Keyboard Shortcuts (Workbench)

Supervertaler has one keyboard shortcut per action. The same combination works whether Supervertaler is the focused application or whether you trigger it from another app – there's no longer a separate "Global" entry to keep in sync with the in-app one.

Managing shortcuts

Open Settings → Keyboard Shortcuts. Each row is one action. Click a row to edit, press the new combination, hit OK. Changes apply immediately – no restart needed.

Rows whose action label starts with 🌍 also register as an OS-level global hotkey, so they fire from any application. The rest are in-app only (e.g. segment navigation, match insertion).

Default shortcuts that work everywhere

The 🌍 actions and their out-of-the-box bindings:

Action	Default	Notes
Open Clipboard	Ctrl+Alt+C (Win/Linux) / ⌘⌥C (macOS)	Auto-copies the current selection, then opens Workbench's Clipboard tab
Open SuperLookup	Ctrl+Alt+L / ⌘⌥L	Auto-copies the current selection, then opens Workbench's SuperLookup tab with the text pre-filled and the search auto-fired
QuickTrans	Ctrl+Alt+Q / ⌘⌥Q	Instant translation popup; auto-copies the selection
Voice dictation / push-to-talk	Ctrl+Shift+Space / ⌘⇧Space	Toggles recording; a "🎤 Listening…" toast confirms the mic is live
Voice Always-On (toggle)	Ctrl+Alt+A / ⌘⌥A	Continuous listening on/off

:::note Ctrl+Alt+K used to summon a floating Supervertaler Sidekick window through v1.10.3. Sidekick was retired in v1.10.4 and the chord is now unbound by default. The companion tabs (Clipboard, Voice, SuperLookup) are reachable via the dedicated hotkeys above; Chat lives in Workbench's right panel. :::

Rebind any of these in Settings → Keyboard Shortcuts by clicking the row and pressing a new combination.

macOS vs Windows: symbols and modifier names

The two platforms use different conventions for naming and drawing modifier keys. Supervertaler shows the platform-native symbols in the UI, but it's useful to know what each one means:

Symbol	macOS name	Windows / Linux name	Physical key
⌘	Command (Cmd)	–	The key with the Apple/Command glyph
⌃	Control (Ctrl)	Ctrl	The Control key
⌥	Option (Opt)	Alt	The Alt key (top of the Option key on Mac)
⇧	Shift	Shift	The Shift key

So a shortcut shown as ⌃⌘L on macOS is read "Control + Command + L". See the next section for how Supervertaler stores that internally and why the stored name doesn't always match the Mac symbol.

What "Ctrl" means inside Supervertaler

Internally, shortcuts are stored in Qt's cross-platform format, which uses Ctrl, Alt, Shift, and Meta as labels. Qt swaps Ctrl and Meta on macOS so that the same shortcut string works on every platform. The mapping:

Stored as…	…means on Windows / Linux	…means on macOS
Ctrl	Ctrl	Cmd (⌘)
Alt	Alt	Option (⌥)
Shift	Shift	Shift (⇧)
Meta	Windows key	Control (⌃)

You only ever see this if you export shortcuts to JSON or look at the cheatsheet HTML – the UI itself always shows you platform-native symbols on macOS and plain names on Windows. The default for Superlookup is therefore stored as Ctrl+Alt+L and displayed as Ctrl+Alt+L on Windows and ⌘⌥L on macOS, both of which fire the same physical chord on each platform.

Per-platform notes

macOS

Global hotkeys require Accessibility permission on whichever binary launched Python:

• Bundled Supervertaler.app → add Supervertaler in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility

• Launched from Terminal.app → add Terminal.app instead

• Launched from iTerm2 → add iTerm2.app instead

Also requires the pyobjc-framework-Cocoa Python package (pip install pyobjc-framework-Cocoa); the bundled .app ships with it.

The Status indicator on the right-hand side of Settings → Keyboard Shortcuts shows Active (via NSEvent) when global hotkeys are working on macOS.

Windows

Global hotkeys are registered via the native RegisterHotKey API, which consumes the keystroke at the OS level. The combination is reserved for Supervertaler whenever it's running. If another app has already claimed the same combination, Supervertaler logs a failed_hotkeys warning and that one combination won't fire – re-bind to something free in Settings → Keyboard Shortcuts.

Linux

Global hotkeys go through pynput, which uses XGrabKey under X11. If hotkeys silently don't fire, your user may need to be in the input group (sudo usermod -aG input $USER, then log out and back in).

Companion-tab keyboard navigation

When you've summoned the Clipboard, SuperLookup, or Voice tab via a global hotkey, these shortcuts work straight away – no clicking around to land your focus first:

Shortcut	Action
Esc	Hide Workbench to the system tray (quick-lookup tabs only – Editor / Settings / etc. keep the natural Esc)
↑ / ↓	Navigate within the focused column (e.g. clipboard text history, snippet list)
← / →	Move focus between columns in the Clipboard tab (Text → Images → Menu)
Enter	Activate the selected item (paste clip, run snippet, fire conversion)

Editor shortcuts

The editor (translation grid) has its own set of shortcuts for navigation, match insertion, term operations, and so on. See Editor Keyboard Shortcuts for the full list.

Exporting a printable cheatsheet

The settings page has an Export Cheatsheet (HTML) button on the right-hand panel. It writes a self-contained HTML file showing every shortcut grouped by category, with the platform-native symbols already substituted in. Print it or save it as PDF.

Related pages

• Editor Keyboard Shortcuts

• Voice

• Companion Tabs Overview