Textile is a desktop app that helps users assemble and manipulate text with precision, supporting clipboard management and keyboard shortcuts while keeping data stored locally in plain text files.
Hi all,<p>I'm excited to show off Textile, a desktop app I recently built.<p>Textile can combine bits of text using various inputs, such as commands on your computer, the contents of your clipboard, and hard-coded strings that you provide. It lets you carefully build up and modify a dynamic string, step by step, until it's exactly how you need it. The saved steps can then be executed on demand, with the click of a button or using a keyboard shortcut.<p>I built Textile because I was often constructing complicated, dynamic URLs from various sources that all existed on my computer. I got tired of manually switching between different apps, copying and pasting various chunks of text, and assembling them all together somewhere. I've also found Textile to be quite useful as a kind of repository for obscure bits of static text, such as ½ and other fraction characters, when I can't be bothered to remember their built-in keyboard combinations.<p>I also built Textile because I wanted to learn Electron, although I expect there will be some gnashing of teeth about this here. :) I think desktop development is quite interesting, in part because it doesn't require me, the developer, to pay for an API server and database in the cloud. The app itself is both the UI and the "server," and the local drive is effectively the "database." I knows this trades away syncing with the cloud but, on the other hand, there's something nice about knowing that your files are on your drive and not on somebody else's server.<p>I realize that something like Textile may already exist, and may have much more functionality but, again, I wanted to learn. I must say that multi-sequence keyboard shortcuts are hard, and there are cases that don't work right in Textile. I feel vulnerable admitting that my approach has much room for improvement!<p>For what it's worth, I did not use an LLM to write any code for Textile (although I did ask many questions of an LLM, as an alternative to Googling).<p>Textile is open source, free to use, and does not require sign up, email, phone, or other such barriers. Try it and let me know what you think!<p>(Note: I don't have access to hardware running Windows or Linux, so Textile is only available for macOS at the moment.)
# Textile
Source: [https://www.gettextile.app/](https://www.gettextile.app/)
### Cobble no more\.
Textile helps you assemble and manipulate text with precision\. It can even run commands and put results on your clipboard\. No more switching between apps to copy bits of text manually\.
### Take the shortcut\.
You can assign keyboard shortcuts to your textiles, making them quick and easy to run\. Textile even supports shortcuts with multiple sequences\.
### Your textiles are yours\.
Textiles are stored in simple text files, right on your computer\. They’re easy to back up, and nobody else can access them, not even us\.
### Pull in text from anywhere\.
Textile can use text you provide, read from your clipboard, and run commands on your computer that generate text\. If you’ve got the text, Textile can use it\.
### Make it just right\.
Textile allows you to append, prepend, and replace text to your heart’s content, enabling you to compose exactly the text you need every time\.
### Corral your clipboard\.
If you don’t want all of Textile’s features, it still makes a great clipboard manager\. Copy frequently used text to your clipboard at the speed of thought\.
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