Keyboard shortcut that pastes one of a short list of fixed strings?

Hi folks,

I have a short list (fewer than a dozen) of strings that I paste all the time.

I am seeking a macOS utility that will provide a keyboard shortcut that will allow me to paste the one I want. (There was a great utility about five or six years ago that would allow me to type Cmd V 1 to paste the first string, Cmd V 2 to paste the second, etc. It stopped working in an OS upgrade, and I have been suffering since.)

Does BTT have a facility I would want? Many thanks.

You could use a custom menu. A shortcut opens the menu, then you press the number and finally Space or Enter. Here is an example, which can of course be “embellished” with pictures, icons ...

image

If you know all your strings by heart, you can also simply paste them with a shortcut, without a menu.

Cool. So what keystrokes might a 'shortcut' look like/consist of? My use case would be:

  1. the letter f - that key on my keyboard is currently broken, and I'm waiting for a repair
  2. my email signature
  3. a couple other blocks of text that I type frequently

There are a lot of ways to achieve this with BTT.

The easiest would be to use the new "Choose From List" action. However this requires BTT v4.776 as it was just finished. That version is currently uploading and will be available in 10 minutes.

For only a few strings you can set that up manually in the UI. If you have many strings you could also load them from some config file.

Here is an example with two snippets, it uses opt+cmd+v to show. Then you can press 1,2... (as long as your item name contains that number) and hit enter.

paste_snippet.bttpreset (6.3 KB)

The custom menu approach @Frank1 mentioned will also work, you can use the same config as given in the example preset to use that - just change the action to "Show Custom Context Menu (New)".

Thanks for the speedy response. And for the news "hot off the press"!

For clarity, what's the minimum number of keystrokes I could expect to type to paste in either of the top two items of my list above (f and my email signature).

(Update: I tweaked up the statement of my question above...)

opt+cmd+v to show the list
1 to select the item
enter (or space) to paste

(of course you can use any other shortcut or trigger)

Mm, there are many ways to do this...

If you would use a floating menu that is always visible, one click or pressing one key is enough ... I think, no? :slightly_smiling_face:

I do plan to add a "select by position" to the "Choose From List" action with one of the next alphas - then it would just be two key presses for the first 9 items

Ah, good.

I meant something like this, when the menu is visible --> long press “1” paste something. Short press “1” --> type “1”.

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I think that will work. At least, it makes me want to download the trial version... (Will the floating menu always be visible? How big is it?) Thanks.