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ATS: And Then There Were FourteenRixstep's ACP Text Services treble in number.
FUNAFUTI (Rixstep) — Rixstep add two new cool text services to the ATS collection and bring the total up to fourteen - treble what they started out as once upon a time.
The two new services are called 'Hyperlink' and 'LI Brackets'. They and the other dozen are explained below.
- Camel - convert a highlighted string to camel case.
'camel case' becomes 'CamelCase'. And so forth.
- Capitals - convert a highlighted string to capitals.
'BULLDOG' becomes 'Bulldog'. And so forth.
- Escapes - convert a highlighted string to HTML UCS.
This uses 'percent escapes' to make URLs and other strings palatable for the web. Non-ASCII characters get a 'percent' representation.
- Hyperlink - convert a highlighted string to a hyperlink.
Useful when crafting for the web in raw HTML. 'http://rixstep.com' becomes '<a href=http://rixstep.com>http://rixstep.com</a>' 'steve@apple.com' becomes '<a href=mailto:steve@apple.com>steve@apple.com</a>'. RRLs and local URLs are transformed as well.
- Kanachars - flip a highlighted string from/to katakana.
Based on the propitious coincidence that it's easy to map occidental characters to 'Matrix' characters and back again. This is for fun.
- LI Brackets - bracket a highlighted string with opening and closing HTML LI tags. A list such as the following:
One line Line Two Third line Another line
Becomes:
<li>One line</li> <li>Line Two</li> <li>Third line</li> <li>Another line</li>
And so forth.
- Lower Case - convert a highlighted string to lower case.
'BULLDOG' becomes 'bulldog'. And so forth.
- Resolve Path - expand command lines to show full paths.
A very important service. Takes care of expanding your command lines so you don't fall prey to interlopers exploiting $PATH hacks made possible by weaknesses in legacy NeXTSTEP technology and the Unix command interpreters (such as bash). This service traverses your $PATH value exactly as your command interpreter will do. The command:
echo 'hello world'; ls -al /; sudo ipfw show
Becomes:
/bin/echo 'hello world'; /bin/ls -al /; /usr/bin/sudo /sbin/ipfw show
And so forth.
- Single Spaces - remove redundant (horizontal/vertical) space.
Self explanatory. Removes redundant space both vertically and horizontally.
- Standard Quotes - replace 'smart quotes' with ASCII quotes.
So your copy and paste ops don't turn into mush when put in HTML files or email messages.
- Strip HTML Tags - strip HTML tags from highlighted text.
Takes them all out. Use one of the other services to clean up white space etc.
- Tidy Up Quote - fix typical havoc in a highlighted mail quote.
Indispensable for dealing with email still constrained by the limitations of Microsoft text management. Text isn't allowed to wrap because Redmond engineers still haven't learned how. Compare:
> please put me > on subscription list > - thanks
With:
> please put me on subscription list - thanks
And so forth. A keyboard shortcut gets you there in a flash.
- Undo Escapes - remove escapes from a highlighted string.
Unravel the hidden secrets in those weird URLs you see popping up in your browser location bar.
- Upper Case - convert a highlighted string to upper case.
'bulldog' becomes 'BULLDOG'. And so forth.
Note these services run anywhere native Cocoa text is used on OS X - which today means just about everywhere. It could be a file I/O dialog, a web form, the message composition window of your email client, your text editor - almost everywhere.
The ACP Text Services are available only with the full ACP.
See Also Rixstep's ACP: ACP Text Services
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