SelSearch

Grab text selected in any application and open a web browser to search for.

Story

As part of my research, I often need to search authors, paper names, or even translate text from a document (e.g., PDF) that I’m reading.

Because I’m kind of lazy, I decided to see if I could automate a bit this process. This is how I created SelSearch.

SelSearch simply reads any text you select, in any application¹, and allow to search for it on your favorite websites.

I think one image is worth a thousands words, so here is an example:

Above, you can see me select some word, i.e., Linux, in the terminal and search it on Google via a predefined shortcut. Then, I select some sentence on Google, and look up for the translation on DeepL.

As explained on the Github page, SelSearch is fully configurable using a TOML config file:

[urls]
# List of urls
# You can add / remove / edit any number of lines
google = "https://www.google.com/search?q="
wordreference = "https://www.wordreference.com/enfr/"
deepl = "https://www.deepl.com/translator#en/fr/"
googlescholar = "https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q="

[shortcuts]
# List of shotcuts
# You can add / remove / edit any number of lines
"<ctrl>+0" = "google"
"<ctrl>+1" = "deepl"
"<ctrl>+2" = "wordreference"

1. Depending on whether you have XSel installed, some application may not work. But for most, like any web page or PDF reader, it works fine! ↩