Here’s what’s coming in PhraseExpander 5

I’m excited to share a bit of what we have been working on for the upcoming PhraseExpander 5.

We don’t have an official release yet, but I’m happy to say that we have been making great progress in the past months.

This is still work in progress, and features and specifications might change in the final version.

Rebuilt from the ground up to give you more speed and stability

PhraseExpander code has gone through a major rewrite, bringing a lot of benefits in terms of stability and speed.

• New data format that allows a faster database load time and startup time
• Syntax highlighting is now 100x faster, allowing you to work with long phrases that contain a lot of macros without any slowdown
• Searching, updating, comparing or bulk editing phrases is almost instantaneous
• Work with large datasets (of tens of thousands of phrases) without a hiccup

More natural context–sensitive menus and reorganized interface let you find what you need quickly (and reduce clicks)

We are proud that we have been the first text expander to include a ribbon interface (and honored that our competitors have been copying the approach we introduced in 2011).

In v.5 we are bringing them a step further with more advanced features.

Here’s what you can expect:

• Easier phrase editing: the new layout will give you more room to edit your phrases and templates
• Easier phrase composition: creating phrases from different blocks is now directly supported by the interface
• A new macro syntax will make macros easier to read
• Ability to lock glossaries and prevent accidental changes
• Improved support for high-resolution screens

More powerful macros with if / then logic

You can display different contents and sections based on variables and fully customize the text.

You’ll also have the ability to test individual sections of the phrase for easier phrase composition.

In the macro editing window, you can add new macros from the context menu. This simplifies macros nesting.

Templates as you have never seen before

We have completely redesigned Manual Input and templates to give you total flexibility in how you create your input blocks and how they interact with one another.

We are going to post more details about this in the coming weeks. Enough to say that there’s nothing like that on the market at this time.