Beeftext

[smaragdus]

Preamble
I have been using text expander programs for years and now I cannot imagine working on computers without such assistants. I had been using TyperTask for years- an extremely tiny and elegant text automation tool, but it was abandoned (it cannot be downloaded from the publisher's website any more) and it didn't support Unicode. Then I switched to PhraseExpress which is a powerful and well-designed program but the free version is limited. Also I was locked in version 11 because of GUI changes I found abominable (in short, the ribbon has stricken again). I also tried Lintalist which is a nice tool but for me it is not easy to configure. So I was searching for an alternative and some time ago I found a program which completely satisfies my text automation needs- it is free and open source, it is portable (from version 0.11), it supports Unicode, it is in active development- in one word- this is Beeftext.

Synopsis

Beeftext is a text snippet management tool for Windows, inspired by TextExpander.

TextExpander is a great program, packed with features. To to keep the company profitable, Smile had to switch to a subscription-based model in 2016. And for people who only need the basic features of TextExpander, the monthly price is way too high.

Beeftext aims to be the best possible alternative to TextExpander. Beeftext is an open-source project written in C++ using the Qt framework.

Features

• Unlimited number of snippets called combos;
• Combos can be organized into groups;
• Combos can be disabled;
• Combos can be executed anywhere- in text editors, mail clients, browsers, file managers, etc;
• Automatic or manual (via shortcut key) combo triggering;
• Automatic backup of combos;
• Export and Import of combos;
• Tray control;
• Program can be paused;
• Theme;
• Play sound on combo execution;
• Update check (which can be disabled);
• Multilingual program- currently English and French are supported;
• Unicode support;

Links
Website
Project
Download
Wiki
Portable Edition
License
Issues
Publisher
Publisher
Twitter
Softpedia
AlternativeTo

Downloads
Direct download links for Beeftext version 0.13 (released on 2018-03-18):

• Archive
• Installer

Images

Beeftext - combos - with theme:



Beeftext - combos - without theme:



Beeftext - preferences:



Beeftext - new group:



Beeftext - new combo:



Beeftext - context menu:



Beeftext - tray control:



Beeftext - about:




Portability
As mentioned above since version 0.11 Beeftext comes with a native portable version.

Instructions

• Download the portable zip archive;
• Extract the archive to a folder if your choice;
• Run the executable (Beeftext.exe);
• Do not delete Portable.bin file;
• Data and settings are saved in Data sub-folder (which contains Backup sub-folder and Settings.ini, comboList.json, log.txt files).

Requirements
Beeftext runs on Windows 7 and newer.

License
Beeftext is released under MIT License.

Note
I would like to thank again the developer- Xavier Michelon, for accepting my request for portable version of Beeftext, for his helpfulness and for his work on the program.

Although Beeftext is very stable the developer has chosen to label every version prior to version 1.0 as pre-release.

There are some differences between the installer and the portable version- the portable one lacks these options:

• it cannot be set to start automatically;
• the combo list folder location cannot be customized;
• the program cannot be updated automatically;

On my Windows 8 x64 system Beeftext uses a moderate amount of memory- about 33 MB of RAM.

Details
File details for Beeftext version 0.13 (released on 2018-03-18):

==

Archive:
Name: Beeftext-0.13-PortableEdition.zip
File Size: 8367164 Byte(s) (7.98 MB)
Modified Date: 2018-03-18 16:01
MD5: d95e411336a44ae5fff547c4dfb64964
SHA1: 3dbdf3bde00780d0c60c9606f06d963a586b2f45
SHA256: eeb4d101bb35c577e80064c26e29a0d6143412d83b01d7decf112515f6105313
SHA512: e9464bdab0ef7d94bb722d6315f53fc57990f9db6482af08418535ceeb008553c462a75c755ab8fae226b72416490e2cdd926cf7ecdbbcac10e47a5329e9c8a4

==

Installer:
Name: Audio Catalogues\Beeftext-0.13-Installer.exe
File Size: 19464333 Byte(s) (18.56 MB)
Modified Date: 2018-03-18 16:01
MD5: c448e8867023b77ffb87a6cc228cc1e3
SHA1: 47706041d3618484a181804582c5a10cb1417e58
SHA256: 12a0c9423c4bf871400883efb1a3f79ccb80216cf36104b28eaa16f90e0280d3
SHA512: ec40208a13c145ea34ba7aa4d6c0aa116becb7f26242066fd576c59daa08540cd102d862f9ca50dd4bbb2a06942376b7d9d9cdbeb941dfa051c9950c2a014628

==

[JohnW]

1. How to create the perfect Forum entry!
2. Can I say welcome back!

[smaragdus]

Beeftext at version 1.0, changes:

• This is the first stable release of Beeftext.
• The automatic updater displays a more friendly name when the user has UAC enabled.
• Fixed an display issue when enabling/disabled custom appearance.
• Fixed the tab order in the new/edit combo dialog.
• Added application information in the RC file.
• Fixed an issue with the translation of the default combo group.

[webfork]

Excellent, great add. I'll try to test this out soon.

[smaragdus]

Beeftext at version 1.1, changes:

• Improved support for applications that do not support Ctrl+V for pasting.

[webfork]

I've had Texter (https://www.portablefreeware.com/index.php?id=1212) on my machine for years but strangely something about pressing <Enter>, <Tab> or another key to trigger a keyword just never really worked in my head. For whatever reason, Beeftext's automatic and almost instant jump from keyword to full text makes so much more sense. It's one of those things I'd have never judged correctly, except by using the tool.

Anyway it works great. Just create a keyword that's something you wouldn't normally type and it will automatically turn into whatever you put in the "Snippet" box e.g. pfwtt -> http://www.portablefreeware.com



Great suggestion. Thanks smaragdus.

[pst.freeware]

I’ve always thought about programming a tool that would support me in not typing the same text phrases over and over again. But now, with Beeftext there is no need to do this.

Beeftext is a tool that - at least for me - works just as expected, which is great.

One thing to mention is that Beeftext reads all the text you type on your keyboard as it looks for defined keywords which it then will replace. That means it also reads your passwords when you log in somewhere. But to me the developer seems trustworthy - I couldn’t find anything suspicious after taking a (quick) look at the source code. So for me, this is not a problem.

Thanks to Xavier and smaragdus!

[smaragdus]

I added Beeftext to the database.

[webfork]

I added Beeftext to the database.

Excellent thanks. I did a bit of wordsmithing to the entry but it was already great. Kudos on the APNG program slideshow.

[webfork]

Looks like the latest update includes importing from a CSV file, which is huge. I know for scientific and technical writers, there are a huge number of long, ultra-specific terms and it would be nice to have a way to quickly both add and enter them. If you can get the before and after in a pair of spreadsheet columns, that would go a long way.