When comparing aText vs Karabiner, the Slant community recommends Karabiner for most people. In the question“What are the best power user tools for macOS?” Karabiner is ranked 29th while aText is ranked 49th. The most important reason people chose Karabiner is:
For example: Fn+C now calls up contextual menus for me with: <!-- Fn + C = same as right-click mouse --> <item> <name>kybd control click</name> <identifier>private.keybd_to_control_click</identifier> <autogen> __KeyToKey__ KeyCode::C, ModifierFlag::FN, KeyCode::VK_MOUSEKEY_BUTTON_RIGHT </autogen> </item>
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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 Low-level key bindings/mappings
For example: Fn+C now calls up contextual menus for me with:
<!-- Fn + C = same as right-click mouse -->
<item>
<name>kybd control click</name>
<identifier>private.keybd_to_control_click</identifier>
<autogen>
__KeyToKey__
KeyCode::C, ModifierFlag::FN,
KeyCode::VK_MOUSEKEY_BUTTON_RIGHT
</autogen>
</item>
Pro Make FN key into a new modifier key for custom shortcuts across apps
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 Difficult to configure custom actions
Configuring custom actions requires editing an XML file with very strange syntax, for which it's difficult to find good documentation.