#47 1,2,3 + readme example

README.md

@@ -63,6 +63,17 @@ ls /Applications/ /Applications/Utilities/ /System/Applications/ /System/Applica
     xargs -I {} open -a "{}.app"
 ```
 
+### Use as a snippet manager
+
+Suppose you have some snippets in a text file and you want to quickly search and paste them with choose. Here is a command that you can bind to some shortcut with something like Karabiner:
+```bash
+cat snippets_separated_with_two_newline_symbols.txt | choose -e -m -x \n\n - | pbcopy - && osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to keystroke "v" using command down'
+```
+
+This will prompt choose, get its output, copy it to pasteboard, and trigger a paste shortcut `command+v`. 
+
+For this to work in Karabiner, you need to give it access via Privacy & Security -> Accessibility -> karabiner_console_user_server (typically located at `/Library/Application Support/org.pqrs/Karabiner-Elements/bin/karabiner_console_user_server`), otherwise you will get `System Events got an error: osascript is not allowed to send keystrokes. (1002)`
+
 ## License
 
 See [MIT LICENSE](./LICENSE).

SDAppDelegate.m

@@ -13,10 +13,13 @@
 static NSFont* SDQueryFont;
 static NSString* PromptText;
 static NSString* InitialQuery;
+static NSString* Separator;
 static int SDNumRows;
 static int SDPercentWidth;
 static BOOL SDUnderlineDisabled;
 static BOOL SDReturnStringOnMismatch;
+static BOOL VisualizeWhitespaceCharacters;
+static BOOL AllowEmptyInput;
 
 /******************************************************************************/
 /* Boilerplate Subclasses                                                     */
@@ -74,7 +77,12 @@ - (id) initWithString:(NSString*)str {
         self.raw = str;
         self.normalized = [self.raw lowercaseString];
         self.indexSet = [NSMutableIndexSet indexSet];
-        self.displayString = [[NSMutableAttributedString alloc] initWithString:self.raw attributes:nil];
+
+        NSString* displayStringRaw = self.raw;
+        if (VisualizeWhitespaceCharacters) {
+            displayStringRaw = [[self.raw stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:@"\n" withString:@"⏎"] stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:@"\t" withString:@"⇥"];
+        }
+        self.displayString = [[NSMutableAttributedString alloc] initWithString:displayStringRaw attributes:nil];
     }
     return self;
 }
@@ -641,10 +649,10 @@ - (NSArray*) getInputItems {
     NSData* inputData = [stdinHandle readDataToEndOfFile];
     NSString* inputStrings = [[[NSString alloc] initWithData:inputData encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding] stringByTrimmingCharactersInSet: [NSCharacterSet whitespaceAndNewlineCharacterSet]];
 
-    if ([inputStrings length] == 0)
+    if ([inputStrings length] == 0 && !AllowEmptyInput)
         return nil;
 
-    return [inputStrings componentsSeparatedByString:@"\n"];
+    return [inputStrings componentsSeparatedByString: Separator];
 
 #endif
 
@@ -679,6 +687,12 @@ static void usage(const char* name) {
     printf(" -m           return the query string in case it doesn't match any item\n");
     printf(" -p           defines a prompt to be displayed when query field is empty\n");
     printf(" -q           defines initial query to start with (empty by default)\n");
+    printf(" -x           defines separator string, a single newline (\\n) by default\n");
+    printf("              beware of escaping:\n");
+    printf("                  passing -x \\n\\n will work\n");
+    printf("                  passing -x '\\n\\n' will not work\n");
+    printf(" -y           show newline and tab as symbols (⏎ ⇥)\n");
+    printf(" -e           allow empty input (choose will show up even if there are no items to select)\n");
     printf(" -o           given a query, outputs results to standard output\n");
     exit(0);
 }
@@ -697,13 +711,16 @@ int main(int argc, const char * argv[]) {
     @autoreleasepool {
         [NSApp setActivationPolicy: NSApplicationActivationPolicyAccessory];
 
+        VisualizeWhitespaceCharacters = NO;
+        AllowEmptyInput = NO;
         SDReturnsIndex = NO;
         SDUnderlineDisabled = NO;
         const char* hexColor = HexFromSDColor(NSColor.systemBlueColor);
         const char* hexBackgroundColor = HexFromSDColor(NSColor.systemGrayColor);
         const char* queryFontName = "Menlo";
         const char* queryPromptString = "";
         InitialQuery = [NSString stringWithUTF8String: ""];
+        Separator = [NSString stringWithUTF8String: "\n"];
         CGFloat queryFontSize = 26.0;
         SDNumRows = 10;
         SDReturnStringOnMismatch = NO;
@@ -714,7 +731,7 @@ int main(int argc, const char * argv[]) {
         [NSApp setDelegate: delegate];
 
         int ch;
-        while ((ch = getopt(argc, (char**)argv, "lvf:s:r:c:b:n:w:p:q:o:hium")) != -1) {
+        while ((ch = getopt(argc, (char**)argv, "lvyef:s:r:c:b:n:w:p:q:x:o:hium")) != -1) {
             switch (ch) {
                 case 'i': SDReturnsIndex = YES; break;
                 case 'f': queryFontName = optarg; break;
@@ -728,6 +745,9 @@ int main(int argc, const char * argv[]) {
                 case 'm': SDReturnStringOnMismatch = YES; break;
                 case 'p': queryPromptString = optarg; break;
                 case 'q': InitialQuery = [NSString stringWithUTF8String: optarg]; break;
+                case 'x': Separator = [NSString stringWithUTF8String: optarg]; break;
+                case 'y': VisualizeWhitespaceCharacters = YES; break;
+                case 'e': AllowEmptyInput = YES; break;
                 case 'o': queryStdout(delegate, optarg); break;
                 case '?':
                 case 'h':