TermLens popup

The TermLens popup is a borderless floating version of the docked TermLens panel for the active segment. It mirrors the panel’s chips, colours, and metadata indicators exactly, but appears at the cursor on demand – designed for keyboard-only term selection on small screens, and for translators who want to insert terms without ever reaching for the mouse.

When to use it

Small screens / laptops – keeping the docked TermLens panel always-visible can cost too much vertical space, especially for longer source sentences. The popup gives you the same view on demand and disappears when you’re done.
Pure-keyboard workflows – Ctrl tap, cycle, Enter, back to typing. No mouse, no menu hunting.

Opening and closing

Key	Action
Ctrl (tap)	Toggle the popup (open if closed, close if open)
Esc	Close without inserting
Click outside the popup	Close without inserting
Move the mouse > 4 px	Close (the popup is meant to be transient)

A “Ctrl tap” is a press-and-release of the Ctrl key on its own – no other key in between. Same memoQ-style trigger you might already use for the docked panel’s Insert-by-number flow.

Cycling between matches

When the popup opens, the first chip has a thin blue ring around it – that is the current chip that Enter will insert. The cycle skips bare source words; only chips you can actually insert get the highlight.

Key	Action
Right / Down / Tab	Move the current-chip highlight to the next chip
Left / Up	Move it to the previous chip

Cycling wraps: from the last chip, Right takes you back to the first.

Inserting

Key / action	Result
Enter	Insert the current chip into the target segment, close the popup, return focus to the target cell
1–9	Insert that-numbered chip directly (same numbering as the docked panel’s Alt+N shortcut)
Click any chip	Insert that chip into the target segment, close the popup, return focus to the target cell

All paths share the same insertion logic – there is no difference between picking by keyboard and picking by mouse.

Editing a match

Press E while a chip is highlighted to open the term-entry editor for that entry. The popup closes first so the editor opens with clean focus. The editor is the same dialogue the docked panel’s right-click “Edit Termbase Entry…” menu uses, including the multi-termbase “Editing:” dropdown that lets you switch between sibling entries from other active termbases.

Showing metadata

Press I while a chip is highlighted to toggle the sticky metadata popup for that entry – the same hover popup the docked panel shows, with the entry’s synonyms, abbreviations, definition, domain, notes, and URL fields. Press I again to dismiss it.

Visuals

The popup uses the same chip rendering, colour scheme, and metadata indicators as the docked TermLens panel:

Chip style	Meaning
Pink background	Project termbase term
Blue background	Background termbase term
Amber / yellow background	Non-translatable term
Red background + strikethrough	Forbidden term
Purple background	Match via abbreviation (shows abbreviation pair)
ℹ corner indicator	Entry has metadata (definition / domain / etc.)
≡ corner indicator	Entry has synonyms
+N badge on chip	N more cross-termbase entries available

See the TermLens overview for the full colour key.

Both show the same matches for the active segment. Pick whichever fits your style:

	TermLens popup (Ctrl tap)	TermPicker (Ctrl+Shift+P)
Layout	Source segment with chips underneath each matched word	Sortable, scrollable table
Best for	Skimming matches in segment context	Many matches that benefit from sorting / typing-to-jump
Keyboard	Arrow / Tab cycles a highlighted chip	0–9 jumps directly; Up / Down navigate
Modality	Modeless – Esc / mouse move / click outside to dismiss	Modal – Esc or Cancel to close