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SOLVED
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I've been a longtime Launchbar user, but have decided to switch to Alfred for the workflows.
In Launchbar I was able to select text in any application and then press and hold my Launchbar shortcut (command-space) and that would send the text to Launchbar. From there I could simply type "wi" and then press enter to search wikipedia using that query. This feature is called "Instant Send" in Launchbar.
Does Alfred have a similar feature?
Thanks