Multiple Choice
Creating Multiple Choice Snippets
Identical Shortcuts
If you create snippets with identical shortcuts:
The preview will show all of them at the same time, allowing you to choose which one you want to expand:
Use the arrow keys on your keyboard to change the selection before you hit TAB to expand:
Text Complete
Text Complete shortcuts can also be multiple choice. But you also have the ability to narrow down your choices simply by typing more of the snippet, weeding out no-longer-matching snippets:
Using the arrow keys to make your choice:
Continued typing to narrow down to your choice:
What About Instant Replace?
Instant Replace shortcuts expand immediately, but when there are conflicting shortcuts they will revert to non-instant and display a warning at the bottom of the pop up preview.
Snippet Order
Text Complete snippets will always appear at the top of the preview, followed by Text Replace snippets. Otherwise their order reflects the order they appear in the snippet list.
To re-order snippets you can use the drag handle to the right of the snippet(s):
Muscle Memory
The order of snippets will remain consistent. We don't employ any 'smart' ordering as we feel this destroys the ability to develop muscle memory which is more efficient than having to check what's where every time you expand something.
Refinements
Telling Similar Snippets Apart
By default, a snippet preview shows the very start of the snippet text so you can see what you're about to expand. But if you have a list of snippets that all start with the same text you won’t know which is which! Labels allow you to show alternative text in place of the default preview, so you know what’s what.
Preventing Multiple Choice
There are a few ways to have the same shortcut without causing a multiple choice preview. We've listed the options below.
1) Turn On Case Sensitivity
You can use case sensitivity to distinguish between otherwise identical shortcuts, to prevent multiple-choice.
Learn more about Case Sensitivity here →
2) Use Trigger Settings
You can add trigger settings on any shortcut to limit it’s 'trigger-ability'. For example preventing shortcuts from triggering if they're inside a word, or if they don't precede custom text.
Learn more about Trigger Settings here →
3) Deactivate Snippets
If you have the same shortcut for different purposes, you can deactivate the ones you’re not currently using if they're in a different page or folder. Simply right-click on the page or folder you want to deactivate, and select 'Deactivate':
Your deactivated pages will be greyed out in the side bar and show a deactivated marker at the top of the page:
