aText vs Hammerspoon
When comparing aText vs Hammerspoon, the Slant community recommends Hammerspoon for most people. In the question“What are the best power user tools for macOS?” Hammerspoon is ranked 38th while aText is ranked 49th. The most important reason people chose Hammerspoon is:
https://github.com/Hammerspoon/hammerspoon/issues They do fix issues that come from the community.
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro No Update
Pro A snippet can be expanded to plain or styled text and include pictures
Pro Has built-in snippets for common typos
Pro Cheaper than competition
$4.99, cheaper than textExpander ($35)
Pro Compatible with TextExpander snippets
TextExpander snippets can be imported into aText
Pro Works with VMs
Pro Imports from most alternative text expansion apps
aText can import data from TextExpander, TypeIt4Me, SpellCatcherX, Automaton and CSV file.
Pro Has common HTML & JS snippets built-in
Pro Snippets can include editable fields
Pro Data can be synced through cloud storage services
Pro Snippets can include a wide variety of variables
Possible variables include date, time, other snippets, clipboard content, etc.
Pro 1512 issues are closed in the download page in GitHub
https://github.com/Hammerspoon/hammerspoon/issues
They do fix issues that come from the community.
Pro Deeply customizable
Hammerspoon's Lua scripting and broad API allows you to perform any action you can imagine on your mac. It hooks into many OS APIs directly and has some high-level APIs to manipulate things like Spotify or iTunes. See the full list here.
Pro Automate actions based on the operating system
Hammerspoon lets you hook into OS level events and trigger any action you can imagine. From setting up a simple keyboard shortcut to launching a complex workflow using multiple apps and scripts.
Cons
Con Frequent crashes in MacOS Sierra
aText crashes frequently, and the developer is unresponsive. Not clear if app is supported or under current development: last update was in 11/15; last post to aText Facebook page 10/15.
Con Doesn't work in Mojave
The current version, with no issues. In fact, I've never had any issue with it with Mojave, so I assume when Mojave was released, aText was already up to date for it.
Con Long time no update
Seems to be abandoned.
Con Has 324 issues on their download page in GitHub
https://github.com/Hammerspoon/hammerspoon/issues
I can not list all the issues.
Con Some knowledge of programming required
Hammerspoon is scripted in the Lua programming language, and some familiarity with programming in general will be needed to use it. Some plugins exist that can be used by adding some files to a specific folder, but this will not give the flexibility that is so key to Hammerspoon