Add shortcuts for emoji characters to finally put the ± key to use

I have finally managed to find a use for the ± key on the Apple keyboard. This keyI have finally managed to find a use for the ± key on the Apple keyboard. This key bugged me since I got the computer as I have never ever seen it in a text and just can not understand why it would be on a keyboard in the first place.

Since there is a native text-expansion feature in OS X (Settings → Language & Text → Text) it seems that this character could serve as a perfect “marker” for some exotic shortcuts. The color emoticons available in the OS X make a perfect candidate since inserting them into text is quite a hassle as one has to go through the Special Character menu.

Thus I made shortcuts for some of them as illustrated here:

They help me navigate in plain text document and provide valuable highlighting options in places where other methods do not exist. Maybe this could help you too. Bugged me since I got the computer as I have never ever seen it in a text and just can not understand why it would be on a keyboard in the first place.