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Using another trigger than the Esc key

Posted: Jun 2nd, ’19, 02:20
by jrwf555
Hi,

The answer to this simple question is probably concealed somewhere in the Help documents, but I can't find it anywhere.

If I want to use another key than Esc to stop a text expander phrase from triggering, where can I find and change this in the preferences?

For instance, I want to stop 'Nz' becoming 'New Zealand' and stay as 'NZ' - but using the Esc key often gives strange results and I can't stop the expander triggering anyway.

Can you help?

John
(Dunedin, New Zealand)

Re: Using another trigger than the Esc key

Posted: Jun 2nd, ’19, 16:15
by Marko
Hi John, text expanding is triggered by typing ending characters which can be defined in Preferences/Text Expander. Any other character will cancel it (for example Esc, right arrow, End etc.).

You could also enable Manual confirmation option for the some items.

Can you describe strange results better?

Re: Using another trigger than the Esc key

Posted: Jun 4th, ’19, 02:17
by jrwf555
Thanks, Marko.

As I suspected you would do, you've solved this simple problem. I didn't realize that keys other than Esc could stop a text expander phrase from expanding. I had been looking in vain at the Expander preferences without knowing this.

On the strange events you asked about, it happens randomly when Esc triggers another program - for instance, on some websites, it will close the window, or some software seems to override FastKeys with the Esc key.

The simplest solution is, as you suggested, to use something else (probably the right arrow, in my case).

Thanks again for your help.

John
New Zealand (interestingly, phrase expander doesn't work on this site - I have to type out New Zealand manually)

Re: Using another trigger than the Esc key

Posted: Jun 4th, ’19, 17:40
by Marko
Try to disable Escape shortcut (Double-click Esc Close Window/Tab) in Shortcuts, maybe this is causing your issue.