Tom Lawrence

Autocomplete in TextEdit - Mac OS X Hints

burkean:

mnmal:

minimalmac:

And now, we interrupt our programming to bring you this “Holy Carp! Coolest undocumented TextEdit find ever!” tip from David Mendels of Edito fame:

While getting some work done far too late at night, my fingers accidentally pressed some buttons on the keyboard and up popped a dialog I’ve never seen before: an autocomplete window for TextEdit.

To activate the autocomplete window, simply start typing a word and press the escape key. A window will pop up listing all of the words starting with the letters you entered. You can use the arrow keys to go up and down the list. Pressing enter/return completes the word in your TextEdit document. If there are too many words in the autocomplete list, you can type additional letters (without having to manually close the autocomplete window) and hit the escape key again to bring up the autocomplete window with the filtered down choices. Pressing escape while the autocomplete window is open will close it.

I find this to be particularly useful for long words where I might need assistance to complete the spelling of the word.

As far as I’m aware, this hint is not documented on Apple’s website.

You’re welcome.

The wonders of TextEdit never stop.

I like.

I’m amused at how many secrets Mac computers apparently have.

P.S. You’ll never misspell Jordan as Jordon again.

Since I use Xcode (where Escape also happens to bring up IntelliSe… I mean, CodeSense is activated by the Escape key, this also works in editors such as TextEdit and TextMate. Pretty pointless feature with regards to spelling I find since Mac OS X features a system-wide inline spell-checker and dictionary that pretty much rule out the need to use auto-complete. Still, reblogging for the interest of others.

27th Oct 2010 at 12:58

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This is the last time Mac users will be seeing this via Software Update and potentially the end of Java altogether on Mac OS X. Even if Oracle do have plans to produce their own implementation of Java for Macs, developers that choose Java as their language of choice will be unable to publish their apps on Apple’s recently announced Mac App Store. This means no Minecraft, no Netbeans, no PS3 Media Server, no NASA World Wind, no jDownloader, no Azureus and probably a tonne of other apps (although let’s face it - half of these apps are terrible anyway) that thousands, potentially millions of Macs use on a daily basis, all of which are officially banned from the App Store.

It’s a smart move by Apple (considering the 30% cut they get from all App Store purchases) and almost definitely a step forward from the user’s perspective. As for developers, it could greatly reduce the number of people willing to learn Objective-C and jump through the necessary hoops to publish their software on the platform.

At the rate that Apple are beginning to take control over software distribution on their platforms, it is only a matter of time till they announce all software must be signed and installed via the App Store and we have to resort to jailbreaking our computers to run unsigned third-party software.

16th Jul 2010 at 21:38

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Wow, I am literally stunned by Apple’s response to the antenna issue.

They essentially attempted to redirect the negative press on signal attenuation onto other manufacturer’s handsets; quite possibly the most distasteful and pathetic option the company could have chosen.

On top of all of that, they put together some seriously bullshit statistics such as how only 0.55% of iPhone users have called AppleCare about antenna or reception problems. What they forgot to tell you is the percentage of iPhone 4 users who have actually purchased the iPhone AppleCare Protection Plan. Lets face it, complaints of this problem were entered into a comment box on every tech-related web site. The actual number of users who have complained is far greater than your mere 0.55%.

Lets look at the statistic on return rates, where it is written in smaller text that the 1.7% returns rate is only on AT&T early shipments. Remember that this phone is available in however many countries, narrowing down a good percentage of users right there. Exactly what counts as an early shipment? Any time between the release date and now? A pre-order (most likely)?. A phone that was dispatched earlier than the release date? This statistic isn’t made clear and I would love to know as a percentage how many of those 3,000,000 iPhone 4’s are AT&T ‘early shipments’. My guess is nowhere near as many as the hundreds of thousands of people that queued outside shops all around the world for this device.

To top the presentation off, Apple showcased the company’s arrogance by stating that “we think it’s affecting a small batch, but it has to do with inherent problems in smartphones. But we want all of our users to be happy” by providing us with a free bumper case as if they are the only smartphone on the market who now has a phone with no signal attenuation problems. To also state that they don’t reckon they owe investors an apology is downright rude. These are the people that provide you with financial backing. They expect you to be safe with their money and use it to test products before shipping them, regardless of how much stock prices dropped by.

Oh, and they couldn’t resist taking another stab at Gizmodo in the Q&A. It’s this kind of arrogance that tempts me to trade in my iPhone 4 on signal problems and go pick up an Android phone like the Samsung Galaxy S or HTC Desire.

—

You can read Engadget’s live blog of today’s press conference here.

24th Jun 2010 at 15:27

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GPOYW: iPhone 4 Edition.

12th Apr 2010 at 03:19

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This is why I develop for Microsoft's platforms and not Apple's.

24th Mar 2010 at 02:28

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Opera Mini 5 for iPhone

So can’t wait for this! Opera beats the crap out of Safari on both mobile and desktop platforms.

The app has already been submitted to Apple for review to be placed on the App Store and the folks at Opera are giving away a free iPhone 3GS for the person who guesses the closest time to when Apple approve the app. You can check that out here.

And as always, I heartily encourage people to try out the desktop version if they haven’t done so before (especially the Windows users out there, Mac users I’d probably wait for the 10.50 final release, although a beta version is available).

30th Jan 2010 at 03:28

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Oh and the lock-screen just looks stupid on the iPad imo.

There should be at least some widgets available on here (such as Cydgets or LockInfo available for iPhone via Cydia) instead of just acting as a pretty picture and a slide lock.