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Floating Panel

The floating panel is OnText's main interface—a sleek action bar that appears when you need it.

Panel Appearance

The panel features:

  • Translucent background with blur effect
  • Smooth animations when appearing/disappearing
  • Hover effects on action buttons
  • Responsive sizing based on number of actions

Triggering the Panel

Press F2 (default) after selecting text. You can customize this:

  1. Open Preferences → General → Behavior
  2. Click the Trigger Shortcut field
  3. Press your desired key combination

Automatic Trigger

Why No Automatic Popup?

I've experimented with PopClip-style automatic popups, but encountered significant UX conflicts with OnText's keyboard-centric design:

Accidental Triggers: When you press Cmd+A to select all text intending to delete or replace it, the floating panel would pop up instantly.

Input Conflict: Since OnText assigns keyboard shortcuts to actions, the moment you start typing to replace selected text, the app might interpret your keystrokes as commands to run actions instead of typing.

UX Friction: To avoid this, you would have to press Esc to dismiss the panel every time you select text but don't want to perform an action. This adds constant "micro-friction" that disrupts the flow for keyboard-heavy users.

My goal is to keep OnText fast and reliable without forcing users to constantly dismiss a UI they didn't mean to trigger. I'm still exploring ways to bridge this gap without compromising the keyboard-centric UX, but for now, this feature is on hold.

Panel Behavior

Positioning

The panel appears near your mouse cursor position.

Dismissing

The panel closes when:

  • You click an action
  • You press Esc
  • You click outside the panel

Customizing Appearance

Tooltips

Toggle action tooltips in Preferences → General → Show Tooltips

Keyboard Shortcuts

Show/hide keyboard shortcut indicators in Preferences → General → Behavior → Show Keyboard Shortcuts

Keyboard Navigation

KeyAction
Letters & NumbersExecute action by assigned shortcut
EscClose panel
F2Toggle panel visibility