Selection actions

The Selection actions screen is the switch and two choices, then four doors: the Actions list, Icon only, the AI buttons and the Time zones. Below them sit the switches for the entries in other apps’ selection menus. This page is the field reference. For what the feature is and how each action behaves, start at Selection actions.

Options

WM Keyboard › Advanced › Selection actions

Setting	Control	Default
Selection actions	Toggle	Off
Where it appears	Choice of 2	Own row
Show on every selection	Toggle	Off
Show with nothing selected	Toggle	Off
Read what is selected	Toggle	On
Actions	Screen	37 of 56 on
Icon only	Screen	None
AI buttons	Screen	None
Time zones	Screen	UTC and the device’s zone
WM Keyboard in the selection menu	Toggle	On
WM Translate in the selection menu	Toggle	Off, listed while the Translate tool is on
Ask AI in the selection menu	Toggle	On, listed while the AI tool is on
Look up in the selection menu	Toggle	On
Translate on the sheet	Toggle	On
Ask AI on the sheet	Toggle	On
Look up on the sheet	Toggle	On
Save as note on the sheet	Toggle	On

Selection actions is the keyboard’s bar. Nothing else on the screen is read by the keyboard while it is off, and no selection raises anything. The four selection menu switches at the bottom are separate and work either way.

Where it appears is either Own row or Suggestion strip. Own row gives the bar a row of its own above the keys, which arrives with the selection and leaves with it, so the keyboard is one row taller while it is there. That row is called Selection actions in the row list on Rows & bars, where you can move it above or below the suggestion strip. Suggestion strip draws the actions over the strip instead and costs no height, since there are no word suggestions to show while text is selected. Under that choice the strip goes back to the toolbar whenever a panel is open, because the arrow on that row is the way out of the panel.

Show on every selection governs what happens past the length cap. The keyboard does not read a selection longer than 4,000 characters, and with this off the bar disappears at that point, since every action it draws is derived from the text. On, it keeps the five actions that are carried out by the editor rather than by the keyboard (Select all, Copy, Cut, Paste and Delete), filtered as always by which of them you have on and by whether each can do anything (Paste needs something on the clipboard; Select all is dropped once the selection already spans the field). The reading itself never happens, so the kind of the selection is not known and nothing that depends on it is offered. It also covers a selection some apps report but will not hand over, where those same five are the only actions that could have worked. Password fields are excluded whichever way this is set.

Show with nothing selected keeps the own row up while the field has only a caret. Offered then are Select all and Paste, out of the actions you have on; Paste is drawn whether or not the clipboard holds anything, so the row does not change shape under your thumb, and a paste of nothing does nothing. Selecting text replaces it with the usual row for that selection, and collapsing the selection brings the caret row back. The row is not drawn while a panel is open, the same as for a selection. The switch is only listed with Where it appears set to Own row, and has no effect on the strip placement. Password fields are excluded whichever way this is set.

Read what is selected decides whether a selection is read as a phone number, an address or a link, or only ever as plain text. With it off you keep every action that works on any text and lose Call, Message, WhatsApp, Email, Open, QR and Contact, because none of those mean anything without the reading. Phone shapes come from the formats you saved under Phone number formats.

WM Keyboard in the selection menu adds WM Keyboard to the menu apps show over selected text, in the apps whose menu lists other apps’ entries (which ones). It opens a sheet with Translate, the AI actions and the rewrites and Open in actions from the Actions list below, in the order set there; see In any app’s selection menu. The sheet uses the same list as the bar whether or not the bar is on.

WM Translate in the selection menu adds a second entry, WM Translate, that opens the same sheet with the text already being translated into the Translate tool’s target language. It is listed, and the entry is in the menu, only while the Translate tool is switched on.

Ask AI in the selection menu and Look up in the selection menu are the switches from the AI tool and Look up pages, shown here as well. Each entry the switches add is one more row in every app’s menu.

Actions

WM Keyboard › Advanced › Selection actions › Actions

A field at the top searches the actions by name and description. Below it, Order on the bar shows the actions that are on in the order the bar draws them; its pencil turns them into a draggable list. Undo is always first and is not in the list. Under that, seven folded groups hold every action with a switch each; an action with settings of its own (AI, Zones) has an arrow to them.

The list is an allow list, not a guarantee: an action that is on is drawn only where it applies, and a few need a tool or an app as well.

Action	Group	Shipped	Where it appears
Undo	Editing	On	Anything, after the bar changed it
Select all	Editing	On	Anything not already the whole field
Copy	Editing	On	Every selection
Cut	Editing	On	Every selection
Paste	Editing	On	While the clipboard holds text
Delete	Editing	On	Every selection
Find	Editing	On	One line of text, not the whole field
Replace	Editing	On	Every selection
Repeat	Editing	On	Every selection, while the Text repeat tool is enabled
Sort	Lines	On	Two or more lines
Unique	Lines	On	Two or more lines
Number	Lines	On	Two or more lines
Bullets	Lines	On	Two or more lines
Check boxes	Lines	Off	Two or more lines
Move up, Move down	Lines	Off	Anything short of the whole field
Format	Format	On	Every selection, when the rewrite would change something
Fancy	Format	On	Plain text
Bold, Italic, Strike, Mono	Format	Off	Plain text, in a chat app the keyboard knows
camelCase, snake_case, kebab-case, CONSTANT_CASE	Format	Off	Inside Format’s case options
Digits	Convert	On	Digits in another script
Zawgyi ⇄ Unicode	Convert	On	Burmese text
Fix spacing	Convert	On	Korean text, once its downloads are on the phone
Add niqqud	Convert	On	Hebrew text, once its downloads are on the phone
Add tashkeel	Convert	On	Arabic text, once its downloads are on the phone
Add furigana	Convert	On	Japanese text, once its download is on the phone
Switch script	Convert	On	Text in either alphabet while you type Serbian or Uzbek. Rewrites Cyrillic as Latin or Latin as Cyrillic, going by which most of it is in. Foreign words and web addresses stay as they are
Restore ё	Convert	On	Cyrillic text while you type Russian, once Words with ё is downloaded under Languages → Russian → Russian options. Only words that can’t be read with е change, so все stays все
Fix half-spaces	Convert	On	Persian text. Adds half-spaces to forms such as می‌روم and کتاب‌ها, replaces Arabic ي and ك, and tidies spaces around punctuation
Colour	Convert	On	A colour code
JSON	Convert	Off	A JSON object or array
Base64	Convert	Off	Base64 text
Decode	Convert	Off	A percent-encoded link
Remove trackers	Convert	On	A link with tracking parameters, alone or in text
Translate	Language	On	Plain text, with the Translate tool on
Grammar	Language	On	Plain text, with the Grammar tool on
DeepL Write	Language	On	Plain text up to 2,500 characters, with a DeepL key and DeepL Write on under Tools / Translate
AI	Language	On	Plain text, with the AI tool on and set up
Bangla	Language	On	Latin text, with Bengali among your languages
Banglish	Language	On	Bengali text
Search	Look up	Off	Plain text, with the Web search tool on
Speak	Look up	Off	Every selection
Zones	Look up	Off	A time
Edit word	Look up	On	One word of plain text, punctuation around it aside
Share	Open in	On	Every selection
Call	Open in	On	Phone numbers
Message	Open in	On	Phone numbers
WhatsApp	Open in	On	Phone numbers, and only with WhatsApp installed
Email	Open in	On	Addresses
Open	Open in	On	Links and addresses
QR	Open in	On	Links, with the QR generator on
Contact	Open in	On	Phone numbers and addresses
Map	Open in	Off	Coordinates or an address
Calendar	Open in	Off	A date or time

Search is off to start with, because it is a round trip to a network service and not what a selection usually means. Translate is on: it only opens the Translate tool, which can translate on the device, and a selection in a language you can’t read is the text you could not have typed into that tool yourself. It was off before; a list you had already picked yourself keeps its choices, so switch it on here. The chat markers, the programmer’s cases, Speak, Zones, Map, Calendar and the decoders are off because each is a taste rather than a need, and the row is long enough already.

Renaming an action

The pencil on an action’s row changes the word the bar draws for it, up to 24 characters: a shorter word, say, or one in your own language. The selection menu sheet in other apps keeps the shipped names. The list then shows your name too, and a hold on an icon-only chip says it. Clear the field, or press Reset, to go back to the shipped word. Search on this screen still finds the action by its shipped name.

Icon only

WM Keyboard › Advanced › Selection actions › Icon only

A checkbox per action that is on and has an icon, in the bar’s order. A picked action is drawn as its icon alone, with no name beside it, so the ones you know by sight take less of the row; press and hold one to see its name, and a screen reader still says it. The case options are not listed: they are written in the case they apply and have no icon to show instead. Icon size, above the list, sizes those icons from 12 to 28 dp (16 by default); a bigger icon takes the room around it, so the bar stays the same height.

AI buttons

WM Keyboard › Advanced › Selection actions › AI buttons

A checkbox per AI action, in the AI tool’s own order. Each picked action gets a chip beside the AI chip that runs it on the selection at once, with the result landing in the AI panel ready to apply. The Translate action’s chip reads AI translate, so it can’t be mistaken for the Translate action, which opens the Translate tool. An action that asks for its prompt each run (Custom) is not offered, since it cannot be a one-tap button. Manage AI actions opens the AI actions list itself. The chips only appear while the AI tool is switched on and a provider is set up.

Time zones

WM Keyboard › Advanced › Selection actions › Time zones

The zones the Zones action renders a selected time in, reorderable, with a delete handle each. Below the list, a field searches every zone the device knows by city and by offset; tap a result to add it. With nothing picked the list is UTC and the device’s own zone, and deleting everything returns to that. Sort by time (off) lists the zones in the Zones action earliest time first instead of in this order.

From plugins

WM Keyboard › Advanced › Selection actions › From plugins

A switch per action that an installed plugin adds to the bar, each with its plugin’s name under it, all on to start with. They are drawn after the built-in actions, in the order the plugins were installed. With none installed, one row leads to the Plugins screen and says whether plugins are turned on. Clink actions are listed here too, since each installs as a plugin. See Selection actions.

Details

• Search, Translate, QR, Grammar and AI follow their tools. Each is hidden when its tool is switched off on the Tools screen, which includes tools that power saving or the lock screen have already taken away.
• The screens are reachable by link at wmkeyboard://settings/selection_macros, selection_macros/actions, selection_macros/ai and selection_macros/zones. See Deep links.
• Your list survives updates. The list of actions and its order are stored with a version. When an update adds actions, the ones it turns on by default join your list at the end of your order, and everything you switched on, switched off or moved stays as you left it. A backup restored from an older version is read the same way. Only lists saved before the version that grew the bar to forty-five actions read as the shipped list.
• Nothing here is read before your first unlock, beyond the actions that only touch the field you are typing in. See Selection actions.