Abbreviations - auto insert?

This is actually a two part question.

First, is there a way to 'auto' expand abbreviations?  As a new Linux
user, I'm trying out many of the different IDE's available to me.  In
Windows, I used UltraEdit.

The neatest feature to me, especially in PHP, is the ultraedit
auto-expansion of two dots (..) to the arrow used for method calls on
PHP classes.

For example, I can type this method call:

$this->db->get('sql string');

like this in ultraedit:

$this..db..get('sql string');

The two-dot notation keeps me from having to use the finger-gymnastics
of -> when I'm in a hurry.  I was hoping that Quanta could do
something like that but Quanta doesn't seem to let me use '..' or '--'
as a template - seems I have to start with an alpha character?

Any ideas/suggestions?

Thanks,
Jon