Trix is a lightweight and no-install program that acts much like other hotkey managers. It makes certain task easier and faster. Trix assigns, and lets the user choose, combination of hotkeys for some typical and often-used PC tasks. Combinations of Ctrl, Shift, Win and other letters or keys are assigned to and are configurable for the following tasks:
- Export copied text to (default) email client, Word, Excel or Notepad. The copied text is automatically inserted into the applications.
- Open Files, folders, websites or the terminal. In this case it is probably easier to do it the old fashioned way especially since trying to open multiple items at the same time is seemingly not possible.
- Unzip and zip chosen or highlighted files.
- Show brief computer specs, quote of the day, a timestamp with the current date and more, or stats on any highlighted text such as the number of characters. All these are shown in tooltip style.
- Access power management tools such as hibernation, rebooting, or locking the computer.
- Generate passwords. Encrypt and decrypt copied text. In the latter Trix will prompt for a passkey and allow the encryption level to be chosen and then asks what to do with the encrypted text (copy encrypted text to the clipboard for example).
- Speak the highlighted text.
- Control system volume.
- Convert units of measurement. This works on a highlighted number.
- Calculate highlighted expression. Here if “44+44” is highlighted the tooltip will show “44+44=88”
- Generate Lorem Ipsum text.
- Translate highlighted text, either based on saved settings (one of the last items in Trix’s settings window) or by choosing languages on the fly.
- Extract email, IP, links or file and folder paths from any copied text.
- Transform text. Reverse case for example but perhaps most importantly strip formatting.
- Adjust the focused window to fill the screen or maximize the focused window.
- Open the system color picker.
- Launch any one of web searches, from google to iconfinder and more.
The somewhat confusing nature of Trix is that some of the text tools seem to require a text highlight while in others the text needs to be copied. This along with the fact that to be really productive one must learn the assigned hotkeys makes Trix, or any other hotkey manager for that matter, useful for some and not for others.
