Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with autocomplete

OS X utility for wrapping text in HTML?

Typographica — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 14:34:31 -0800

Is there an OS X key command utility or service that will let me wrap selected text in clipboard text and predefined strings (such as HTML)? The blogging client Ecto has a nifty feature that will wrap selected text with whatever is on your clipboard plus predefined strings such as "a href" tags for quickly adding html links. Thus, linking some text is easy:

1. copy a URL
2. select the desired anchor text
3. hit key command and text is wrapped in a "a href" tag using your copied URL.

Is there an OS X utility that will allow me to do this in any app? This would be especially useful in a web browser where I am constantly linking text in forums and other input fields.

I've got Butler which can paste stored text, but it doesn't do the wrapping.

How to remove built-in auto-complete entries from AOL's email client?

gemmy — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 18:37:59 -0800

How to remove the built-in auto-complete entries from AOL's email client? My auntie uses AOL to access the internet. Whenever she goes to send an email and starts typing in the "To:" field, the software tries to auto-complete a match from her address book. Pretty standard. She can remove erroneous auto-complete entries (like mistyped new email addresses, which get added to the list automatically if she hits send without noticing) by deleting them from her address book.

However, there are a bunch of AOL-centric email addresses that show at the top of the auto-complete entries. Things like aolmedia, aolhelp, etc. There is no option for removing these entries from the address book, and there doesn't seem to be any way to remove them from the auto-complete list. They disappear if you add more letters, but they are confusing her. I have spent some time on AOL online help and on various forums trying to figure out a way to remove those addresses from the auto-complete list, with no luck.

Normally it's easy to fix any issues, even long distance, as my parents live nearby and are tech savvy. But we are all stumped here. Before I install the client in order to troubleshoot (shudder!), I figured I would ask here first. Anyone know how to get rid of these built-in auto-complete entries? AOL 9.5, running on Windows XP.

(Ditching AOL is not an option. If it was, I wouldn't be asking. She has used it for ages and is comfortable with it.)

WTF@IDeletedYouAlready.com

tdischino — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 10:25:15 -0800

Outlook AutoComplete filter: Deleted AutoComplete entries keep coming back. How do I get rid of them for good? I rely pretty heavily on Outlook's (2007) AutoComplete feature. Due to recent change of company ownership, we all have new email addresses (new format and domain). So, when I start an email to Jack Smith, I am getting AutoComplete suggestions for jacksmith@oldcompany.com and jack.smith@newcompany.com. Per Microsoft's instructions, when the drop-down list showing the suggestions pops up, I should highlight jacksmith@oldcompany.com and press delete. This works for the current login session. The next day/login, jacksmith@oldcompany.com shows up in the AutoComplete list again. I understand that the NK2 file gets populated based upon emails I send, but I am not sending new emails to these old addresses, so I don't see how they are being added back in. Any ideas?

I don't have time to type "metafilter.com" every single time.

My Bloody Pony — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 16:01:13 -0800

How can I set up autocomplete to work on Firefox 3 like it did on previous versions? Sorry if I'm an idiot when it comes to computers, but I've tried the google searches and everything else, but I can't find anything (through preferences, or anything else) that will make my address bar use autocomplete for places I've been to before. I long for the days when I could just type M + down arrow + enter to get to the Blue. Please help.

Fuzzy text completion algorithm?

sonofslim — Sat, 10 May 2008 09:44:26 -0800

I'm looking for a fuzzy text-matching algorithm for an autocomplete widget. I have a data set of ~4000 short strings (< 60 chars) that needs to be attached to an AJAXy autocomplete widget. I'm looking for a text completion algorithm that supports some amount of slop, to catch basic typos.

The environment is Prototype/LowPro on top of Ruby, backed by a MySQL database. I can pre-compute and store metaphones/soundex/&c. either in the database or in memory, as this list will remain mostly static throughout application lifetime.

The bad news is this feature is not mission-critical, so anything like compiling a user-defined SQL function (e.g. Levenshtein) is out of scope. The good news is this feature isn't mission-critical, so I am only solving for the quickest route to a reasonable set of suggestions for a given input string -- this doesn't need to be bulletproof.

What would you do, given these constraints?

Autocomplete in Pages?

spaceman_spiff — Fri, 09 May 2008 19:14:29 -0800

How can I get Pages to mimic Open Office's autocomplete? I've recently made a partial switch from Open Office/NeoOffice to Pages. I like the way Pages does styles, and it's a lot lighter weight on my Powerbook than OO/NO. But it's missing my absolute to-die-for favorite feature - autocomplete.

In Open Office, as I type, words longer than a certain threshold are added to a list; if I type the first 3-4 letters of a word in the list later on in a document, the rest of the word appears highlighted after my cursor, and I can choose to hit enter and complete the word, or just keep typing. It's absolutely fabulous, and my wrists are complaining bitterly about Pages' lack of a similar feature. Is there a plugin or hack - or best of all a checkbox I missed - for Pages that would replicate this feature?

Don't penalize my bad typing!

pdb — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 13:50:37 -0800

Is it possible to edit the auto-complete list in gmail? I mistyped my wife's email address once, so now in addition to wifework@blah.com I have an auto-complete listing in the "to" field of Gmail that appears as wifewrok@blah.com - and of course the incorrect one always comes up first in the Gmail auto-complete list. Is there any way to edit this list so that I can remove only the incorrect one?

I'm using Firefox 2.0, XP (sp2), and I'm not using a mail client - just using the Gmail interface. I searched the Gmail help and couldn't really find anything useful there.

How to restore auto-complete in Outlook?

geoff. — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 10:09:59 -0800

Is there a way, in Outlook 2003, to populate the auto-complete field from addresses culled in the Exchange mailbox? Or otherwise recapture addresses and stick them in auto-complete? I know auto-complete is not something to rely on, but I have a user who "added contacts" via auto-complete. So when I gave him a new laptop and kept all the data and contacts, I excluded the nk2 file (I didn't know people relied on auto-complete to add contacts and it is not backed up on the computer).

Anyway he's livid now that he has to "add contacts" again and refuses to add it any other way but through auto-complete. Isn't there a way to restore auto-complete by going through messages in a PST and picking out e-mail addresses? User has ~3GB of messages. Any quick and dirty way will work.

How did a strange username get into my IE7 autocomplete list?

desjardins — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 10:14:45 -0800

How did a username I've never seen before get into my IE7 autocomplete list? When I click on the "username" field on a login form in IE7, in addition to my actual usernames for various sites, there appears a name I've never seen or heard of before. I'm absolutely positive I've never searched for it or typed it (it'd be extremely difficult to type accidentally), but it is a plausible username, and to make things weirder, it's a French last name, like my username here (yes, I'm SURE I have never typed it before). I searched my hard drives for files containing this word (thinking it might be in a cookie somewhere), and came up with nothing. The username does not show up in Firefox or Safari.

I'm on Windows XP Pro, and I'm networked to my fiance's computer and my laptop. Neither of those computers have the offending username, either in their hard drives or in their autocomplete lists. No one has used my computer but me. I know my fiance hasn't used it recently, because he's been away on business. Nothing else seems missing or out of place.

Should I be worried that something's been hacked? If so, what should I check for? How else could this happen?

How to completely disable autocomplete in Internet Explorer

utsutsu — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 10:35:04 -0800

How can I completely disable autocomplete in Internet Explorer on a public access computer? We have several computers set up for the public so they can apply with us using our web application. These computers are running windows XP, in a locked down "Public User" account. We are also using Windows Disk Protection so that no changes can be saved by the public user. Unfortunately, the web application needs to be used with Internet Explorer.

The problem is that until they are restarted (typically once a day) these computers will retain usernames, SIN's, and other various bits of info from previous users and will attempt to autocomplete them when the next user sits down.

I have logged in as the administrator, and turned off all autocomplete settings in the Internet Options inside Internet Explorer. Once restarted in the Public User account, autocomplete is off but the first time you enter something into a form, it asks the user if they want to turn it back on.

Is there any way to permanently kill autocomplete until it is dead dead dead?

Who am I, anyhow? (username autocomplete)

JMOZ — Sun, 08 Jan 2006 13:59:13 -0800

How do I autocomplete usernames (which have saved passwords) in Firefox 1.5? I recently switched the browser on my (Debian Linux) system from Mozilla (non-Firefox) to Firefox 1.5. Unfortunately, I'm missing a feature I really liked:

My wife and I both use this computer, and there are several sites we both use (gmail, bank, library, etc.) In Mozilla (the old version), it would autocomplete usernames for which there were stored passwords and allow us to select which account to use with a dialog box. Our passwords transferred over, but only if we type in the username.

For things like our library accounts, (which are just long numbers), it's a hassle to have to type them. I'm wondering if there's some way to get our autocomplete/menu back. I recognize there's a small security issue in being able to choose the username from a menu, but I'd think it's small.

I googled and looked for a Mozilla extension/Greasemonkey script, but I had no luck. Anyone have any (relatively simple) ideas? Thanks in advance.

Is there a way to view the entries in Safari's autocomplete database?

the biscuit man — Thu, 05 Aug 2004 09:55:01 -0800

Is there a way to view the entries in Safari's autocomplete database? (more inside) I was trying to find the title of a book that someone had suggested on Ask Metafilter. The poster who I am also unable to recall, had suggested two books. I know that I had searched Amazon for the book. If I could browse my autocomplete entries, I would be able to find it.

Shortening URL auto-complete

grumblebee — Fri, 18 Jun 2004 13:13:20 -0800

I really like the common browser feature of auto completing a URL request as I'm typing it. But it drives me crazy that, when I'm trying to go to Amazon.com, it auto-completes with http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060557540/qid%3D1087167862/sr%3D2-1/ref%3Dsr%5F2%5F1/103-9997594-7563029, which is the most recent sub-page I've visited at amazon's site. Is there a browser out there that will always auto complete with a site's home page -- maybe when you use a keyboard shortcut or something?