Leverage PowerTools for hotkey functionality to call a script using input from the clipboard tray

Date: 2025 09-September 07

1️⃣ What PowerToys Provides

PowerToys is a suite of utilities for Windows, including:

• FancyZones – window management

• PowerRename – batch rename

• Keyboard Manager – remap keys

• PowerToys Run – Spotlight-like launcher (search apps, files)

• Always on Top – window pinning

• Color Picker, Awake, etc.

Of interest to you:

• PowerToys Run can execute commands via hotkeys.

• Shortcut/hotkey triggers are supported.

• Clipboard history is built-in (Windows 10+), which PowerToys can leverage.

2️⃣ How it could help your use case

You want:

Highlight text anywhere → right-click → send to Python CLI tool

PowerToys can’t add a universal right-click menu in arbitrary apps. But you could:

1. Use PowerToys Run or a hotkey

   • Assign a global hotkey (e.g., Ctrl+Shift+P) to run a Python script.

   • User highlights text → copies it → presses the hotkey → Python script is called with clipboard content.

   • This avoids needing COM or a shell extension.

2. Clipboard + tray app

   • PowerToys doesn’t natively expose clipboard hooks to external scripts.

   • But you can rely on Windows Clipboard + Python background process, possibly paired with a PowerToys hotkey.

3️⃣ Limitations

• PowerToys doesn’t let you inject right-click menu items into every app’s context menu.

• No official API to “extend text selection menu globally.”

• Essentially, it’s a hotkey + clipboard launcher, not a true universal context menu.

✅ Bottom line

You can leverage PowerToys to simplify your workflow:

• Use its global hotkey system as a trigger.

• Your Python tool reads the clipboard and processes the text.

• This is far easier than building a COM-based universal text menu.

It would give your users:

• A “highlight text → copy → hotkey → run pipeline” workflow

• A pipx-installable Python tool

• No VBA, no COM, no shell extensions

Sketch a concrete design for a PowerToys + Python clipboard launcher that integrates with a pipx installable CLI and could eventually be expanded into a COM extension later.

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