Sidekick

Sidekick helps you search online at the press of a key. Sidekick can also function as an application launcher. You can define applications that can be launched with an assigned hotkey. When the hotkey for an application is pressed, Sidekick will try to recover the text closest to your mouse cursor (or from clipboard), and pass it as an argument to the application. The best usage scenario is to have a hotkey mapped to an online search provider; pressing the hotkey will then search online for the text under your mouse.

By default the F3 and F4 keys are mapped to search with Google or Bing respectively. So move the mouse over some text on the screen (preferably in an edit box or another windows common control) and press the hotkey to search online for the contents of control. This can save a lot of time by freeing you from manually copying and searching.

To remap hotkeys or add other application, go to “Shortcuts” and click Add or Modify. Here the list can also be saved with a different name. This makes it easy to have several lists that can be switched based on your current task. It also makes easy to port a list between computers or version of the OS.

Another key aspect of sidekick is that it tries to make any path you give it, as portable as possible, by using environment variable for “Program Files” and other known folders. You can also manually define a “root” for your path that can be chosen from well known Windows folders or system variables. By doing this you ensure that a list working on a PC will also work on another with a high probability. This saves you the work required to redefine shortcuts when reinstalling your OS or moving to a new PC.