This is the second rave I’ve posted about Smile Software and it’s killer  typing utility, TextExpander, which auto-expands “snippets” that you type. For example, I only need to type =D and press the spacebar to have it automatically expanded into =Drummond.

I shine this spotlight not just because I love the product, but because it illustrates the fundamental dynamic behind the entire VRM (Vendor Relationship Management) movement: companies and customers that develop deep bi-directional trust relationships can create value that neither can produce alone. That’s the magic we’re trying to enable with the Respect Network.

Here’s the response I got back verbatim from Bob at Smile Software (the top part) after I sent in a simple feature suggestion to their support email address yesterday (the bottom part).

AUG 18, 2012  |  09:21AM PDT

Drummond,

That’s a super smart idea, and a clear, well-articulated, and very reasonable feature request. We’ll seriously, seriously consider it, and I’ve passed it on to our engineers.

Thanks so much for your suggestion. It’s really nice having great customers who help us make our stuff better.

Best,

Bob
Smile Support
support@smilesoftware.com
Smile. Software that’s just right.
http://smilesoftware.com

AUG 17, 2012  |  10:15AM PDT

Original message

Gang,

I love TE so much I never want to use a Mac without it. It’s deeply ingrained into my daily computer usage.

I’m using 4.0.1 and I have a simple suggestion: that the hotkey-invoked “quick add” interface box, which I use all the time to create a new snippet, be revised to include a set of radio buttons to set what is the Abbreviation drop-down list option in the full TE interface box.

Here’s why:

1. For most people, the default Abbreviation setting will be Ignore Case because this way all Proper Noun snippets will be First Letter Caps regardless of how you type the snippet.
2. But for most generic noun snippets, you actually want the Abbreviation setting to be Adapt to Case of Abbreviation so that the expansion will be capitalized at the start of a sentence and lowercase otherwise.

Currently, there is no way to change the default in the quick add interface box to change this Abbreviation setting. And if you click the “Open TextExpander” button, it throws you into the full TE interface box and forgets the snippet that you are trying to create. All you need to do to fix this is add three radio buttons to the quick add interface box and set the default to the person’s Abbreviation default. Then the user could change this setting for a particular snippet with one click.

FOR A THOUSAND BONUS POINTS….

…you could make TE smart about which of these three radio buttons would be the default:

1. It should default to Ignore Case when the snippet being created starts with a capital letter.
2. It should default to Adapt to Case when the snipped being created is all lowercase.

Thanks for listening,

=Drummond