Liquid looks set to be a fixture on my Mac. It’s an app which lets you carry out transformations and operations on any selected text, which doesn’t sound like much unless you write for a living, or just have to wrangle lots of letters. It’s actually been around for quite a while (the current version is 4.3), but I figured that if I hadn’t heard of it yet, then maybe you hadn’t either.
To use Liquid, you select some text in any app and hit Liquid’s keyboard shortcut. It pops up a box that’ll let you do things with that text. In the free version, you can search the web or Wikipedia, convert the selection (choosing the units), copy the selection in various ways (as a quote, citation and more), or share. The paid version ($3) adds further customization, as well as new features like language translation, and all the various parts are available just by using the keyboard.
I often need to translate snippets of text from foreign-language sites, and I’m forever converting kilos and meters into dark-ages units like cubits, ounces and something called “feet,” so I’m paying for Liquid right now. Check it out.
