FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)

How to disable word snapping?

Hold CTRL key while selecting text or modify selection with drag handle - in both cases text selection will not be snapped by word. To permanently disable word snapping, add website to word-snapping blacklist or uncheck: "Settings > Text selection > Snap text selection by word"

How to enable tooltip for text fields?

"Selecton settings > Text fields > Use special panel for text fields" This is disabled by default because with this option on extension will use a little bit more resources by analyzing every mouse click

Disable selection handles on the right and left?

Settings > Text selection > Add selection drag handles

Enable selecting text in links, like in Opera or Vivaldi?

You can use other extensions to get link selection, such as Select like a Boss for Chrome or Drag-Select Link Text for Firefox

On Firefox, can't change colors or import settings from extension popup

This is common Firefox bug, progress on this can be monitored here. To change colors on Firefox, open settings in new tab by clicking button in top-right corner of the popup

Change fetch interval for currency rates?

"Settings > Conversion > Rates update interval" This is set to "18" by default, because rates tend to not change drastically so often, and it is better to reduce load on free service we're using for fetching new rates.

Why extension doesn't work on new tab page?

This is basic security limitation in most modern browsers. Browser extension could not execute it's scripts on new tab page (speed dial), as well as on service pages (chrome://, about:, etc.) and in extensions store.

Additional search buttons do not show on hovering the Search button?

Icons for these buttons are fetched from Google. It is possible that you have Ad-blocker installed, which blocks all requests to Google services. In this case you would like to use vertical layout for custom search panel to get at least labels shown, or visit Settings > Custom search tooltip and set your own icon for each option. It may also be that current website blocks all external requests at all, which prevents Selecton from loading favicons.

How to add new search option

Let's use YouTube as an example. Go on a website and search for something, like "gold" – your URL will look something like this: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=gold. You have to grab this url, replace gold with %s (placeholder for the searched text), and use it as url for the new search option (Extension options > Custom search options > Add new search option).

How to add Selecton settings as Vivaldi side panel?

Use this URL: chrome-extension://{ID OF EXTENSION}/options/options.html, where {ID OF EXTENSION} is a unique extension ID on your computer. You can get this from extension details page on chrome://extensions

Highlight button cuts the text selection

To make this tool work reliably, please highlight only single words or sentences. Highlighter trims text selection within one HTML node – otherwise page layout may be broken when highlight gets restored after page reload.

Live translation, dictionary load, currency fetch is not working

It is possible that some of your installed extensions, or the browser itself, is blocking network requests to other websites from the current page. I will try to fix it in the future by moving network requests to the background script.

How to open search results in a popup, not leaving the current tab?

Selecton provides basic on-hover popups for some buttons, such as "Translate" and "Dictionary". If you want more functional popups, or you want similar functionality for the search buttons, since version 3.7.9 it is possible to use any other extension to preview Selecton buttons, as they are now just basic links (<a> HTML tag). Example of usage see here.