Selection actions

The Selection actions screen is the switch and two choices, then three doors: the Actions list, the AI buttons and the Time zones. 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
Read what is selected	Toggle	On
Actions	Screen	33 of 48 on
AI buttons	Screen	None
Time zones	Screen	UTC and the device’s zone

Selection actions is the whole feature. Nothing below it is read while it is off, and no selection raises anything.

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.

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.

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
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
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
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
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
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.

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.

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.
• The list resets once on this version. The list of actions and its order are stored with a version. A list saved by an older version reads as the shipped list, so everyone gets the new actions; the same happens to a backup restored from an older version. Every change you make after that is kept.
• Nothing here is read before your first unlock, beyond the actions that only touch the field you are typing in. See Selection actions.