Companion Tabs Overview
Supervertaler Workbench includes four companion surfaces that sit alongside the translation grid: SuperLookup, Clipboard, Voice, and Chat. They cover the lookup-and-capture tasks you reach for dozens of times a day while translating – concordance searches, clipboard history, voice commands, AI conversation – without making you leave the editor or the app you're in.
Three of them are top-level tabs in Workbench (next to Editor, TMs, Termbases, AI, Settings); the fourth, Chat, sits as a side panel next to the editor so you can keep an AI conversation visible while you translate.
:::note Where did Sidekick go? Through v1.10.3, these four surfaces lived inside a separate always-on-top floating window called Supervertaler Sidekick. It was retired in v1.10.4 and the tabs were promoted into Workbench itself. The companion surfaces below behave exactly as they did inside Sidekick – they're just hosted differently now, with proper taskbar / Alt+Tab presence and access via top-level tabs instead of a separate window. The global hotkey Ctrl+Alt+K that used to summon Sidekick has been unbound. :::
🔍 SuperLookup
Simultaneous search across your translation memories, termbases, machine-translation engines, and web resources – all in one panel. Select text anywhere on your computer, press Ctrl+Alt+L, and Workbench's SuperLookup tab opens with the selected text pre-filled and the search auto-fired.
📋 Clipboard
A persistent clipboard manager that captures everything you copy – text and images – from any application, plus a third "Menu" column with snippets, special characters, text conversions, and your QuickLauncher prompts. Press Ctrl+Alt+C anywhere on your computer to grab the current selection and open the Clipboard tab in one keystroke.
🎤 Voice
Voice commands and push-to-talk dictation. Create commands that press keyboard shortcuts, run scripts, or call Workbench functions – then speak them while working in Trados, memoQ, Word, or any other app. Ctrl+Alt+A toggles always-on listening from anywhere.
→ Voice
💬 Chat
The AI assistant panel, mounted in Workbench's right panel next to the editor (one click on the 💬 Chat tab). Ask questions about terminology, get translation suggestions, attach files for the AI to read, and – when Supervertaler for Trados is also running – pick up the active Trados project context automatically.
Opening the companion tabs
SuperLookup from any application
Ctrl+Alt+L (⌘⌥L on macOS)
Auto-copies the current selection and opens SuperLookup with the text pre-filled and the search fired
Clipboard manager from any application
Ctrl+Alt+C (⌘⌥C on macOS)
Auto-copies the current selection so the just-copied text lands at the top of the history
QuickTrans popup from any application
Ctrl+Alt+Q (⌘⌥Q on macOS)
Opens an always-on-top popup with translations from every enabled provider; see QuickTrans Popup
Voice always-on (toggle)
Ctrl+Alt+A (⌘⌥A on macOS)
Starts / stops continuous voice-command listening
Push-to-talk dictation
Ctrl+Shift+Space
Records one utterance and types the transcript at the cursor
Open Chat
Click the 💬 Chat tab in the right panel
Right panel sits next to the editor on the Editor tab
All of these hotkeys can be customised in Settings → Keyboard Shortcuts.
Pressing Esc dismisses Workbench to the tray
When you're on SuperLookup, Clipboard, or Voice – the surfaces summoned via global hotkeys – pressing Esc hides Workbench back to the system tray. Useful when you're using Workbench as a popup utility from another app: hotkey to summon, Esc to dismiss.
On SuperLookup: Esc unconditionally hides Workbench, even when the cursor is in the search box. The dominant use of SuperLookup is a one-shot query, so there's nothing worth keeping if you change your mind.
On Clipboard and Voice: Esc hides Workbench unless the focused widget is a text input (search field, command editor, etc.) – in those cases Esc behaves the way it does in any other app (clears the field, closes a dropdown, etc.).
On Editor, TMs, Termbases, AI, Settings: Esc keeps its natural editor / dialog / combo-box behaviour. Workbench is never hidden by accident from the surfaces where you actually do work.
Tray quick-jump menu
Right-click the Workbench tray icon (the orange Sv) for a menu with Show Workbench, Open SuperLookup, Open Clipboard, Open Voice, Open Settings, plus toggles for Close to tray and Start with computer.
Related pages
Last updated