Actions#

Select a gesture and choose its action under Action. The editor offers eight types. Most tasks need only a simple action; use Lua when you need conditions or multiple operations.

Send keys#

Enter a key sequence, or click Record, press the shortcut and click Done. For example, ^c copies on Windows; #c copies on Mac. Syntax help opens the syntax guide.

Activate the window under the cursor before sending activates the gesture target first. Without it, shortcuts go to whichever application receives keyboard input. The target also follows Preferences → Gestures act on. There is no plain-text toggle in this editor; text-first input is available through Lua.

Window actions#

Choose one operation, applied to the gesture target:

Mac window control uses Accessibility. Maximize / restore presses the app's Zoom button, so the resulting size follows that app's behavior; it does not request native fullscreen and skips already minimized windows. Applications can differ in which window operations they expose.

Open an app#

App accepts an executable on Windows; Browse… selects it. On Mac use an app bundle ID such as com.apple.Safari, an .app path, or an executable path. Arguments is optional. On Mac, arguments are split with quote handling; use full paths for command-line executables.

If already running offers Switch to it or Open another one. Windows also offers Run as administrator. Mac does not support elevation or window-filter launch options. There are no class/title/regex fields in the current action editor.

Open a URL#

Fill URL and optionally Browser. Leave Browser empty for the default browser. Windows accepts a browser executable; Mac accepts a browser bundle ID or app path. The Insert buttons add selected text, clipboard text, app name, process ID or window title placeholders.

For selected-text web search, set URL to:

https://www.google.com/search?q=%MS_SELECTED_TEXT%

Select text in an application, then perform the gesture. Selected text is URL-encoded. If it already starts with http://, https:// or www., Mousetroke opens that address directly; www. receives an https:// prefix.

Run a command#

Enter the command in the text area. Insert adds variables. Windows runs it through a hidden cmd.exe /C; Mac uses /bin/zsh -c. This is shell syntax, so quote arguments correctly. Substituted text is not shell-escaped; avoid feeding untrusted selected text into commands.

For example, the following Windows command opens Task Manager:

taskmgr.exe

On Mac, use Open an app with com.apple.ActivityMonitor instead.

Media & system#

The editor offers Play / pause, Next track, Previous track, Volume up, Volume down, Mute, Brightness up and Brightness down.

Windows brightness adjusts by 10 percentage points using DDC/CI with a WMI fallback. Mac brightness sends brightness keys for the built-in screen; external DDC/CI is unsupported. These Mac system actions are available even though Lua brightness functions are unsupported. See screen edges.

Show a menu#

Click + Add a menu item, enter Menu item name, then choose an action inside each item. Use Move up, Move down and Delete the menu item to organize it. The menu appears at the gesture position. The editor does not expose a column-count field and does not offer another menu type within an item. Mac supports a single column; multi-column settings are flagged as unsupported.

Lua script#

Paste a complete script defining ms_action. The editor's Lua help opens Lua basics. The text area accepts Tab as two spaces. See the API reference and recipes.

Variables#

Use these placeholders in Open a URL → URL, Run a command, and Open an app → App / Arguments. They are not expanded in send-key strings, Lua source, menu names or Browser.

Unavailable target variables may be absent; unknown placeholders remain unchanged. Only selected text receives automatic URL encoding in a URL template. Other substitutions are inserted as-is. Lua uses entry arguments and ms functions instead of placeholder expansion.