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Ask HN: App to expand abbreviations across macOS apps?

1 points by tehwebguy ↗ HN
Using tons of work related abbreviations can make writing faster but reading slower for me.

Has anyone seen an app that will auto expand or add tooltips to abbreviations across apps? I'd love to be able to define domain specific abbreviations and acronyms once and be able to see the full text when I see them in an email, a Github page or a Slack message.

4 comments

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codydh
If I'm understanding what you're looking for, a straightforward version of this is built into macOS: https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/replace-text-punctu...
Someone
I thought that, too but on second reading, I think they want text to be expanded they didn’t type. IOW, they want “IOW” to be replaced by “in other words”, even if it appears in email messages they receive.

A way to do that would be with a font that has ligatures for abbreviations you want to see expanded, but that would only work if you can control what font applications use (in theory, replacing all fonts on your system by ones with ligatures would help, but that already wasn’t very feasible before Apple locked down the OS)

I also think they would want something more intelligent, as many, many abbreviations have multiple expansions. They wouldn’t want to see “in other words” if the writer meant the Chiwere language or “isle of Wight” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOW)

mackatsol
That’s a cool idea.. something perfect for an LLM, as it needs context to be accurate.

You should be able to create a service wherein you select text and it swaps out predefined acronyms and then replaces your text.