Developer Blog

... is really cool and useful, helps you get things typed even faster than before, and was just added in v2.35, released today.

The way it works is, when Breevy finds an %(Input) in the replacement text of an abbreviation, it will pause -- right in the middle of outputting the replacement text -- and wait for your input. After you're done typing your input, you can press the Tab key and Breevy will continue with the rest of the output.

For example, if you have a replacement text of Hello, my name is %(Input) and I live in %(Input)., Breevy would first output Hello, my name is (after you type the abbreviation associated with the replacement text, of course) and then it would wait for your input. Of course, in this case you would enter your name.

Then you'd press Tab to tell Breevy you're done. Breevy would then continue "typing" the rest of the replacement text until the next %(Input): and I live in. Once again it would pause and wait for your input... this time, you would want to enter your location. Press Tab again and Breevy continues with the output... in this case, just a period.

You can also optionally add identifiers to the %(Input) macro. For example, if you do something like %(Input e-mail address), Breevy would first output e-mail address, automatically select / highlight it, and then pause, allowing you to type your e-mail address (no need for you to manually delete the phrase e-mail address since if you type a key while text is highlighted, the highlighted text is removed).

The benefit to using identifiers in the %(Input) macro is, while they're not necessary, they make it easier to quickly remember what you're supposed to type at a certain point in the replacement text.

You can download Breevy here and try out the new macro for yourself.

One of the cool features added to Breevy 2.30 (released today) is the %(Key), %(KeyDown), and %(KeyUp) macros, which allow you to instruct Breevy to simulate "special" key presses like the Home key, the Insert and Delete key, the Ctrl, Alt, and Escape keys, etc.

Letters, numbers, and other characters could already be typed by Breevy when their corresponding abbreviation was typed by the user (for more on how Breevy works, and how it can help you get things typed much faster, click here). Prior to v2.30, however, key combinations and keys that don't display a character when typed -- Ctrl, Alt, etc -- couldn't be, because there was no way for them to be represented in an abbreviation's replacement text field.

But with the addition of the %(Key), %(KeyDown), and %(KeyUp) macros, now you can instruct Breevy to press those special keys and key combos.

For example:

• %(Key Ctrl+Alt+H) tells Breevy to press Ctrl, Alt, and H simultaneously

• %(Key Ctrl+Tab 10) tells Breevy to press Ctrl and Tab simultaneously a total of 10 times

• %(KeyDown Alt)01234%(KeyUp Alt) tells Breevy to simulate a press and hold of the Alt key down. Breevy will then type '01234' and then simulate a lift ("keyup") of the Alt key

• Hello!%(Key Ctrl+A+C) tells Breevy to type Hello!, then simulate a press Ctrl+A and Ctrl+C -- effectively causing the word Hello! to be selected and copied to the clipboard

For more info, just press F2 while in Breevy's main window.

Today we released Breevy 2.24, which adds support for importing your custom Microsoft Word AutoCorrect entries automatically.

All you need to do is click File -> Import Microsoft Word AutoCorrections and they'll be imported for you.

You can then disable AutoCorrect in Microsoft Word, since Breevy can replace your AutoCorrections universally in any application, not just Word.

We released Breevy 2.00 today, which includes support for program and website launching:

We've got a lot of cool stuff we plan on implementing into Breevy in the near future, so stay tuned.

For the past few weeks we've been working on a really cool app called Breevy:

In a nutshell, Breevy lets you abbreviate words and phrases... so, for example, instead of typing Hello, your order shipped today via UPS and you should receive it in 2-3 days, with Breevy you could just type yost (or whatever you'd like to define as an abbreviation for the phrase) and it'll be replaced for you automatically, saving you quite a few keystrokes -- in our example, 4 vs. 77 keystrokes.

You can check out the full announcement on our forums and you can download Breevy here.

Let us know what you think.