OS Requirements

macOS Ventura 13.0 or above

Installation

1. Download Selected.zip from releases.
2. Unzip it, and move it to the Applications directory.
3. For the first installation, you need to set up Accessibility features to allow this app to capture selected text.

Settings for web browers

1. Safari: you must enable 'Allow JavaScript from Apple Events' in the Developer section of Safari Settings to use 'do JavaScript'. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/safari-developer-tools/enabling-developer-features

2. Chrome: you need to click on the menu bar: View - Developer - Allow JavaScript from Apple Events.

Features

A Mac tool that allows various operations on selected text.

When you select text with the mouse or through the keyboard (cmd+A, cmd+shift+arrow keys), the Selected toolbar will automatically pop up, allowing quick text operations such as copying, translating, searching, querying GPT, reading text aloud, opening links, keyboard operations, executing commands, calculating expression or sharing the text, etc. It also supports custom extensions.

1. Allows for the customization of operation lists for different applications. (This can be configured in "Settings - Applications")
2. Supports customizing the addresses and keys for OpenAI, Gemini and Claude API. The translation and inquiry GPT functions depend on this. It also supports OpenAI and Claude's function calling. You can have GPT perform searches, fetch web content, write emails, or control your macOS, and virtually anything else.
3. Supports custom extensions.

Supported Applications

Some applications have already been tested, while others that have not been tested may also be supported.

See https://github.com/sakeven/Selected/wiki/Supported-Applications

Custom Action List

This can be configured in "Settings - Applications".

1. Supports adding currently running applications (does not support deleting an application)
   • Add through "Add - Select an Application"
2. Supports setting a series of actions for an application
   • Add through "Add - Select an Action"
   • Supports deleting an action
   • Supports drag-and-drop to rearrange the order of actions

Built-in Operations

Action	action.identifier	function	icon
Web Search	selected.websearch	Search via https://www.google.com/search. It can be customized in the settings page.	🔍
OpenLinks	selected.openlinks	Open all URL links in the text at the same time.	🔗
Copy	selected.copy	Copy the currently selected text.	📃
Speak	selected.speak	Read the text. If an OpenAI API Key is configured, use OpenAI's TTS (Text-to-Speech) service to generate speech, otherwise use the system's text reading functionality.	▶️
翻译到中文	selected.translation.cn	Translate to Chinese. If the selected text is a word, translate the detailed meaning of the word. An API key must be configured in the settings.	译中
Translate to English	selected.translation.en	Translate to English. You need to configure the OpenAI or Gemini API key in the settings.	🌍
Share	(none)	Share the selected text by macOS share extension.	📤
Calculator	(none)	Auto calculate the expression like 1+2/3*4-5 when you selected it.	(none)

Custom Extentions

The extension is placed in the Library/Application Support/Selected/Extensions directory, with one directory per extension.

Inside the extension directory, there must be a config.yaml file that describes the relevant information about the extension.

Example：

info:
  icon: file://./go-logo-white.svg
  name: Go Search
  enabled: true
actions:
- meta:
    title: GoSearch
    icon: file://./go-logo-white.svg
    identifier: selected.gosearch
    after: ""
  url:
    url: https://pkg.go.dev/search?limit=25&m=symbol&q={text}

Fields	Type	Description
info	object	Base information of the extension.
info.icon	string	Icon. The icon size should be 30*30. It supports specifying files with file://. file://./go-logo-white.svg is an example of loading the icon from the extension directory. It also supports direct configuration of sf symbols, such as magnifyingglass (🔍). The icon will be displayed in the configured extension list.
info.name	string	Extension name
enabled	boolean	Whether activate this extension or not.
actions	list	Action List
action.meta	object	Meta information of the Action
action.meta.title	string	Action title. Used to display the name of the operation when the mouse hovers over the toolbar.
action.meta.icon	string	The setup is the same as info.icon. It is used for display on the toolbar.
action.meta.identifier	string	action's id, unique identifier.
action.meta.after	string	Handling after the action is executed. Required. Supports configuration of empty (""), paste, copy, show.
action.meta.regex	string	Regular expressions, used to match selected text, only display action when a match occurs. Optional values.
action.url	object	Action of URL type.
action.url.url	string	A link that, upon clicking (action), will open this link. It supports schemes to open other apps. For example, https://www.google.com.hk/search?q={selected.text} for conducting a Google search. Or open things:///add?title={selected.text}&show-quick-entry=true to add a task in Things3. {selected.text} is used to replace the selected text.
action.service	object	Action of service type.
action.service.name	string	Service Name。For example, Make Sticky creates a new note (note application).
action.keycombo	object	Shortcut key type action.
action.keycombo.keycombo	string	Shortcut keys, such as "cmd i", etc. Support for function keys like "cmd", "shift", "ctrl", "option", "fn", "caps", as well as lowercase letters, numbers, symbols, and other key positions. Key positioning support is not yet complete, pending further testing and improvement.
action.keycombo.keycombos	string list	A list of Shortcut keys. Only one of keycombo or keycombos can be set in action.keycombo.
action.gpt	object	To interact with GPT, such as OpenAI (3.5 turbo model) or Gemini, you need to configure the relevant API key in the settings.
action.gpt.prompt	string	GPT prompt words, such as enriching and refining the following content. The content reads: {selected.text}. Use {selected.text} to replace the selected text.
action.gpt.tools	tool list	GPT function calling definition. A list of tool.
tool.name	string	GPT function name.
tool.description	string	GPT function description.
tool.parameters	string	JSON schema of GPT function parameters.
tool.command	string list	When call the function, run the command.
tool.showResult	boolean	Whether show function result in GUI window.
action.runCommand	object	Execute a command.
action.runCommand.command	string	Command and parameter list. The working directory during command execution is the plugin directory. The environment variables currently provided include: SELECTED_TEXT and SELECTED_BUNDLEID, which represent the currently selected text and the current application, respectively.

Each action can and must be configured with only one of the following: action.url, action.service, action.keycombo, action.gpt, or action.runCommand.

Official Extensions

See https://github.com/sakeven/Selected-Extensions

Note

This tool is a hobby project of the author and is still under rapid development and iteration, with incomplete features. Everyone is welcome to submit suggestions for features and implementation code.

Contribution

This project welcomes any contributions.

As the author is a complete beginner in Swift, SwiftUI, and macOS App development, all implementations are acquired through GPT, searching, and reading the code and documentation of related projects (EasyDict, PopClip). Therefore, if you wish to contribute code, please clearly explain how the code is implemented and why it is implemented in this way, to help the author understand your code.