Hintglass
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Hintglass shortcuts
Hintglass, a macOS menu-bar app, answers when you hold right ⌥, writes code with ⌥⌘C, searches the web with ⌥⌘F and cancels or dismisses with ⌥⌘., and you can change each of them in Settings → Trigger.
Every shortcut
Hold to answer
Hold it while the interviewer finishes the question, then let go: the answer appears under your notch. It is the default, in Hold a key mode. Hold it alone: another key or a click during the hold cancels the send.
Answer with a key combination
Press it once and it asks for an answer at once, with no hold. It works when Mode in Settings → Trigger is Key combination; in Hold a key mode, the hold key sends instead.
Answer with code
Reads the window in front of you and answers with code on a panel at the top right of its screen. It needs a model that reads images: test it in Settings → Connection.
Look it up
Searches the web for the interviewer’s latest words and answers in one sentence, with its source named underneath. It needs a search service: choose one in Settings → Search.
Cancel or dismiss
Cancels a code or search answer still working; failing that, dismisses the code answer; failing that, takes a finished answer off the panel under your notch. It never cancels a plain answer still arriving.
Use a key combination instead of holding a key
- In Settings → Trigger, set Mode to Key combination.
- Start a new session. Trigger changes apply the next time you start a session.
Key combination mode needs no Device Control and Data Access permission: only the hold key does.
Change a shortcut
- Choose Settings… from the Hintglass menu.
- In Trigger, click the button beside Send, Capture, Search or Cancel. It reads “Press keys… (Esc cancels)” while it records.
- Press the new combination. One Hintglass can’t use is refused with the reason, and the old one stays.
- Start a new session to use it.
- To give a shortcut back to other apps, click Clear beside it. Capture, Search and Cancel can be cleared; Send can’t, so rebind it or set Mode to Hold a key.
- In Hold a key mode, Hold key picks the key you hold: fn, Right ⌘ Command or Right ⌥ Option. Each needs Hintglass switched on in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Device Control and Data Access.
- fn also acts as the Globe key by default: releasing it after a short tap can switch input source or open Emoji & Symbols. If that happens, set System Settings → Keyboard → “Press 🌐 key to” → Do Nothing.
Which combinations are allowed
- A key with two modifiers from Command (⌘), Option (⌥), Control (⌃) and Shift (⇧), at least one of them Command or Control. Option with Shift doesn’t count: macOS types characters with it.
- A combination the system already uses is refused: “Already used by the system (e.g. a screenshot shortcut) — pick another.”
- So is one another Hintglass shortcut holds, and the refusal names it, such as “Already used by Capture.”
During a session
- While a session runs, Capture, Search and Cancel are Hintglass’s, and so is Send in Key combination mode: the app in front never sees those keystrokes. Stopping the session gives them back.
- If Capture, Search or Cancel can’t be registered, the session runs without it, and the menu says which one is off and why.
- Pressing Capture, Search or Cancel while you hold the hold key cancels that hold’s send, so ⌥⌘C pressed with right ⌥ held sends the code request alone.