Wilee works out of the box. Install it, hold the right mouse button, flick toward an action, release. Most people never change a single setting, and that's fine — the defaults are chosen to work well for the majority of use cases.
But if you're the kind of person who remaps keybindings in every application, customizes your IDE theme on day one, and has strong opinions about tab width, this guide is for you. Wilee's settings page exposes everything: menu layout, theme colors, gesture sensitivity, trigger buttons, action bindings per context, opacity, animation style, display mode, and more. Here's how to use all of it.
Choosing a Layout
The layout determines how many actions your menu holds and how they're arranged spatially. Wilee ships with six layouts:
- Radial 8 — the default. Eight wedges arranged in a circle, one per cardinal and intercardinal direction (N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W, NW). This is the best balance of capacity and speed for most people. Eight directions are enough for all common actions in a given context, and the angular slices are wide enough for comfortable flicking.
- Radial 8x2 — sixteen wedges in two concentric rings. The inner ring holds eight actions at the same angles as Radial 8; the outer ring adds eight more. Short flicks land in the inner ring, longer flicks in the outer. This layout is for users who want maximum capacity without switching contexts — sixteen actions per context is enough to cover nearly everything.
- Radial 4 — four wedges at the cardinal directions. Each target is 90 degrees wide, making them very easy to hit. Ideal for users who only need a few core actions per context (Copy, Paste, Close Tab, Back) or who have reduced motor precision.
- Arc — a semicircle with five wedges. This layout sits above or below the cursor instead of surrounding it, which makes it natural for trackpad users and for situations where the menu would otherwise extend off-screen near page edges. The asymmetry also feels thumb-friendly for people using a trackball or ergonomic mouse.
- Grid 3x3 — nine cells in a three-by-three grid. Unlike the radial layouts, this one doesn't require a directional flick. You hold the trigger, the grid appears, and you click the cell you want. This is the most accessible layout for users who find the flick gesture difficult, and it provides the largest individual target areas of any layout.
- Honeycomb — six hexagonal tiles arranged in a ring. Each tile subtends 60 degrees, offering a middle ground between Radial 8's density and Radial 4's simplicity. The hex-tile visual style gives the menu a distinctive look that some users prefer.
To change your layout: open Wilee's settings, go to the Gesture section, and click the layout you want under "Look." The preview on the left updates immediately so you can see how your current action bindings map onto the new layout.
A practical tip: if you switch from a higher-capacity layout (like Radial 8) to a lower-capacity one (like Radial 4), some actions won't fit. Wilee keeps the first N actions from your current binding order and drops the rest. You may want to re-order your bindings after switching to make sure your most-used actions occupy the available slots.
Theme Customization
Wilee includes seven built-in themes, an auto-match mode, and a fully custom color editor.
The built-in themes:
- Luxe — dark charcoal wedges with a green hover state. Slightly translucent, no vignette. This is the most "designed" theme and the one we use in screenshots.
- Frosted — light, semi-transparent white wedges with subtle green hover tint. Blends well on light-themed websites and feels like frosted glass.
- Ghost — nearly invisible at rest, with wedges that only become visible on hover. The stroke lines are faint, the text is dim, and the whole menu has a "barely there" quality. For users who want the menu to disappear into the page.
- Spectrum — purple wedges with a deep black center. The most visually bold option, designed for users who want the menu to stand out sharply against any page background.
- Minimal — dark, opaque wedges with white text. Clean and readable on any page. This is the fallback when Auto mode detects a light page background.
- Transparent — gray-tinted, barely-there wedges with visible stroke lines. Similar to Ghost but with slightly more visual presence.
- High contrast — white wedges with black text, black hover with white text. Designed for accessibility and maximum readability regardless of page content.
Auto-match mode is a toggle at the top of the Theme section. When enabled, Wilee detects whether the page you're on has a light or dark background and automatically selects the Minimal or Minimal Dark theme to blend in. This is the set-and-forget option — the menu adapts without any manual switching.
Custom theme lets you pick exact colors for six properties: wedge background, wedge hover, stroke, text, text hover, and center. Click "Custom" in the theme row, and a color picker grid appears. Each property gets its own color input. Changes reflect in the preview immediately, so you can dial in exactly the look you want.
Opacity and Shape
Two more visual controls that work across all themes:
Opacity controls the overall transparency of the menu, from 30% (barely visible) to 100% (fully opaque). The slider is in the Gesture section under "Look." Lower opacity lets page content show through the menu, which some users prefer — it feels less intrusive. The Ghost and Transparent themes already have low-opacity wedges, so reducing global opacity on top of those can make the menu nearly invisible. Wilee warns you if the combination might be hard to see.
Shape has two options: Classic (flat pie slices with sharp edges) and Plate (chamfered corners that round the wedge edges slightly). The difference is subtle but affects the overall feel of the menu. Classic is crisper; Plate is softer. Both are available on all layouts.
Gesture Sensitivity Tuning
Two numeric settings control how the menu responds to your mouse movement:
Hold threshold (100-1000ms, default varies by trigger). This is how long you need to hold the trigger button before the menu appears. A shorter threshold makes the menu feel more responsive; a longer threshold prevents accidental activations. If you find the menu appearing when you don't want it — for example, during a slow right-click to access Chrome's native context menu — increase this value. If the menu feels sluggish, decrease it.
Flick min distance (5-200px, default varies). This is how far your cursor must travel from the menu center to register a wedge selection. A lower value means small wrist movements are enough to trigger actions — fast, but more prone to accidental selections. A higher value requires a more deliberate flick — slower, but you'll never accidentally close a tab because your cursor drifted two pixels.
For speed optimization, experienced users typically set hold threshold to 100-150ms and flick min distance to 15-25px. For accuracy (or if you have tremor), hold threshold of 300-400ms and flick min distance of 40-60px work well.
Per-Context Action Bindings
This is where Wilee's configuration depth really shows. Each of the four contexts — Text, Link, Image, Page — has its own independent set of action bindings. The actions in your text-context menu are completely separate from your link-context menu.
To edit bindings: in the Gesture section, use the context tabs (Text, Link, Image, Page) above the preview to switch contexts. Click any wedge in the preview. The editor panel below the preview shows the current action for that wedge and a catalog of all available actions for that context. Click an action in the catalog to assign it to the wedge.
Available actions vary by context. The text context offers Copy, Cut, Paste, Search, Define, and LLM actions. The link context offers Open in New Tab, Open in Background, Copy URL, and Copy Link Text. The image context offers Save Image, Copy Image, and Open in New Tab. The page context offers navigation (Back, Forward), tab management (Close Tab, New Tab, Reopen Tab), scrolling (Top, Bottom), and more.
You can also assign custom macros (multi-step action sequences you define in the Macros section) and prompt templates (LLM prompts with placeholder text) to any wedge. This means a single flick can trigger a complex workflow — for example, a macro that copies selected text, opens a specific URL, and pastes into a form field.
Each layout stores its own bindings per context. If you switch from Radial 8 to Radial 4, your Radial 4 bindings are independent — changes you make in one layout don't affect the other. This lets you maintain different setups for different use cases without conflicts.
Wedge Colors
Beyond theme colors, individual wedges can be color-coded. When you select a wedge in the editor, a row of color presets appears. Clicking a color tints that wedge with a highlight, making it visually distinct from its neighbors.
This is useful for at-a-glance orientation. You might color your "destructive" actions (Close Tab, Delete) red, your LLM actions blue, and your clipboard actions green. The colors persist across contexts and layouts — they're tied to the action ID, not the position.
Trigger Configuration
The trigger is the button that opens the radial menu. Wilee supports four trigger options:
- Right-click (hold) — the default. Hold the right mouse button to open the menu. This works everywhere and conflicts with nothing if your hold threshold is set correctly (long enough that a quick right-click still opens Chrome's native context menu).
- Middle-click (hold) — hold the scroll wheel. Zero conflict with any existing browser behavior. Good for users who want to keep right-click for Chrome's native menu at all times.
- Side button (hold) — hold Mouse 4 or Mouse 5 (the thumb buttons on many mice). Requires a mouse with side buttons, but offers the cleanest separation from all other click behavior.
- Left-click (hold) — hold the left mouse button. This can interfere with text selection and drag operations, so Wilee warns you when you select it. Useful for specialized setups where the other buttons are unavailable.
Separately, the trigger mode determines how you pick a wedge after the menu opens:
- Flick to pick (default) — hold the trigger, drag toward a wedge, release to activate. One compound gesture. Fastest once learned.
- Click to pick — press the trigger to open the menu, release, then left-click the wedge you want. Two separate actions. Slower, but easier for users who find the hold-and-drag motion difficult.
Keyboard Shortcut Trigger
For users who prefer (or need) a keyboard trigger, Wilee registers a Chrome shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+Space (Cmd+Shift+Space on Mac). Pressing this opens the radial menu at the currently focused element. Once open, you can navigate wedges with arrow keys, select by number key (1-9), or confirm with Enter.
This shortcut can be remapped or disabled at chrome://extensions/shortcuts. It's particularly useful for keyboard-centric users who want radial menu actions without switching to the mouse, and for accessibility scenarios where a keyboard trigger is more reliable than a mouse hold.
Menu Size
Four size presets scale the entire menu up or down:
- Small — 80% of default. Compact, stays close to the cursor. Good for users with small, fast flick motions or who find the default too visually large.
- Medium — the default. Balanced between target size and visual footprint.
- Large — 135% of default. Easier to hit, especially for the intercardinal directions (NE, SE, SW, NW) which have narrower angular targets at default size.
- X-Large — 175% of default. Designed for accessibility. Massive hit targets that make accidental mis-selection nearly impossible.
Display Mode
Three options control what each wedge shows:
- Label on hover — wedges show icons by default; the action name appears only when a wedge is highlighted. Cleanest visual, but requires you to hover to see what each wedge does (or rely on muscle memory).
- Icon + label — both the icon and the action name are always visible. Most informative, but the menu is visually denser.
- Icon only — no text at all. The fastest option for experienced users who've memorized their layout, but requires full muscle memory.
Animation (Motion)
Three animation styles for how the menu appears:
- Instant — the menu snaps open with no animation. Zero latency between trigger and full visibility. Best for speed.
- Aperture — a camera-iris reveal where wedges fan open from the center. Visually satisfying, adds about 150ms of animation time.
- Trail — the cursor draws the selection as you move, with a visual trail effect. The most visually expressive option.
If your operating system's reduced-motion preference is enabled, Wilee overrides this setting and uses Instant regardless of your choice. You can also toggle reduced motion manually in Wilee's Accessibility section.
Speed Optimization Tips
Once you're comfortable with the basics, here are specific adjustments that make Wilee faster:
Reduce your wedge count. If you only use four actions in a given context, switch to Radial 4 instead of keeping eight wedges with four empty slots. Fewer options means faster visual scanning and wider targets. Hick's Law applies here: halving the options measurably reduces decision time.
Prioritize by frequency. Put your most-used action in the direction you flick fastest. For most right-handed users, that's up-right or right. For left-handed users, up-left or left. Your dominant hand has a natural flick bias — lean into it.
Use Instant motion. Aperture and Trail look good, but they add animation time before the menu is fully interactive. Instant removes that delay entirely. For power users optimizing for throughput, the visual trade-off is worth it.
Drop to Label on hover or Icon only. Once you've internalized your layout, you don't need to read labels on every activation. Icon only is the fastest because your brain processes the wedge position, not the text — but Label on hover is a good middle ground while you're building muscle memory.
Lower the hold threshold. The default is set conservatively to avoid accidental activations. If you've used Wilee for a few weeks and never accidentally trigger the menu, drop the hold threshold to 100-120ms. The menu will appear almost instantly when you hold the trigger.
Set per-context bindings deliberately. Don't accept the defaults indefinitely. After a week of use, review each context and ask: which actions am I actually using? Move unused actions out and promote the ones you reach for most to the easiest directions.
Use macros for multi-step workflows. If you find yourself repeating the same sequence — copy text, open new tab, paste into a specific field — build a macro for it. One flick replaces the whole sequence. The Macros section in settings lets you chain multiple actions into a single wedge.
Import and Export
If you've spent time configuring Wilee to your preferences, the Import/Export section in settings lets you save your entire configuration as a JSON file. This is useful for backup, for transferring settings to a new machine, or for sharing your setup with someone else. The export includes all bindings, themes, macros, prompt templates, and preferences.
Power users who maintain different configurations for different tasks (work vs. personal, writing vs. coding) can export multiple profiles and import whichever one fits the current session.