iOS text editing with the tap and hold to move cursor is a nightmare, and couple that with its extremely poor spelling correction which I have to go to google with the misspelled word amd have it predict instead
Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem
371–380 of 693 posts
Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem
#372Why does this not mention long press on the spacebar on ios? It largely solves this problem. Long press on spacebar, keep it down and move around to move the cursor. While dragging tap with a second finger to start selection mode.
No, the force-touch spacebar is awful. It’s only a few characters wide, so you can’t edit large text in small input, such as… the URL, the most frequent usage of editing text on mobile. Along with tasks in the TODO app, typing a text message. It’s only awful BECAUSE Apple is persuaded that we have fat fingers. But I have kept a very old iPad from the pre-force space bar, and lightly touching any word would simply put…
See https://www.youtube.com/shorts/WhLGEJ3sMNg
You can drag around the whole screen btw. If you need to go further just hold your finger at the side of the screen and it will work as if you hold the arrow keys on a keyboard.
I believe it also responds to velocity, so quick swipes will get you quite far.
On iPad you can also do a two finger drag.
Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem
#373This is an opportune time as any to mention that TextEditor on SwiftUI doesn't have a placeholder field... smh
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/swiftui/texteditor
Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem
#374Earlier quoted context omitted.
The reason I think it won't get much better is that the size of smart phones will not change. It is size that's really the issue for text editing. No space for a real keyboard, no space for a real display.
Current mobile keyboards and screens are pretty much fine -- I have no issues with text input on a phone or with reading. The problems are with editing only -- precise cursor positioning, precise selection, and then access to basic cut/copy/paste/undo operations that doesn't mess everything up. My hunch is that we need a button on mobile keyboards to switch to a kind of "edit gesture mode". Some kind of swipe area to…
Looking at wordle's mobile interface, where the keyboard is a part of the webpage, I think a lot could be done to demo new technologies.
Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem
#375What they need is extra keys to move cursor by word, cut and paste. The tap and wait for menu sucks. You just need good old kb emulation for those things.
Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem
#376I can buy into the fact that text editing on phones is a pain, but the solutions presented in the video seemed very unconvincing for me. The "only magnify in place" option is obviously a horrible idea. I don't know about you but my thumb is not transparent. The whole reason for moving the magnified piece off to the side is so that you can actually see it . The problem isn't as evident in the video because there is no…
> The "only magnify in place" option is obviously a horrible idea. I don't know about you but my thumb is not transparent.
I think you misunderstood the proposed solution. If you look at the video, the magnification is offset. The improvement is that the cursor is only visible in the magnification.
Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem
#377(too much rant, removing comment)
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Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem
#378Nothing 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
Don't think I'd even need a full keyboard. I had a much easier time writing on my old Nokia 3310 or similar than I've ever had on my newfangled "smart" phone (it's quite dumb).
Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem
#379Earlier quoted context omitted.
Problem is that that feature is not very discoverable. But I agree. The author seems very Android focused because most issues don’t really exist for iOS users once you know how it works.
Gboard has the spacebar drag too, though not the tap to select.
Cool! wasn't aware. Then it is even more relevant for the article to cover this.
Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem
#380Nothing 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.
let's say only large few lines of text are okay, and some images are... okayis. everything else is a magnificent display of massive UI failure, sadly it took us 20 years to actually start talking about this seriously.