Abby is an add-in to Microsoft Developer Studio 97. It expands abbreviations like “abb” in good old vi.
For example, “w” can be expanded to:
while () { }
Please send bug reports and suggestions to [email protected].
Latest version available at http://www.kinetica.com/home/yon/4dev/.
Disclaimer:
This software is provided as-is. Don’t blame me if it trashes your
source files, your system, or your life.
Install/Uninstall
- Copy Abby.dll to you add-ins folder of Developer Studio:
(c:program filesdevstudiosharedideaddins - Copy the *.abb files to your Windows folder (Sorry).
- In Developer Studio, go to the “Tools” menu and select “Customize…”.
- Go to the “Add-ins and Macro Files” tab (the last one). Mark the checkbox next to “Abby” as checked, and click “Close”.
- Developer Studio adds a new toolbar with the Abby button. You can move this button to another toolbar by pressing the Alt key while dragging the button.
To deactivate Abby, perform steps 3-4, but uncheck the checkbox next
to Abby.
To completely uninstall Abby:
- Exit Developer Studio.
- Delete Abby.dll from your Developer Studio add-ins folder.
- Delete the *.abb files from your Windows folder.
Usage
Type an abbreviation and press Ctrl+Shift+Space or click the Abby button. Abby will complete it for you.
To add or change the abbreviations, you will need to edit the abbreviations files. There is a separate
abbreviations file for each language:
- C.abb – C/C++
- Java.abb – Java
- VB.abb – Visual Basic
- HTML.abb – HTML
- None.abb – Everything else
All abbreviations files should be in the Windows folder.
Abbreviations File Format
An abbreviation file contains a series of abbreviations followed by their expansions. Each abbreviations is written in a single line,
starting with “@@” and then the abbreviation itself. All the following lines (up to the next line starting with “@@”) are the expansion.For example:
@@w while () { } @@f for (;;) { }
You can specify where the cursor will be placed after the abbreviation
is expanded by using typing “!!” in the desired position. For example:
@@w while (!!) { }
If you type “!!” in two positions, the entire text between them will
be selected after the expansion. For example:
@@w while (!!condition!!) { }
Acknowledgements
Mark Bartosik helped me solve a nasty COM reference
leak. Thanks Mark!