Features
Collect And Use Everywhere
Snippets is fully integrated into Mac OS X. You can collect snippets from literally any application running on your Mac using a Clipboard, a mouse, keyboard shortcuts, global menu services, and a special URI scheme.
Create From Selection
Just select a piece of text in any application and click New Snippet With Selection command in Services menu or in the contextual menu.
Create With Keyboard
Alternatively to menus, you can assign a special Keyboard shortcut to make new snippets from a text selection.
Create With Mouse
Feel free to drag & drop a text selection from any Mac application onto a Snippets Dock icon or directly into the main window Sidebar / Table view.
Create From Clipboard
If you run a virtual machine or a remote desktop and copy a snippet from there, there is a special menu command to create a new item from the Clipboard content.
Export
Both Export menu command and drag & drop allow you to export snippets, snippet groups and even folders directly into the file system or into a running text editor.
Import
You can also import whole files from the file system using a special menu command and by dragging & dropping into the Snippets Dock icon or into the main window.
Menubar Integration
There is no need to always keep Snippets in the foreground to use the application. You can install a special icon into the system menubar and paste any item from the Library into an active application without leaving it.
Easy Accessible Icon
Click or Option-click the scissors icon in the Menubar to open the Search Panel or the Global Menu. Then click any of the snippets displayed to paste its source code into the active application.
Code In Tooltips
Do not worry if you forget what is inside of a snippet. Just roll your mouse over its name or hover the selection for a few seconds to display a standard Tooltip with the source code.
Search Panel
A Spotlight-like menu enabled Search Panel gives you an immediate access to the Library as fast as you type your request.
Global Menu
A multilevel menu provides structured access to the Library and its preferences can be configured to be more specific.
Paste Into Any Application
Once you've found a snippet using the Search Panel or the Global Menu, click its name to paste its code directly into the active text view.
Copy Into Clipboard
Hold the Option key while clicking the name of the selected snippet, and its content will be copied into the Clipboard to paste it later.
Global Keyboard Shortcuts
Instead of clicking the icon, the Search Panel or the Global Menu can be opened using custom shortcuts without leaving your keyboard.
Always Available
Select a ‘Show in menubar: Always’ preference option to have an icon in the menubar even if Snippets is not running.
Interface And User Experience
A simple but powerful interface and predictable behavior of Snippets provides an ideal learning curve for any mac user from novice to expert.
Powerful Sidebar
One of the best things about Snippets is its Sidebar. A well-thought structure of a tree and beautiful icons make access to and grouping of Library items really easy.
Total Drag & Drop
Work with labels, snippets, groups, and folders using your mouse. Snippets is smart enough to assign syntax highlights, reorder items, export, import, move snippets between groups etc.
Filter Bar
The main table view content is based on the Sidebar selection. And a special control built from visible snippet labels can be used to filter this content.
Inspector Panel
Snippet items have such attributes as labels, an author, a license, and a description. A useful Inspector panel allows to configure these attributes using convenient controls.
Customizable Toolbar
The non-clattered Toolbar gives fast access to most common operations and can be configured in many different ways.
Search Instantly
A separate filter control allows to find your favorite Library items by performing search over main snippet attributes.
Keep The Library Organized
Snippets includes lots of features to organize and manage the Library as much effective as possible.
Support For Multiple Databases
Press and hold the Option key button while the application is launching to select a different location for a new or an existing database.
Folders
You can combine Groups together with Smart-Groups and build structured hierarchies using Sidebar Folders.
Organize Projects
Using Snippets, you may build complete project templates from Groups and Folders. Drag & drop any group or folder directly on the Desktop to recreate the same structure on the Hard Drive.
Smart Groups
Smart Groups allow to organize Library items using rule sets for different snippet attributes varying from specific labels to selected syntax highlights.
Label Manager
Snippets got the separate window for managing labels in one place. You can remove labels or assign them to snippets by dragging.
Hide Unused Highlights
Use that small Gear icon in the Sidebar to open a contextual menu with all highlights to enable or disable unused ones.
Advanced Attributes
An innovative Inspector panel lets you define such advanced attributes as a snippet author, a related URL and a license.
Sidebar Trash
There is no need to remove snippets immediately. So they can be moved into the Trash and deleted later after careful reviewing.
Innovations
Really innovative features like support for Multi-Touch gestures and a Snippets assistant tool provide outstanding user experience.
Custom URI Scheme
Import new snippets from browsers and third-party applications using special URLs. Share snippets with others using ‘snippet:’ links.
Hide Icon From The Dock
Clear your Dock from the icon by enabling menubar integration. A lightweight assistant is available even if the application is not running.
MobileMe Synchronization
Cloud computing is the future of Mac software. And you can sync the Library between machines at home and at work in one click.
Automatic Backups
In addition to manual saving, Snippets will backup the Library automatically. So you can restore it after any faults or corruptions.
Multi-Touch
Take advantage of your Trackpad or Magic Mouse by using special gestures. Make a Swipe-gesture to scroll between items or use Pinch-gestures to show and hide the Inspector panel.
Share Via Email
Sharing has never been so easy. Click the Mail button in the Toolbar to share a code of the selected snippet. Select multiple items to send them all together.
Sync Over Dropbox And FTP
Lately we implemented a special mechanism named Datastores to sync Sidebar groups between computers using Dropbox and FTP.
Team Collaboration
Developer teams often need to share snippet collections, and we support Datastores to meet exactly this need.
Code Editor
Snippets provides standard features for editing code and even makes it possible to modify snippets using external editors.
Fonts And Colors
A separate preference pane allows to customize displaying properties of the internal editor. Use your favorite font and define preferred colors for strings, keywords, numbers, and comments.
Syntax Highlights
Snippets has support for myriads of syntax highlights: Ruby, Python, Objective-C, C#, HTML, JavaScript, and many others. You can also enable and disable those you don't use.
Wrap And Shift Lines
Useful commands for code editing: enable or disable line wrapping, shift lines left and right, or customize a size of Tab symbols.
TextMate Themes
Simply drag & drop your favorite TextMate color theme into the Fonts & Colors preference pane to apply the new coloring scheme.
Edit in External Editors
Most popular code editors are at your hand: edit any snippet in an external app and use all benefits of your favorite text processor.
Select Custom Editors
Also you can select any application for external code editing even if it is not presented in the list of default code editors.
Plugins
Snippets can be extended using bundles built with custom scripts and HTML5 named Scrippets. They allow to perform custom operations on selected items.
Easy to Develop
Scrippet is a way to perform custom tasks on selected snippets. And you can develop your own scrippet on JavaScript, Python, or Ruby.
Easy To Install
Scrippets can be archived, shared, distributed, and downloaded. Double-click a bundle and Snippets will automatically install it.
Work With Collections
Scrippets can handle a multiple selection and process a collection of many snippets together. The convenient progress panel will display a status of handling for each snippet separately.
Share Via Code Repositories
Using scrippets, you can share your favorite snippets via public code repositories. Snipplr, Pastie, Gist, and some others are already supported by default, and the list is growing.
Run Script Snippets
If you keep your Shell commands in the Library, there is a scrippet allowing to execute them as Terminal scripts directly from the application.
Replace Placeholders
One of the default plugins allows to replace special placeholders with default or custom values and copy a result into the Clipboard.
Modern Technologies
Apple technologies make Snippets an outstanding application that uses maximum of advantages and innovations provided by Mac OS X.
64-bit
Snippets is built with a 32-bit and a 64-bit compatible code to take full advantage of modern high-performance computers. This also means a faster and a more responsive application ready for any future computing enhancements.
Cocoa
Brilliant frameworks help to concentrate on delivering more features and improvements. Moreover, thanks to Cocoa libraries, Snippets is a native mac citizen designed to provide the best user experience.
Automatic Updates
Snippets is enabled to automatically check for new updates, download them and install in just a few clicks. You can set things up only once, and then always stay up to date.
Sync Services
Snippets is built with Sync Services in mind, so its database can be synced with other applications and devices on the same computer, or other computers in the Network.
Code Signing
Snippets has a cryptographic signature, it’s signed with a secured certificate. So the application executable and all of its updates can be trusted as originating from the same source and can be proven to be intact.
Application Services
Services are contextual workflows available throughout Mac OS X that were re-invented in Snow Leopard. And Snippets uses this mechanism for collecting snippets from any running Cocoa application.
Grand Central Dispatch
Snippets extensively uses one of the latest core Mac OS X technologies named Grand Central Dispatch to take better advantage of multicore processors on your Macs.
Webkit framework
A scrippets runtime uses a popular Webkit engine to display interfaces written in HTML5 and CSS3, so that 3rd-party developers can create own plugins to extend Snippets.
Core Data
An Apple framework for storing data gets better with every new version of Mac OS X. We tend to use all its benefits to improve Snippets.
Core Animation
Snippets also provides great data visualization and user experience by taking full advantage of modern Core Animation APIs.
Upcoming…
Last but not least, we have many ideas to make Snippets even better!
Custom Highlights
There are many coding languages out there and we are going to support custom syntax highlights in the future.
Vertical Layout
Modern wide laptop screens are the best candidates to use a vertical interface layout within Snippets.