[MacOS] Enable Text Replacement

Joschua · May 23, 2020, 11:36am

MacOS allows for a very handy feature that replaces snippet of typed text with another text. A build-in, poor man’s KeyboardMaestro/TextExpander. Some applications allow for Text replacement, some don’t.

Enabling text replacement in Obsidian would allow users to use the templates/autocorrects they have already created and encourages more templates to be built. This makes a quick workflow accessible to people without those pricey, full-fledged applications.

Edit: Espanso seems like a free, open-source bridge for now until Text Replacement is enabled.

ksandvik · May 23, 2020, 5:16pm

This could possible be an Electron limitation, similar to missing Services where Visual Studio Code had to do a lot of extra work to get those in.

bexelbie · April 30, 2021, 10:39am

This appears to have been an electron limitation. Cruising through various electron, chromium and related bugs, it seems to have been fixed. The rabbit hole starts here: Text replacements / expansions doesn't work on MacOS · Issue #15535 · electron/electron · GitHub

It appears to possibly be fixed as of electron 7. I don’t code with electron, so I am not sure how easy/hard it is to use that version or later.

This is a huge deal to those of us using Mac OS

oyvind · April 30, 2021, 11:17am

I use A LOT of these, so I am bit crippled when using Obsidian. So second this feature wish!

A nice thing on MacOS and iOS is that these are synced via iCloud from Mac to iPhone and back. So a substitution made one place, will be made the other as well. Very handy.

Fanshu · April 30, 2021, 12:20pm

I also found this problem, and hope to support this function.

MitchWagner · June 4, 2021, 7:08pm

Is there any progress on enabling this capability?

hammond · June 4, 2021, 11:57pm

The latest build of Obsidian updated the version of electron to 12.0.6, so presumably that text substitution issue is resolved(?) on the electron end.

zachMade · July 24, 2021, 9:00pm

I’m on version v0.12.10 on macOS and text substitution still does not seem to be available. Is it possible that even if Electron supports this feature that it needs to be enabled/configured within Obsidian’s code?

mpuls · August 11, 2021, 6:06am

I’m also interested about an update on this, as I use the apple text replacement very frequenty and it syncs very reliable between all my Apple devices.

Angel · August 11, 2021, 6:26am

I have copied my macOS substitutions into Obsidian as template snippets.

Like macOS substitutions, they are now just a keystroke combo away.

Not a single system-wide setting, but works very well in Obsidian.

Angel

zachMade · October 13, 2021, 2:30am

My understanding is that the macOS Trello app is also built on Electron, but I cannot remember a time when it did not support macOS’ native text replacement. So it seems likely it’s an Obsidian implementation issue rather than Electron supporting or not supporting it.