Quickly search or translate any selected text with Selector

Selector is a new free jailbreak tweak by iOS developer Nepeta that makes it easier to interact with strings of selectable text from almost anywhere on your iPhone or iPad.

Upon installing Selector on your device, you can select a word or a string of words and you should notice two new options in the ensuing action menu: Translate and Search.

As you might come to expect, the Search option begins a Google search query containing whatever text you had selected, while the Translate option begins a Google Translation for whatever text you had selected, like so:

Once you’ve finished using the Search function, you can get back to what you were doing by tapping the Breadcrumbs link in the Status Bar. In the Google Translate interface, the developer added a “Tap Here to Close” button at the bottom of the interface that provides a similar effect.

Selector adds a preference pane to the Settings app where you can configure a couple of options on demand:

Here, you can:

  • Toggle Sector on or off on demand in its entirety
  • Toggle the Search function itself on or off on demand
  • Display Search as a pop-up or as a Safari web page
  • Configure the preferred search engine:
    • Google
    • Bing
    • DuckDuckGo
    • Baidu
    • Yandex
    • Yahoo!
  • Toggle the Translate function itself on or off on demand
  • Display Translate as a pop-up or as a Safari web page
  • Configure the preferred translation service:
    • Google Translate (web)
    • Baidu (web)
    • iTranslate (app)
  • Restore all settings to their defaults and respring

We particularly enjoy that you can select your own services for searching and translating any selected text strings. With that in mind, we imagine that this tweak would come in handy in a bevy of scenarios.

If you’re interested in trying Selector, then you can download it for free from the Nepeta repository in Cydia. Selector is compatible with all jailbroken iOS 11 and 12 devices.

Will you be installing Selector? Share why or why not in the comments section below.