aBreevy8 v2024.02.20 is Here - Now You Can Make Vary8tions!
Hey everyone! Fire up those update checkers: aBreevy8 v2024.02.20 has just been released. Lots of improvements in this update - all of which are listed in detail in the changelog screen of the updater as usual - but the one that's really exciting is the new ability to assign "vary8tions" - or, in other words, multiple Replacements to the same aBreevy8tion!
What does this mean? Well, previously in the old Breevy (and in prior versions of aBreevy8 until today), if you had more than one of the same aBreevy8tion, with multiple Replacement Texts, Breevy and aBreevy8 would just expand the first duplicate in your list. In other words: the same Replacement would be made every single time, effectively limiting you to one Replacement Text per aBreevy8tion.
But now you can assign the same aBreevy8tion to as many different Replacement Texts as you like - 1, 5, 10, 100, it doesn't matter - and each time you type the aBreevy8tion, aBreevy8 will randomly cycle through each different Replacement, expanding to a different one each time!
It's nearly impossible to understate just how hugely useful of a change this is. It seriously opens up an entire new world of possibilities. As an example, I'll share one of my own use cases for this: email signatures. Typically, and before today, my signature for personal emails was:
Take care,
Patrick
But if I'm being honest, after a while that was getting kind of "samey", especially after sending a bunch of emails back and forth to the same person. It kinda makes it seem... very impersonal, don't you think?
So, to solve that, just now I set this up in the latest version of aBreevy8:
Which means that from now on, each time I type .sig, aBreevy8 will cycle through that list, showing a different email signature every time. This way, I'm not using the same one over and over again, and I can insert a little variety and uniqueness into each email.
Of course, you're not just limited to email signatures! This capability can be used for any aBreevy8tion you have where you'd like to maybe have a little variety each time you type it - just duplicate it (hint: right-click it and click Duplicate / Create Vary8tion), change the Replacement Text as much or as little as you like... and you're all set.
This is going to be especially great for making canned responses seem... well, less canned, you know what I mean? Instead of sending the same exact response every time, you can change up some words, sentences, and structures here and there, so you come across as a lot more personable than you could before.
This new ability is one of the many reasons it's super exciting to be an aBreevy8 user right now... and let me tell you, there are a lot more exciting things on the way in the near future. Still using the old Breevy? You'll need to upgrade to aBreevy8 to take advantage of this new feature. If you're using aBreevy8, you should automatically be notified of the update, but if you don't feel like waiting, just run the built-in updater manually (accessible from the Help menu) and you'll have the new version installed in seconds.
Enjoy!