Keyboard abbreviation / auto complete

Question

I own a license for SmartAssist. It was implemented 2002 by Thorsten Schleinzer (author of Lion and LingoClick), but was never released to the public and stopped after the beta. I still have the software and a license (potentially the only one, because I knew the author personally and I was a beta tester), but after 13 years, I wonder whether there's a similar software that can achieve the same result which is still actively maintained.

This software

• monitors the keyboard input like a key logger, thus works across all programs
• it keeps track of special keys like backspace, thus still recognizing a shortcut when correcting a spelling mistake
• when it detects a shortcut, it
  • replaces the shortcut by the defined term, including placing the cursor to a specific position (e.g. inside an HTML tag) or
  • opens a dialog to ask for input ("variables") and then replace or
  • shows a tooltip or
  • executes a command (runs a program)
• runs portable (no installation required)
• works on Windows 7 and higher

The editor allows

• organizing shortcuts in groups, allowing to enable/disable groups depending on the task. In the screenshot below, "Java Tips" is disabled.
• allows enabling/disabling single shortcuts. In the screenshot below, "<abbr>" is disabled

My budget would be ~20 USD for such a tool.

Answer 1

You can easily achieve this with free open source AutoHotKey tool.

Beginners

You can use AutoHotkey to:

• Automate almost anything by sending keystrokes and mouse clicks. You can write a mouse or keyboard macro by hand or a macro recorder.
• Remap keys and buttons on your keyboard, joystick, and mouse.
• Create hotkeys for keyboard, joystick, and mouse. Essentially any key, button or combination can become a hotkey.
• Expand abbreviations as you type them. For example, typing "btw" can automatically produce "by the way".
• Retrieve and change the clipboard's contents.
• Convert any AHK script into an executable file that can be run on computers >where AutoHotkey is not installed.

...there's much more, it has its own GUI, can run programs, DLL's, etc. – check list on software home page.

It has no visual editor, but you can easily configure it through a text file. I think this is not a big issue.

Answer 2

You could try Breevy, a powerful text expander.

I used it in the past for one month to compare it with other similar products, and this was the best for me, however, because I didn't required to use it anymore, I cannot give a personal productive critique to mention their benefits or cons, so just feel free to test it by your own.

It is a trial application, which comes at the price of $34.95 per user (not per computer). The application development seems active as seen in the copyright description of the installer file.