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Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

jenson.org

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Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#131

Post by scottjenson »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #99
superkuh wrote: post #49

Nothing on mobile is okay. I know everyone loves their smart phones but they really are terrible computers in every way except for portability. Use a computer when you actually want to do things. Smartphones are just for when you're literally unable to use a real computer.

One of the most important watersheds in my career, was reading Jenson's The Simplicity Shift [0], many moons ago. It was written pre-iPhone, and talked about the brutal necessity of reducing mobile UX to the very barest essentials. I find that I am revisiting a lot of this stuff, when writing Apple Watch apps. [0] https://jenson.org/The-Simplicity-Shift.pdf (Downloads the entire booklet as a PDF)

This is a lovely thing to read on a Sunday morning, thank you!

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#132

Post by worthless-trash »

nanna wrote: post #21

Wholeheartedly agree with the author but don't think he's radical enough about solutions. Thumb-key takes a radical approach, and I've watched someone who has become comptetent at it (which i haven't) type elegantly on it. https://github.com/dessalines/thumb-key But I always wonder why noone has tried building a hardware chord keyboard for a phone. It seems perfectly suited.

I have used one, you are still stuck with the text entry UI widgets limitations.

If you want to se PARTICULARLY bad examples, check out the social in-game example of harry potter magic awakened.

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#133

Post by alesso_x »

imgabe wrote: post #101

Honestly, just learning that you can long press on the space bar to move the cursor around has fixed 95% of my mobile text editing woes.

Long press on space bar to move the cursor is great. Also iOS supports “Drag Press for text selection” which the article says it has implemented.

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#134

Post by mrob »

Pxtl wrote: post #122
mrob wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are better for taking photographs simply because they're smaller, but for every other aspect of photo viewing, management, and editing, they are worse. They have a tiny screen, insufficient local storage and compute, and no keyboard or mouse. They're not better music players. Sound quality can be identical because phones support USB DACs, but again, everything else is worse. On a real computer I can easily searc…

> insufficient local storage My phone has 128gb. How is that not enough for photo editing?

Raw photographs are tens of megabytes each, and it's not unusual to take hundreds per session.

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#135

Post by z3t4 »

My first smartphone in 2000 had a very thin pen, that allowed for high precision typing, selecting text, etc. The OS was made for pen usage. Android and iOS are however not designed for pen usage. I tried a Galaxy note, but due to Android not being pen friendly I ended up using my fingers instead. If you want to be productive, just use a stationary computer and all the ergonomics that comes with it. Some phone models today have USB-C and you can dock the phone to a keyboard/mouse & big screen and the smartphone will go into "desktop" mode.

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#136

Post by ljlolel »

kibwen wrote: post #79
plaidfuji wrote: post #57

1000% agree with this post, wow. I can’t believe this is controversial.. it’s a disaster. I dread opening the mobile version of google docs, sheets, or even Notes for anything more than a grocery list. The problem is the target audience for this is business customers, and particularly those in management, so it’s a small market. ICs aren’t up and down as much between meetings and can largely stick to their desktop se…

> before you say “sounds like you just want a tablet” One of my friends uses a GPD Pocket 3, which is an 8-inch computer that's small enough to fit in your pocket, with a full keyboard, touchpad, and touchscreen that swivels to become a tablet. It's pretty nifty. https://gpd.hk/gpdpocket3

The new iPhone is 6.7 inches so nearly there?

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#137

Post by bee_rider »

tomjen3 wrote: post #66
superkuh wrote: post #49

Nothing on mobile is okay. I know everyone loves their smart phones but they really are terrible computers in every way except for portability. Use a computer when you actually want to do things. Smartphones are just for when you're literally unable to use a real computer.

They are much, much better for photos. I will even say they are better for most videos chats. They are better music players. They are better GPS nav systems.

The smartphone is the second best device for pretty much every task. For the vast majority of things, in which we’re not specialists, they are pretty good.

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#139

Post by alanbernstein »

mrob wrote: post #95
tomjen3 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are much, much better for photos. I will even say they are better for most videos chats. They are better music players. They are better GPS nav systems.

They are better for taking photographs simply because they're smaller, but for every other aspect of photo viewing, management, and editing, they are worse. They have a tiny screen, insufficient local storage and compute, and no keyboard or mouse. They're not better music players. Sound quality can be identical because phones support USB DACs, but again, everything else is worse. On a real computer I can easily searc…

I generally agree with you and the parent post. But touch screen is the best UI for photo cropping. This is awkward because it makes me want to split editing tasks between devices.

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#140

Post by Pxtl »

deely3 wrote: post #69
fisian wrote: post #8

My biggest problem in editing on mobile is changing a text selection (for example a long URL or long text paragraphs) that don't fit on screen at once. Once I have to scroll (vertically or, even worse, horizontally) in addition to moving the selection handles the UX is just terrible.

I don't know about IPhone but on Android its simply impossible to Paste text between two words. You can't paste text into cursor position you can only replace selected text with Pasted text. Thats my main biggest issue. Also, why the fuck there no Copy/Paste buttons on mobile keyboard??

It's actually gotten better since the clipboard key is in autocomplete bar in gboard now.

If you have something in clipboard:

1. Place your cursor

2. Yes, I know you fat-fingered the exact position. Drag on spacebar to slide the cursor around (Holy crap this is the most non-discoverable feature).

3. Press the clipboard button to show clipboard menu (or, if the clipboard button isn't showing, use the 4-square menu to get it).

4. Paste the thing.

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