A trigger for selected text / files

Configuration Help & General Discussion Localization / Translation
1

I hope there can be a trigger for selected text / files

This will greatly enhance the use of BTT in combination with BTT's custom floating menu feature.

For example:

  • After selecting the text, a BTT custom floating menu pops up, you can choose "Google Search", "Translate to Japanese"...
  • After selecting an image, a BTT custom floating menu pops up, you can choose "Search by image", "Convert to PNG format"....
  • After selecting other files, the BTT custom floating menu pops up, and you can choose "delete", "rename"...

Currently, these operations require several steps to accomplish. If BTT can support "triggers for selected text/files", tasks could be completed with a single mouse click, greatly improving work efficiency.

Therefore, I badly wish to have this feature. I hope you can consider it

2

Dear @Andreas_Hegenberg :
could you kindly spare some time to respond to this feature request?
If it is not feasible, I would appreciate understanding the specific reasons.

I have been using BTT for almost 10 years. I believe that this function combined with BTT's custom floating menu function would be very powerful.
Therefore, I strongly hope that it can be implemented.

3

See Can BTT trigger upon text selection like popclip? - #4 by Andreas_Hegenberg

Unfortunately it's pretty complicated & not possible at all in some apps. It's on my TODO list to experiment with this, but I don't have an ETA.

1 Like
4

Thank you for the response. I am also a user of PopClip, so I understand the efficiency of this method. However, PopClip has its issues:

  • It does not support custom floating menus for specific websites.
  • It lacks a settings interface, making changes and configurations difficult.
  • Its integration with the custom floating menus in BTT is not very good, it requires clicking on a button in PopClip to activate it.

Thank you for your explanation, I understand that the demand is valuable, it's just a matter of feasibility.
I'm wondering if we don't have to strive for a perfect solution, achieving the level of effectiveness and compatibility of PopClip would be enough to satisfy about 90% of usage scenarios.
This way, BTT will become more powerful, and there would no longer be a need for PopClip (because it would be much more user-friendly than PopClip).

5

The level of PopClip would be great :wink: But PopClip has worked years to make it as good as it is now.

1 Like
6

you are right, I'm not clear about the barriers behind PopClip's many years of accumulation, whether it's a technical difficulty, the ecology of the extension (I feel BTT doesn't need a rich extension because users can easily build it themselves), or something else?

However (at least for me), the problems with PopClip are evident, and the efficiency improvements brought by BTT's introduction of the selected text trigger are also evident.
So I still hope you can consider my request and raise the priority of this requirement. :slight_smile: