“Liquid…makes you twice as fast.” That’s the bold statement made on the Liquid Mac App Store page. The official site also boasts a glowing testimonial from beloved actor and bon vivant Stephen Fry. With such great expectations set up by the developers, can Liquid for OS X actually live up to its own self-created hype?

What is it and what does it do

Main Functionality

Liquid is a productivity app that simplifies searches and conversions using shortcut keys. It is simple to convert measurements, look up a word on a reference website, or share something on social networks.

Pros

• Helpful setup assistant that walks you through the app
• Super simple interface that launches from either the menu bar or by entering a few keystrokes to open a window
• Simple hotkeys let you search popular websites like Wikipedia, IMDB, and more (see below)

Cons

• The menu bar icon only lets you type your own text (it won’t let you copy text from a page)
• Free version lacks a couple of features that are available in the Pro version (specifically, free version is missing search features, menu editing, and translation)
• You must reboot your computer for Liquid to fully install

Discussion

Using Liquid seems a bit daunting at first, but it is really quite simple. You select a given bit of text, and then hit CMD+SHIFT+2 (aka ?@). This then activates Liquid and you can then use simple keystrokes to execute various command functions.

For example, you might highlight an unfamiliar name or term, and then tap “w” to launch Wikipedia and get more info. To dismiss Liquid, just click anywhere outside of the Liquid window.

Liquid has a ton of built-in hotkeys to help you search specific reference websites. Click “w” for Wikipedia, “i” for IMDB, “e” Etymonline, “d” for Google Definition, “O” for the OED, “r” for Wolfram Alpha, and “K” for Wordnik. There are similar, single-key shortcuts for making conversions, searching various search engines, and sharing things on Facebook, Twitter, and email.

The design is sleek, low-profile, and wonderfully seamless. If you are just trying to save time (or trying to save wear and tear on your fingers and wrists due to carpal tunnel), this could really be a really helpful addition to your personal suite of Mac Apps. If you’re constantly needing to make conversions or search for things, this could be a great fit for you.

Conclusion and download link

If you’re all about single key shortcuts, Liquid is a great productivity tool. It won’t take you as long as you think to get acclimated to all of the shortcuts, and there are drop-down menus you can use while you’re trying to memorize what keys do what. I’m not sure using it will make me twice as fast, but this app is quite satisfying to use.

Price: Free

Version reviewed: 4.0

Supported OS: OS X 10.6 or later

Download size: 4.3 MB

Liquid on Apple App Store