HotClick

September 24, 2005

Opera is smart. It’s one of the reasons we love it so much: good looks and brains!

For example, double click on some text (or click-drag to select text and then right-click) and here’s what you’ll see:

Windows:
[ Hotclick menu for Windows ]

Mac OS X:
[  Hotclick menu for Mac ]

Copy Text
The good old reliable copy option, just like you’ve been used to in pretty much every application that deals with text in any way. If you don’t know what that is, I’m not sure I can explain it to you… in fact, you’re probably unable to read this.
Copy to note
You do remember Day 19: Notes, right? Well here ya go, take the text you have selected and make it into a Note.
Speak (Windows only)
In conjunction with IBM, Opera for Windows has the ability to speak text (and respond to verbal commands). Cool, eh? Yeah, we’ll talk more about that later, but what you need to know here is that you can just grab some text and have it read to you while you… well, who knows… read your email? File that stack of papers that’s been sitting on your desk for a month?
Search
Take the selected text and search in the default search engine (the default is Google, or as defined in search.ini.)
Search with
Gives you the option to search any of the search engines defined in your search.ini file. Default search engines are Google, Opera Web(s), Amazon, Price Comparison, Ebay.com, Download.com, Google groups, Google News, and Opera support. (You might want to look at the default search.ini if you want to modify your custom search.ini to include some of the above)
Dictionary
Look up selected word in the dictionary, defined in, get this, search.ini!
Encyclopedia
(You can kinda see where this is going, right?) Look up the selected word in the encyclopedia.
Translate
Take selected text, translate it into another language.
Go to URL
Take selected text and open it as an URL. This is handy on forums and comment boards where people may post an URL but are not allowed to make proper <A HREF links.
Send by mail
Take the selected text and enter it as the body of a new email message, using the <TITLE> as the Subject: of the message. (Note: Opera doesn’t include the URL in the message, which seems like a bug to me.)

They used to say “Let your fingers do the walking” but why stop there? With Opera you can let your fingers do the searchin’

  • islamguide_com

    Hi there!


    I was just wondering if anyone knows how to change the dictionary function to search the highlighted word in a new page instead of on the same page. Just a small whim..


    Thanks in advance!


    ps. Plz email me if u got a solution..


    azceroth88(nospamplease)@gmail.com

  • Liam

    The only problem; double clicking a word/paragraph followed by a Ctrl+C shortcut does not actually copy the text to the clipboard - something I find very frustrating... Any suggestions for a solution?


    ((TjL adds: probably because the context menu appears? Press ESC before ctrl+C.))


    P.S. Love the site - it really has converted me to an Opera lover!


    ((TjL adds: Thanks!)

  • mesquita

    And, of course, you can edit the menu.ini file to have pretty much anything you want on that right click menu.

  • One more thing to add: After you doubleclick on a word, you have the options to:


    <ul>
    <li>

    click again for selecting the sentence the selected word's in,

    </li>
    <li>

    doubleclick again, for selecting the whole paragraph

    </li>
    </ul>

    Not sure if it's an OS feature (WinXP) or Opera, but pretty useful I think.

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