Hacker News Reader

federicoterzion Show HN: Espanso: detect a typed keyword and replace it while you're typing

Hey, It's unlikely that espanso will become a library anytime soon, but I'm currently refactoring the core into separate crates to follow a more modular "workspace" approach. So if you want to write your own standalone program, you could just pick the modules you need!

Started the refactor a few days ago so it's still in the early stage, but it's happening here: https://github.com/federico-terzi/espanso/tree/dev-1.x

federicoterzion Show HN: Espanso: detect a typed keyword and replace it while you're typing

Thanks! TextExpander is a great product indeed, but it did not work on Linux and that's one of the reasons why I originally created espanso :)

federicoterzion Show HN: Espanso: detect a typed keyword and replace it while you're typing

Also, the biggest benefit of this approach compared to a VSCode-only snippet, is that it works on any application and also between different operating systems, which makes it easier to collaborate and reuse them :)

federicoterzion Show HN: Espanso: detect a typed keyword and replace it while you're typing

Good point, I've wrote a short section to detail the security aspects: https://github.com/federico-terzi/espanso/blob/master/SECURI...

TLDR: It's not a keylogger, because it doesn't log anything :)

Moreover, on macOS the detection mechanism is automatically disabled on password fields

federicoterzion Show HN: Espanso: detect a typed keyword and replace it while you're typing

Thanks, and by the way, espanso is completely free and open-source! Though if you like it, a donation is always welcomed :)

federicoterzion Show HN: Espanso: detect a typed keyword and replace it while you're typing

Yep, that often happens! I sometimes experience this behavior on Google Docs, especially on slower machines

federicoterzion Show HN: Espanso: detect a typed keyword and replace it while you're typing

Espanso currently supports X11-based linux systems through the X Record Extension [1] and libxdo [2]

That said, I'm currently working on another engine based on evdev that could be able to support also Wayland systems.

For the linux install see also: https://espanso.org/install/linux/

[1]: https://www.x.org/releases/X11R7.6/doc/libXtst/recordlib.htm... [2]: https://github.com/jordansissel/xdotool

federicoterzion Show HN: Espanso: detect a typed keyword and replace it while you're typing

(Author here)

Feel free to ask any question, I'll be happy to answer them :)

federicoterzion Show HN: Espanso: detect a typed keyword and replace it while you're typing

(Author here)

As long as the program accepts keyboard input or clipboard pasting, espanso should work correctly. There are some programs that behave a little bit differently (such as Thunderbird on Linux), that require a couple of configuration changes to work as expected (for example, slowing down the injections if the program is slow to process input).

Happy to answer any other question :)

federicoterzion Italy is extending its coronavirus quarantine measures to the entire country

Italian student here! Now most universities offer remote lessons/exams over the internet (in my case with Microsoft Teams).

federicoterzion Espanso: Cross-Platform Text Expander Written in Rust

Espanso creator here :)

To me, Rust makes it incredibly easier to build performant applications compared to C++. Before creating espanso, I made a couple of projects using C++, and while the language itself wasn't bad, the compilation process was a pain. Any new dependency needed to be carefully considered, as it could have introduced new problems in the build step.

On the other hand, Rust makes it a breeze. The language itself is not super easy though, but that's the price to pay for such guarantees + efficiency