, after a few letters, the shortcut will be recognized, and a list of matching text combinations will appear in a window, allowing you to choose one. Once chosen, the appropriate text for the entered abbreviation will be entered at the cursor location.
Here is a demo video found on the app4mac site of RapidoWrite in action, showcasing some of its features.
screenshots credit www.app4mac.com
I find this OS X application to be a very useful one, and even better, it’s free. As a web designer, blogger, and student, I often need to enter certain code structures, headings, and other formatting repeatedly. Before using this program, I just dealt with typing those things over and over. Now however, I don’t see how I live without it. RapidoWrite is a definite must have for any Mac user who does data entry, typing or coding and it can be found at http://www.app4mac.com
(By) Kevin Richard is a freelance web developer and video editor from southern New Jersey. He is Managing Editor of TechNETWORK.us and enjoys blogging on his own personal site at KRichardSays.com as well as podcasting and gaming.
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Filed Under: Cool Software Apps ¦ Mac
Tags: Mac, productivity, shortcuts
Nice find but the demo video isn’t working for me.
it’s great but doesn’t work in lots of applications (like firefox). for total support, textexpander and the others are better.
There is another way. and are better because they are not big applications but small preference panes. And they still have the same functionality as RapidoWrite plus more.
I use a Firefox extensions calling “Clippings” which does the same job - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1347