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Show HN: I made a Chrome extension to reveal zero-width characters

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Re: Show HN: I made a Chrome extension to reveal zero-width characters

#4
I agree with other users who said that it would be nice if this happened automatically instead of on click--I think after the initial novelty wore off, I'd probably forget to click it. It might be cleaner to just strip the non-printing characters and display a number of characters stripped, similar to how ad blockers display the number of ads blocked.

Re: Show HN: I made a Chrome extension to reveal zero-width characters

#5
It might make more sense as a clipboard filter.

If you're an English speaker that doesn't often handle languages which gain from zero width characters you could just have a listener scan your clipboard for zero-width characters, silently strip them, and then re-populate the clipboard.

Although I've been thinking about building a clipboard filter for Windows a lot lately, I'm getting tired of copying text to the address bar or notepad to strip text formatting information.

Re: Show HN: I made a Chrome extension to reveal zero-width characters

#6
post #3

It would be a nice enhancement to do so automatically (rather than on-click), but at least for me, this serves the purpose.

Yes I agree, or maybe just update the app-icon if it detects presence of zero-width characters, and then you can click to show them.

Re: Show HN: I made a Chrome extension to reveal zero-width characters

#7

It might make more sense as a clipboard filter. If you're an English speaker that doesn't often handle languages which gain from zero width characters you could just have a listener scan your clipboard for zero-width characters, silently strip them, and then re-populate the clipboard. Although I've been thinking about building a clipboard filter for Windows a lot lately, I'm getting tired of copying text to the addre…

Ctrl+shift+v pastes without formatting

Re: Show HN: I made a Chrome extension to reveal zero-width characters

#9

I agree with other users who said that it would be nice if this happened automatically instead of on click--I think after the initial novelty wore off, I'd probably forget to click it. It might be cleaner to just strip the non-printing characters and display a number of characters stripped, similar to how ad blockers display the number of ads blocked.

I like the adblock analogy, might work on it, thanks.

Re: Show HN: I made a Chrome extension to reveal zero-width characters

#10
post #7

It might make more sense as a clipboard filter. If you're an English speaker that doesn't often handle languages which gain from zero width characters you could just have a listener scan your clipboard for zero-width characters, silently strip them, and then re-populate the clipboard. Although I've been thinking about building a clipboard filter for Windows a lot lately, I'm getting tired of copying text to the addre…

Ctrl+shift+v pastes without formatting

Not on all apps though. Office apps do not respect that shortcut convention and require clicking on the "Paste Without Formatting" button.
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