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charlie skilbeck
Asked: 2024-09-19 21:56:09 +0800 CST

Double tap ctrl-c to launch search engine with clipboard contents

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I am using Ubuntu 24 with the default desktop. Does anyone have any idea how I could accomplish the following:

When the user has some text selected (in any application) and they press Ctrl-C twice in quick succession (defined as, say, the mouse double click time), then the default browser is launched with a command line pointing at a search for that text.

I have this on Windows via a utility called SearchClip and I find it's super handy, but I don't know how to port that to Ubuntu - it uses a global keyboard hook and that's a really Windows-specific thing.

https://github.com/cskilbeck/SearchClip

shortcut-keys

2 Answers

  1. Not for general highlighted text but there is a Firefox Extension called Swift Selection Search which might be of interest.

    Click on the FF ☰ menu Add-ons and Themes and enter the name of the extension in the search box after which select it and click on Add to Firefox and follow the on-screen instructions.

    You can also search the internet from Terminal using the Lynx text-based web browser using the following Apt command in a terminal sudo apt install lynx.

    This instructional article shows you how.

    There is a further opportunity to search using S-Search explained in the same article at Method 2.

    enter image description here

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  2. Best Answer

    You'll need xbindkeys and xclip if they aren't installed already.

    sudo apt-get install xbindkeys xclip

    Now just type xbindkeys and press enter. First run will create ~/.xbindkeysrc. Run nano ~/.xbindkeysrc and add the following:

    # Search for clipboard text.  Note: the /tmp file sanitizes the URL 
"echo 'https://www.google.com/search?q=$(xclip)' > /tmp/tmp_browser_url && firefox \"$(cat /tmp/tmp_browser_url)\";"
  ctrl+super+c

    Run xbindkeys -p to poll the changes in ~/.xbindkeysrc.

    Change firefox to your browser, if needed. I don't know about double tapping c but this will work using Ctrl, Super (Windows key), and c (or any keys of your choosing, really).

    Copy the text as usual with Ctrl+C, then press Ctrl+Super+C and it should launch a google search with the text on the clipboard.

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