If you downloaded v2.8.x of Article Architect you may have noticed a new feature called Article Popper. You probably also noticed no instructions on how to use it. That’s because it’s an upcoming feature I’ve been working on and when I released that version I forgot to re-hide it.

It’s a feature that’s not ready for prime time. =:) So in the next version it vanishes but will probably appear in an upcoming version later this year.

What IS going to be in version 2.9.0 is a feature called SR (Search & Replace) Tokens and I’m finding it a tremendous time-saver for my own work — I hope you do, too.

In general, it allows you to write an article and insert “tokens” that will be replaced on-the-fly when you submit an article to a directory, export it, publish to blog, etc.

What’s it good for?

Let’s say you use your real name when submitting to one directory but a pen name when submitting to another. In the article you write instead of putting your name, you’d put in a token, such as ~name. It could be anything you find handy, maybe %name% or something.

Then you specify whenever you’re submitting to Directory A and it sees those characters, it replaces with Bob Smith. When submitting to Directory B and those characters appear, it replaces with John Jones. You no longer have to “tweak” the article for each specific directory.

I use it mainly for the tracking codes I use in the resource box links — I want to know how much traffic comes from the articles I submit to EzineArticles vs GoArticles vs iSnare, for example. In the past I’d have to change each tracking code as I submitted the article — now I have a different SR Token set up for each directory and when it sees ~track it knows to change that to the tracking code for that directory.

Another Handy Use

It’s also handy for shortcuts. Right now I’m writing a series of articles on “cowboy action shooting” and those three words show up time after time. I now have an SR Token of ~cas that “expands” to those three words when I publish or submit the article.

Note: If you do that, realize the word count for the article may be off a little if your token is a different number of words than the replacement text.

SR Tokens is the main new feature of version 2.9.0 — and while it may not be earth-shattering in nature, it’s a really handy feature for people who are heavily into article marketing.

Version 2.9.0 should be available at some point tomorrow (January 14).