My Key Tools for Automation

With this new project now fully under way, I have noted 3 pivotal tools that make code development much faster than before.

TypeIt4Me (Text Expander) – I had this last time, but it now has a couple dozen code fragments at the ready. I have entries for getText, setText, click, waitForElementVisible, for, while, case, replaceAll, and a bunch more. I type the name of the command I want, and it gets converted to the full syntax with placeholders where the names of variables and objects should go. If I type something more than twice, it goes into the Text Expander and probably saves an hour per day of typing and looking up the syntax.

CopyLess (Clipboard Manager) – This is a huge help for duplicating object names and lines of code. I can copy multiple things at once, then paste them back in whenever I need them. I don't lose the last thing I copied. I also don't have to keep switching back and forth between apps or tabs. I copy once and I have a list of examples, code fragments, or object names I can pick from. This probably saves me an hour per day as well.

SnippetsLab (Snippets Collection) – This has become my complete index of code fragments for anything I have used in the past or thought would be useful for the future. I previously had this code in DevonThink, where it still lives, but SnippetsLab only has code. No articles, or web pages, or anything else. And since it also integrates with Alfred, I can easily find a code example with a quick keyboard search. This also saves a lot of time and gives me access to everything I've worked on in the past.

With the help of these 3, I have made substantial progress these past two weeks. I have been able to write code much faster than before. That comes from more experience, but having a solid reference library at hand, and the ability to recall my most common commands has been a huge benefit.

I will also say that Alfred has been very useful as well. It have Workflows set up to start and stop all my dev apps so that I get a consistent work environment. This also saves time since everything is ready to go.