Mini review – TextShine is a simple but powerful text modification tool for Linux

There are many applications available for Linux that only focus on just one or a limited number of related simple tasks. Although simple and functionally limited, these applications can still be an important part of your productive workflow. Until recently I paid little attention to these kinds of single task applications from a blogger’s perspective because there is relatively little to write about, but I realized that I am not giving these often powerful tools the attention they deserve. So today I am starting a new series, namely the Mini Review, in which these simple applications get the attention they deserve. So in this article a first mini review for TextShine, a simple but powerful text modification tool for Linux.

What is TextShine

Textshine is a single task application originally developed for the elementary OS platform, but since it is available in Flatpak format it can be used on any Linux distribution.

TextShine is an application that focuses entirely on converting text to a specific format easily and quickly. I do not mean the file format here, but the format in which the text itself is converted, such as well-known text presentations such as camel case, title case, upper case, lower case, etc. But also options such as indent, change to curved quotes, double to single quotes, remove leading whitespace, etc. TextShine is therefore a powerful tool to easily implement large amounts of standardized changes to a text. Consider, for example, a coding assignment for which a standard naming convention with camel case must be applied based on a list of attribute names, or a messed up text from which duplicate sentences must be cleaned.

How does TextShine work

TextShine is simple and doesn’t really need much explanation. Copy a text or part of a text from your document, spreadsheet, web page, etc, and paste the text into TextShine. Select all or part of the text there and choose an action from the options provided under Actions to adjust the text to your liking.

Besides the fact that you can perform one action or if needed more actions in succession, you can also create and execute custom text conversions. These custom conversions can be created based on steps of different individual conversions.

TextShine also offers undo functionality and displays a number of statistics, such as number of characters, number of words or number of sentences. You can add your most used conversions to your Favorites for quick application.

Below a complete list of available Actions and their Groups:

Change Case

  • Upper Case
  • Lower Case
  • Sentence Case
  • Title Case
  • Camel Case
  • Snake Case
  • Random Case

Convert

  • Hard Wrap At 80 Characters
  • Encode URL
  • ROT 13

Indentation

  • Indent One Level
  • Unindent One Level
  • Indent XML

Insert

  • Insert Text (Start of Line)
  • Insert Line Numbers
  • Insert Lorem Ipsum
  • Insert File Text

Markdown

  • Convert Markdown to HTML
  • Generate References
  • Beautify Tables

Quotes

  • Change to Curved Quotes
  • Change to Straight Quotes
  • Change to Angled Quotes
  • Change to German Quotes
  • Change to CJK Quotes
  • Double to Single Quotes

Remove

  • Remove Blank Lines
  • Remove Duplicate Lines
  • Remove Leading Whitespace
  • Remove Trailing Whitespace
  • Remove Line Breaks
  • Remove Line Numbers
  • Remove Matched Text

Repair

  • Fix Spaces

Replace

  • Tabs With 1 Space
  • Three Periods With Elipsis
  • Return With Space
  • Single Return With 2 Returns

Search and Replace

  • Find
  • Regular Expression
  • Replace Matched Text
  • Invert Matched Text
  • Clear Match Highlights

Sort

  • Sort Lines
  • Reverse Characters
  • Move 1 Line Down

How to download and install TextShine

If you are an elementary OS user you can get TextShine directly from the elementary OS AppCenter. If you use another Linux distribution then download the Flatpak file by clicking on the link below:

Get TextShine Flatpak file

If Flatpak support is not setup yet in your Linux installation, follow the guide that fits your distribution via below link:

Setup Flatpak

Final Words

TextShine is a simple single task application that is doing only one thing, but it is doing it well. When you need to do specific bulk text conversions according to generic standards or based on your own custom standards, I think TextShine is a powerful little gem for you.

 

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About John Been

Hi there! My name is John Been. At the moment I work as a senior solution engineer for a large financial institution, but in my free time, I am the owner of RealAppUser.com, RealLinuxUser.com, and author of my first book "Linux for the rest of us". I have a broad insight and user experience in everything related to information technology and I believe I can communicate about it with some fun and knowledge and skills.

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