Boop Is a Super Powerful Copy and Paste App
Working with text is sometimes annoying, especially when you copy and paste something with incorrect formatting. Boop is a free and open source Mac app from developer Ivan Mathie . The idea is to paste text here, transform it somehow with just a few keystrokes, and then copy it again into whatever application you use it in.
This is a little difficult to understand, so let’s talk with an example. If you have a piece of text that is all capital letters and you don’t want it to be that way, you can paste the text into this app by using the “Capital Case” script to change it. In an instant, your text will be in lowercase.
You can select a scenario using the keyboard shortcut CMD+B, or click the “Choose an action” box at the top of the window. A pop-up window allows you to search for a script, browse through it using the arrows, and press Enter to apply the script to your text.
If you want to get an idea of the suggested scenarios, you can open the pop-up window and enter an asterisk and you will see the full list. You will also notice a lot of scripts related to programming, which is the real target audience of the application. I think it’s useful for writers too. My favorite scripts allow you to remove unnecessary line breaks, convert color codes, and replace smart quotes.
There’s also a collection of custom scripts that are easy to install—you just need to set up a script folder in Settings, and then download the scripts you want to use into that folder. The best one I’ve found can convert CSV tables to markdown; another can turn any line of text into a hashtag.
This is the type of app that you probably won’t open often, but you’ll be grateful if you do. In my opinion, this is the best kind of app: something that does multiple tasks very well and otherwise doesn’t require your attention. Note that there is a ported version for Linux if you are not a Mac user.