Customizing your system. 1/n

[jc@tlo]

I’m not really intending to make that a series, but if this mail starts one it will rightfully be labelled 1…

I’m sitting at a terrace in Villeneuve-sur-Lot, working on a translation after drinking a double-expresso and it seems to me that the first thing one can do to customize macOS and better integrate all the applications is to add shortcuts to the various services.

So, go to System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Services, check the services that the installed applications provide and add shortcuts as you wish.

Some shortcuts will conflict with macOS shortcuts and won’t work. You have to try.

With or without shortcuts, the “Services” are available from the application main menu. The one that is labelled with the name of the application, right next to the 🍎 menu (top left of the screen).

Services that come with shortcuts have the shortcuts displayed. If the shortcuts don’t work, it is because they are already used by the system. If the shortcut is not displayed, it is because the application you are trying to access it from does not allow it.

⇒ Finding a shortcut that works from all possible applications can be a bit tricky.

Some services work regardless of the state of your machine, some work only when something (text/file, etc.) is selected. Only the services that are available in the current state will be displayed there.

Some applications accept interaction with the services (they provide the selection and also accept text that is sent back by the service). Some do not.

For example

- Druide’s Antidote provides access to its Dictionaries. The service requires a text selection.

- I assigned Control + Command + A to the service (A for Antidote)

- OmegaT accepts the shortcut and will send the selection to Antidote after I hit the shortcut

- Mail does not accept the shortcut but I can still manually select the service and send the selection to Antidote

With that shortcut set, I can select text in OmegaT, send it to Antidote’s dictionary and quickly check synonyms.

-- 
Jean-Christophe Helary @jche...@emacs.ch
https://traductaire-libre.org
https://mac4translators.blogspot.com
https://sr.ht/~brandelune/omegat-as-a-book/