Text Selection Hook for Node.js and Electron

A native Node.js module with Node-API that allows monitoring text selections across applications using multiple methods.

Features

Maybe the first-ever open-source, fully functional text selection tool.

• Cross-application text selection monitoring
  • Capture selected text content and its screen coordinates
  • Auto-triggers on user selection, or manual API triggers
  • Rich API to control the selection behaviors
• Input event listeners
  • Mouse events: down/up/wheel/move with buttons information
  • Keyboard events: keydown/keyup with keys information
  • No additional hooks required – works natively.
• Multi-method to get selected text (automatic fallback):
  • For Windows:
    • UI Automation (modern apps)
    • Accessibility API (legacy apps)
  • For macOS:
    • Accessibility API (AXAPI)
  • For all platforms:
    • Clipboard fallback (simulated Ctrl + C/⌘ + C with optimizations when all other methods fail)
• Clipboard
  • Read/write clipboard
• Compatibility
  • Node.js v10+ | Electron v3+
  • TypeScript support included.

Supported Platforms

Platform	Status
Windows	✅ Fully supported. Windows 7+
macOS	✅ Fully supported. macOS 10.14+
Linux	🚧 Coming soon

Installation

npm install selection-hook

Demo

npm run demo

Building

Use pre-built packages

The npm package ships with pre-built .node files in prebuilds/* — no rebuilding needed.

Build from scratch

• Use npm run rebuild to build your platform's specific package.
• Use npm run prebuild to build packages for all the supported platforms.

Python setuptools

When building, if the ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'distutils' error prompt appears, please install the necessary Python library via pip install setuptools.

Electron rebuilding

When using electron-builder for packaging, Electron will forcibly rebuild Node packages. In this case, you may need to run npm install in ./node_modules/selection-hook in advance to ensure the necessary packages are downloaded.

Avoid Electron rebuilding

When using electron-forge for packaging, you can add these values to your electron-forge config to avoid rebuilding:

rebuildConfig: {
    onlyModules: [],
},

Usage

const SelectionHook = require("selection-hook");

// Create a new instance
// You can design it as a singleton pattern to avoid resource consumption from multiple instantiations
const selectionHook = new SelectionHook();

// Listen for text selection events
selectionHook.on("text-selection", (data) => {
  console.log("Selected text:", data.text);
  // For mouse start/end position and text range coornidates
  // see API Reference below.
});

// Start monitoring (with default configuration)
selectionHook.start();

// When you want to get the current selection directly
const currentSelection = selectionHook.getCurrentSelection();
if (currentSelection) {
  console.log("Current selection:", currentSelection.text);
}

// Stop, you can start it again
selectionHook.stop();
// Clean up when done
selectionHook.cleanup();

See examples/node-demo.js for detailed usage.

API Reference

Constructor

const hook = new SelectionHook();

Methods

start(config?: SelectionConfig): boolean

Start monitoring text selections.

Config options (with default values):

{
  debug?: false,                 // Enable debug logging
  enableMouseMoveEvent?: false,  // Enable mouse move tracking, can be set in runtime
  enableClipboard?: true,        // Enable clipboard fallback, can be set in runtime
  selectionPassiveMode?: false,  // Enable passive mode, can be set in runtime
  clipboardMode?: SelectionHook.FilterMode.DEFAULT,    // Clipboard mode, can be set in runtime
  clipboardFilterList?: string[]                       // Program list for clipboard mode, can be set in runtime
  globalFilterMode?: SelectionHook.FilterMode.DEFAULT, // Global filter mode, can be set in runtime
  globalFilterList?: string[]                          // Global program list for global filter mode, can be set in runtime
}

see SelectionHook.FilterMode for details

For macOS: macOS requires accessibility permissions for the selection-hook to function properly. Please ensure that the user has enabled accessibility permissions before calling start().

• Node: use selection-hook's macIsProcessTrusted and macRequestProcessTrust to check whether the permission is granted.
• Electron: use electon's systemPreferences.isTrustedAccessibilityClient to check whether the permission is granted.

stop(): boolean

Stop monitoring text selections.

getCurrentSelection(): TextSelectionData | null

Get the current text selection if any exists.

enableMouseMoveEvent(): boolean

Enable mouse move events (high CPU usage). Disabled by default.

disableMouseMoveEvent(): boolean

Disable mouse move events. Disabled by default.

enableClipboard(): boolean

Enable clipboard fallback for text selection. Enabled by default.

disableClipboard(): boolean

Disable clipboard fallback for text selection. Enabled by default.

setClipboardMode(mode: ClipboardMode, programList?: string[]): boolean

Configure how clipboard fallback works with different programs. See SelectionHook.FilterMode constants for details.

setGlobalFilterMode(mode: FilterMode, programList?: string[]): boolean

Configure which applications should trigger text selection events. You can include or exclude specific applications from the selection monitoring. See SelectionHook.FilterMode constants for details.

setFineTunedList(listType: FineTunedListType, programList?: string[]): boolean

Windows Only

Configure fine-tuned lists for specific application behaviors. This allows you to customize how the selection hook behaves with certain applications that may have unique characteristics.

For example, you can add acrobat.exe to those lists to enable text seleted in Acrobat.

List types:

• EXCLUDE_CLIPBOARD_CURSOR_DETECT: Exclude cursor detection for clipboard operations
• INCLUDE_CLIPBOARD_DELAY_READ: Include delay when reading clipboard content

See SelectionHook.FineTunedListType constants for details.

setSelectionPassiveMode(passive: boolean): boolean

Set passive mode for selection (only triggered by getCurrentSelection, text-selection event will not be emitted).

writeToClipboard(text: string): boolean

Write text to the system clipboard. This is useful for implementing custom copy functions.

readFromClipboard(): string | null

Read text from the system clipboard. Returns clipboard text content as string, or null if clipboard is empty or contains non-text data.

macIsProcessTrusted(): boolean

macOS Only

Check if the process is trusted for accessibility. If the process is not trusted, selection-hook will still run, but it won't respond to any events. Make sure to guide the user through the authorization process before calling start().

macRequestProcessTrust(): boolean

macOS Only

Try to request accessibility permissions. This MAY show a dialog to the user if permissions are not granted.

Note: The return value indicates the current permission status, not the request result.

isRunning(): boolean

Check if selection-hook is currently running.

cleanup()

Release resources and stop monitoring.

Events

text-selection

Emitted when text is selected, see TextSelectionData for data structure

hook.on("text-selection", (data: TextSelectionData) => {
  // data contains selection information
});

mouse-move, mouse-up, mouse-down

Mouse events, see MouseEventData for data structure

hook.on("mouse-XXX", (data: MouseEventData) => {
  // data contains mouse coordinates and button info
});

mouse-wheel

Mouse wheel events, see MouseWheelEventData for data structure

hook.on("mouse-wheel", (data: MouseWheelEventData) => {
  // data contains wheel direction info
});

key-down, key-up

Keyboard events, see KeyboardEventData for data structure

hook.on("key-XXX", (data: KeyboardEventData) => {
  // data contains key code and modifier info
});

status

Hook status changes

hook.on("status", (status: string) => {
  // status is a string, e.g. "started", "stopped"
});

error

Error events Only display errors when debug set to true when start()

hook.on("error", (error: Error) => {
  // error is an Error object
});

Data Structure

Note: All coordinates are in physical coordinates (virtual screen coordinates) in Windows. You can use screen.screenToDipPoint(point) in Electron to convert the point to logical coordinates. In macOS, you don't need to do extra work.

TextSelectionData

Represents text selection information including content, source application, and coordinates.

Property	Type	Description
text	string	The selected text content
programName	string	Name of the application where selection occurred
startTop	Point	First paragraph's top-left coordinates (px)
startBottom	Point	First paragraph's bottom-left coordinates (px)
endTop	Point	Last paragraph's top-right coordinates (px)
endBottom	Point	Last paragraph's bottom-right coordinates (px)
mousePosStart	Point	Mouse position when selection started (px)
mousePosEnd	Point	Mouse position when selection ended (px)
method	SelectionMethod	Indicates which method was used to detect the text selection.
posLevel	PositionLevel	Indicates which positional data is provided.
isFullscreen	boolean	macOS Only Whether the window is in fullscreen mode

Type Point is { x: number; y: number }

When PositionLevel is:

• MOUSE_SINGLE：only mousePosStart and mousePosEnd is provided, and mousePosStart equals mousePosEnd
• MOUSE_DUAL: only mousePosStart and mousePosEnd is provided
• SEL_FULL: all the mouse position and paragraph's coordinates are provided

MouseEventData

Contains mouse click/movement information in screen coordinates.

Property	Type	Description
x	number	Horizontal pointer position (px)
y	number	Vertical pointer position (px)
button	number	Same as WebAPIs' MouseEvent.button 0=Left, 1=Middle, 2=Right, 3=Back, 4=Forward -1=None, 99=Unknown

If button != -1 when mouse-move, which means it's dragging.

MouseWheelEventData

Describes mouse wheel scrolling events.

Property	Type	Description
button	number	0=Vertical, 1=Horizontal scroll
flag	number	1=Up/Right, -1=Down/Left

KeyboardEventData

Represents keyboard key presses/releases.

Property	Type	Description
uniKey	string	Unified key name, refer to MDN KeyboardEvent.key, converted from vkCode
vkCode	number	Virtual key code. Definitions and values vary by platforms.
sys	boolean	Whether modifier keys (Alt/Ctrl/Win/⌘/⌥/Fn) are pressed simultaneously
scanCode	number?	Hardware scan code. Windows Only
flags	number	Additional state flags.
type	string?	Internal event type
action	string?	"key-down" or "key-up"

About vkCode:

• Windows: VK_* values of vkCode
• macOS: kVK_* values of kCGKeyboardEventKeycode

Constants

SelectionHook.SelectionMethod

Indicates which method was used to detect the text selection:

• NONE: No selection detected
• UIA: UI Automation (Windows)
• ACCESSIBLE: Accessibility interface (Windows)
• AXAPI: Accessibility API (macOS)
• CLIPBOARD: Clipboard fallback

SelectionHook.PositionLevel

Indicates which positional data is provided:

• NONE: No position information
• MOUSE_SINGLE: Only single mouse position
• MOUSE_DUAL: Mouse start and end positions (when dragging to select)
• SEL_FULL: Full selection coordinates (see TextSelectionData structure for details)
• SEL_DETAILED: Detailed selection coordinates (reserved for future use)

SelectionHook.FilterMode

Before version v0.9.16, this variable was named ClipboardMode

• DEFAULT: The filter mode is disabled
• INCLUDE_LIST: Only the programs in list will pass the filter
• EXCLUDE_LIST: Only the progrmas NOT in in list will pass the filter

SelectionHook.FineTunedListType

Defines types for fine-tuned application behavior lists:

• EXCLUDE_CLIPBOARD_CURSOR_DETECT: Exclude cursor detection for clipboard operations. Useful for applications with custom cursors (e.g., Adobe Acrobat) where cursor shape detection may not work reliably.
• INCLUDE_CLIPBOARD_DELAY_READ: Include delay when reading clipboard content. Useful for applications that modify clipboard content multiple times in quick succession (e.g., Adobe Acrobat).

TypeScript Support

This module includes TypeScript definitions. Import the module in TypeScript as:

import {
  SelectionHookConstructor,
  SelectionHookInstance,
  SelectionConfig,
  TextSelectionData,
  MouseEventData,
  MouseWheelEventData,
  KeyboardEventData,
} from "selection-hook";

// use `SelectionHookConstructor` for SelectionHook Class
const SelectionHook: SelectionHookConstructor = require("selection-hook");
// use `SelectionHookInstance` for SelectionHook instance
const hook: SelectionHookInstance = new SelectionHook();

See index.d.ts for details.

Used By

This project is used by:

• Cherry Studio: A full-featured AI client, with Selection Assistant that conveniently enables AI-powered translation, explanation, summarization, and more for selected text. (This lib was originally developed specifically for Cherry Studio, which showcases the best practices for using)