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Development Tools

Posted by Peter Vann
Peter Vann
36,425 Points

This is not a question, but something of a tip/recommendation for any Mac users out there...

Again, for any Mac users out there, I highly recommend checking out Dash:

https://kapeli.com/dash

(Unfortunately, it is only available for the Mac, but there are similar programs for Windows as well)

It's a handy little program that serves two main purposes:

1) It's a repository for documentation for just about any programming language imaginable, and keeps that documentation available even if you are offline.

2) (And this is really what I mostly use it for) It is a snippet manager (a.k.a. a text expander)

What is a snippet manager/text expander?

It is a program that allows you to associate short abbreviations with long blocks of text that you need to retype frequently. Many modern code/text editors offer similar functionality, but the real beauty of Dash is that it will expand text ANYWHERE ON YOUR SYSTEM that you can place a cursor and type (with the exception of password fields, I came to find)

One tip: begin your abbreviations with a backtick, to lessen the likelihood of accidentally expanding text.

For Example, for use in the forums, I have made two abbreviations that I use constantly:

(backtick)ss

Prints out

I hope that helps.

Stay safe and happy coding!

And

(backtick)js

Prints out

(```javascript

```)

(Without the parens, of course, I had to use them for it to display it right in the markup, if you can imagine!?! LOL)

(Note: I had to write the abbreviations with (backtick) instead of an actual ` because otherwise it just expands the text!?! LOL)

I hope that helps.

Stay safe and happy coding!

(See - I just used it again!?!)