Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem • Hacker News Board

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#171

Post by dclowd9901 » Sun, Sep 24, 2023, 3:31 PM UTC

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.

It’s an interesting take. I had to stop and think for a second “is there anything I prefer a phone for”, and yeah the only positive of using a phone (for me) is portability and multi functionality (being a de facto camera/camcorder/recorder).

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#172

Post by thomastjeffery » Sun, Sep 24, 2023, 3:32 PM UTC

bee_rider wrote: post #144

craighay1 wrote: post #14

I sometimes wonder if modal editing (like vim uses) might be a good approach for navigating/editing longform text on touch devices. It does seem like a missed opportunity to have taken the keyboard/mouse approach and then transferred it to touch devices. Even the keyboard layout has no real advantage for two thumb typing on a screen. Approaches that adapt the interface whilst leaning heavily on letter based inference…

You can install blink shell, panic prompt, or whatever the popular iPhone ssh client of the day is and ssh over to your desktop to get a preview of how this would work. Paired with a Bluetooth keyboard, it is fine IMO. The screen is a little bit small. Sometimes if I’m going to SSH from my phone, I’ll put the phone on a little stand in front of the keyboard, so it can sit more like a foot from my face, or whatever (n…

SSH isn't a solution. I'm trying to edit text here on my phone, not out on some server.

What GP is advocating is to replace the on-screen keyboard with a modal editing UX.

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#173

Post by thomastjeffery » Sun, Sep 24, 2023, 3:34 PM UTC

Pxtl wrote: post #128

craighay1 wrote: post #14

I sometimes wonder if modal editing (like vim uses) might be a good approach for navigating/editing longform text on touch devices. It does seem like a missed opportunity to have taken the keyboard/mouse approach and then transferred it to touch devices. Even the keyboard layout has no real advantage for two thumb typing on a screen. Approaches that adapt the interface whilst leaning heavily on letter based inference…

In gboard we've already got modal stuff for numerical keypad, emojis, special characters (2 different modal pages), etc. Adding one more modal keyboard page for cursor-editing (arrow keys, ctrl-arrow-keys, home/end, pgup/godown, select-toggle-button, delete, rclick menu) would just make sense. Would just be getting the rest of the desktop keyboard into the phone keyboard, nothing groundbreaking.

They already have an option to move your visit by dragging across spacebar. Why not just replace half of the oversized spacebar key with something useful?

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#174

Post by PeterisP » Sun, Sep 24, 2023, 3:34 PM UTC

genter wrote: post #28

breakfastduck wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

modal editing is just too much overhead for the average smart phone user.

There's tons of professional writers though, not to mention business users, lawyers, and other professionals that do lots of writing. It's pretty obvious that desktops are going the way of the dodo, and the aforementioned users need to write lots of text on mobile devices. I don't think modal text entry is any more onerous to learn than a graphic artist learning Blender or Photoshop, or an engineer learning Solidwork…

No, the aforementioned users do not need to write lots of text on mobile devices - a professional writer will choose or adapt their devices and environment to best suit the needs of their writing work, not adapt their writing to better suit the limitations of the devices; instead it's all the "casual" users who need to make do with whatever device they have on hand even if that device was optimized for entirely different needs.

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#175

Post by mastax » Sun, Sep 24, 2023, 3:36 PM UTC

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…

This is what folding phones are great for. The extra space is great for multitasking, reading spreadsheets, viewing calendars, reading documents, etc.

They don't really help with writing or editing text, unless you have big hands and need a larger keyboard. Most of the difficulty with text editing are related to the cursor, as the article points out, and a bigger screen doesn't really help. I suppose the extra real estate can be used for a docked or floating menu.

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#176

Post by downWidOutaFite » Sun, Sep 24, 2023, 3:36 PM UTC

dclowd9901 wrote: post #166

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…

Yeah, the bizarrely apologetic tone of this article was a real turn off. I don’t think any reasonable person would classify text editing on mobile as anything less than needing a full overhaul. Also, whose feelings are we sparing here by being apologetic for criticizing it?

To me the article reads as if it was originally targeted at his colleagues at google who told him they weren't going to implement his ideas.

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#177

Post by thomastjeffery » Sun, Sep 24, 2023, 3:37 PM UTC

corbezzoli wrote: post #164

awinter-py wrote: post #143

I typed 55wpm on my blackberry without looking. The fact that you have to constantly look at the screen keyboard and correct it is a huge attention suck and kills my input speed On blackberry, a mistake was one wrong character. On screen keyboards with swipe and autocorrect, a mistake can be inserting 1 or 2 random words Screen keyboard doesn't work in the rain while we're griping: - on an older android device the bu…

You can disable autocorrect and get your old behavior. I don’t understand this complaint. The only thing missing is feeling the keys, but this is completely fixable: > a mistake can be inserting 1 or 2 random words

You can disable autocorrect, but then you have also disabled swipe texting, which is much faster.

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#178

Post by scottjenson » Sun, Sep 24, 2023, 3:37 PM UTC

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #148

scottjenson wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

No, thank YOU! [EDIT] And, since I have you on the horn, There seems to be a PDF error, where the first page (The Challenge) is repeated twice.

oooh, interesting! I'll check it out, thanks!

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#179

Post by dredmorbius » Sun, Sep 24, 2023, 3:37 PM UTC

thewarrior wrote: post #141

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…

This is where speech to text models like Whisper and LLMs can make a real difference.

Just to be clear, the problem here isn’t entering text, but with editing it. With better keyboards, voice transcription, and physical keyboards on many tablets, getting text into a device is not the problem it used to be. However, you will always want to edit your words afterwards.

From TFA.

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#180

Post by postmodest » Sun, Sep 24, 2023, 3:38 PM UTC

mcronce wrote: post #152

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.

If slide-out keyboards were still a thing they wouldn't be nearly as bad but we had to get rid of those because being thinner is the most important thing in the world

And then because on screen keyboards suck so bad we had to make phones BIGGER which meant they needed to be THINNER which meant cameras needed to stick out, and here we are, in a world where an iPhone Pro Max takes up the full height of my jeans pocket and digs into my hip when I sit down. Yeyyy.