So how does autocompletion differ from copy & paste? The basic difference is that instead of pasting in the text in question, the utility simply completes the word or phrase you have started to type. At its simplest level, we see this feature at work when, for example, Firefox or Internet Explorer fills in a URL address for us, or when the Google search engine gives us a list of suggestions based on the first letters of our search.
But what interests me here is how autocompletion can help us when we are actually writing text.
Suppose for example you are writing a text in which you often need to type in the name Valéry Giscard D'Estaing. You could of course paste it in each time but the chances are that this would involve other actions. With autocompletion, on the other hand, you would just type in the first 2 or 3 letters, press a key, and that's it! Well, that's not quite it. I mean it's not completely magic!
What I can truthfully say, as one who spends about 10 hours a day hammering away at the key board, is that over the years I find myself using autocompletion quite as much as the clipboard - indeed considerably more so.
Why, then, is not autocompletion and Intellicomplete, one of its commercial manifestations, not better known?
I shall address this point in my last post on this subject.
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