charliehess/electron-text-substitutions

Substitute text in an input field based on macOS System Text Preferences

electron-text-substitutions

Are you…

• Using Electron?
• Making a Mac app?
• And want it to respect your macOS text substitutions?

Then this is ✨ FOR YOU. ✨

Install

npm i electron-text-substitutions --save

Electron ≥v1.2.2 is required for this to work.

Use

import performTextSubstitution from 'electron-text-substitutions';

let input = document.getElementById('my-input');
performTextSubstitution(input);

We use the system-preferences API to get the user's text substitutions. If you have smart quotes or dashes enabled, we'll handle that too.

Change notifications

To receive text preference change notifications, you'll need to call an additional method, that only works in the main process. This should be called before any renderer starts using text substitutions.

import {listenForPreferenceChanges} from 'electron-text-substitutions';
listenForPreferenceChanges();

API

Renderer Process

/**
 * Adds an `input` event listener to the given element (an <input> or
 * <textarea>) that will substitute text based on the user's replacements in
 * `NSUserDefaults`, as well as smart quotes and dashes.
 *
 * @param  {EventTarget} element  The DOM node to listen to; should fire the `input` event
 * @return {Disposable}           A `Disposable` that will clean up everything this method did
 */
performTextSubstitution(element);

Main Process

/**
 * Subscribes to text preference changed notifications and notifies listeners
 * in renderer processes. This method must be called from the main process, and
 * should be called before any renderer process calls `performTextSubstitution`.
 *
 * @return {Disposable}  A `Disposable` that will clean up everything this method did
 */
listenForPreferenceChanges() {

electron-text-substitutions's Issues

Mac: cursor needs to move to end of new text after substitution

I have this substitution:

/hi -> I'm Chris, greetings from Slack HQ in San Francisco.

After I typed the input the cursor was left just after the 'm' in "I'm" rather than at the end.

Handle contenteditable

We can't rely on .value for, say, a div with contenteditable set. We need to rely on innerHTML or something similar.

Text substitutions are untenably slow if you add enough of them

If you install something like Macmoji, which creates a text substitution for every emoji, getReplacementItems becomes slow (around ~2s).

Module relies on private getId method

Electron 4.0 has entirely removed this method. See: electron/electron#13674

Undoing text substitutions is tricky

I have a substitution set up for -- to turn into —. Sometimes, I don't want the substitution to happen.

If I type "--" (without the quotes), the substitution happens when I type the second backpack. If I press undo, I'm left with a selection that spans the two dashes and the following backtick. I should have no text selected, and my cursor should still be to the right of the second backtick.

Smart quote substitution leave me with unexpected cursor position

With smart quote substitution turned on, my cursor jumps to following the substituted character rather than remaining where it was.

Steps to Repro

1. type something in your message input.
2. move your cursor to the beginning of the line with ⌘←
3. type a straight quote
4. move your cursor to the end of the line with ⌘→
5. type a straight quote a space

Results

Your cursor is moved to immediately after the substitution so the space is inserted after the s

Expected

Your space is inserted at the end of the line

---

Possibly related: Bug #25598: Navigating emoji suggestions inserts duplicate text.

Triggers are replaced if cursor is anywhere after the trigger text

Steps to reproduce:

1. make a trigger of "bug!" and have it be replaced by "we hates them"
2. type "bug!" and note the replacement
3. type ⌘Z to undo the replacement
4. type any character

Expected results
I expected that if I undo a replacement that it wouldn't trigger again, and certainly not when the cursor was outside of the trigger text

Actual results
Replacement happens any time there is typing after the trigger text regardless of user action. This is especially problematic if you have a trigger that matches a /command and type it at column zero.

Reproducible?
Always

Environment
2.2.0-beta4