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What's New in TextSoap 7

General

App is now a 64-bit application.

App uses a new regular expression engine. Please note a syntax change. Replace capture strings are now $0, $1, $2 vs. the older format \0 \1 \2. Any imported cleaners are converted during the import.

New documentation on Regular Expressions is included under the help menu.

You can now apply cleaners to non-contiguous selections.

New Cleaners

Several new cleaners were added to help process text.


Improved Cleaners


TextSoap Universal

TextSoap's application specific plug-ins & scripts (like those for BBEdit, Eudora, Coda, Entourage) were replaced with a system-wide menu bar access to TextSoap cleaners.

Once the feature is enabled (in General Preferences), it allows you to place the cursor in virtually any text editing field and clean either the entire contents of the text. Or just apply the cleaner to selected text.

TextSoap Universal also supports a global palette to apply cleaners to text in other applications.

New User Experience

TextSoap 7 adopts a more streamlined appearance.

In text editing windows, the lower left provides a popup that toggles between rich text & plain text. When using plain text, the popup also includes which line-endings to you.

To the right of the text, there are three available panes:



Regex Lab is similar to the Find and Replace Pane, but is designed to be more interactive. As you type in your regular expression, the text result is displayed.

The customization windows have been combined into a single window allow you to edit custom cleaners, groups and the MyScrub cleaner within a single window.

Custom Cleaner Editor




When a conditional block is encountered. TextSoap looks for text that matches the condition specified. If it finds any text, it then applies the list of actions within the block to that text.

The End Conditional marks the end of a block of statements.

Batch Cleaning Interface



Changes for TextSoap 6 Users

If you are coming from TextSoap 6, there are a few additional changes to be aware of:

While TextSoap 6 was broken up into the main app and an agent ("textsoapAgent"), TextSoap 7 merges these into a single app. The various integration options will automatically launch TextSoap when asked to clean text. When using AppleScript, you should script the application directly (see AppleScript topic).

The BBEdit, Mailsmaith, TextWrangler, Eudora, and Coda app plugins are no longer part of the app. The latest versions of BBEdit and TextWrangler have already dropped support for app-plugins anyway.  The contextual menu plugin is also gone. Use either OS X Services, or the new TextSoap Universal feature to access TextSoap functionality in your apps. TextSoap Universal provides integration support to a much broader set of applications (basically most apps that support standard copy and paste).

Syntax changes in regex find and replace, in particular with replacement strings (now $0, $1 instead of \0, \1).

TextSoap 7 keeps its own preferences and data files and will not interfere with TextSoap 6 preferences or datafiles. However, on first launch, it will import your TextSoap 6 database of cleaners and groups. You should be able to run TextSoap 6 and 7 side-by-side without any issues (TextSoap 7 will automatically shutdown the v6 textsoapAgent when it is launched).