I've been using a mobile device for programming since 2012 and I developed a mobile text editor and screen keyboard that I use myself. I think I have the richest experience here. The problem is that the people who create mobile input interfaces developed them on a computer in order to make a “product” for a company, not for people. This is also due to patents and other problems not related to this task like "It’s not the flashy feature that shifts your Net Promoter Scores"
Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem
381–390 of 693 posts
Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem
#382I 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…
you are right, thinking the same - the solutions are more in the same directions, but not actually something in the right directions.
the windows mobile had some interesing design decisions with text, and particularly nice large menus that... were so big they didnt fit the screen. best stuff I've seen in UI design for like ever since.
Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem
#383(too much rant, removing comment)
> This, again, makes me lose all confidence toward humanity
Mobile text editing issues were what made you lose confidence? The fact that we have the luxury of nitpicking about such mundane issues (as opposed to, you know, starving) makes me realize how great humanity's innovations have been.
I looked at the video for Messagease, and I feel like this must be a joke. I can easily type their sample "the quick brown fox" example using Swiftkey-like tracing easily twice as fast as what they showed in their demo.
Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem
#384Earlier quoted context omitted.
> business customers, and particularly those in management, so it’s a small market Is it really that small? It sounds like a massive market to me.
It’s literally the market that created the BlackBerry, one of the most influential devices of the last 20 years, so yeah it’s a big group.
and yet blackberry went away…
Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem
#385maybe voice commands, will after all, catch up properly with LLMs now. but who really wants to talk to Her on a daily basis, I doubt to many sane people.
Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem
#386Text editing done right requires either a true keyboard to manipulate it, or true AI that understands every small nuance one might want to apply to a text.
Unfortunately until AI catches up, the best tool we could use for text is a real keyboard, or a virtual one that doesn't suffer from the lack of usable space of mobile devices, which would probably make use of an external wearable, possibly BT connected, device. Years ago I thought of one shaped as an "ergonomic potato" that uses a few keys (3 or 4) and an accelerometer for hand orientation detection, so that one could use a mix of the key combination and hand position to rotate and find the right char/symbol on a virtual ball-printer-head-like "thing" shown on the screen. I never went beyond the "what if" stage; the contraption would probably work, but would also be too cumbersome to use.
Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem
#387Earlier quoted context omitted.
I generally agree and also disagree with a few aspects of both your comment and the OP. First of all, to the OP, maybe not for the leet kids, but I absolutely find large amounts of text input on a phone to be a pain. I can do it if I’m away from a computer and have to, but I don’t enjoy it and it takes more time and requires a lot of concentration. As for cursor positioning, holding down the space bar on iOS works pr…
> As for cursor positioning, holding down the space bar on iOS works pretty well—although it took me a few years to learn about it. It’s great until you need to move the cursor downward. Being completely undiscoverable doesn’t help. Maybe we need something like the old thinkpad nub on touchscreen keyboards.
It’s great until you need to move the cursor downward.
Actually I just discovered the spacebar trick thanks to the parent comment and... I can move up and down in a block of text by using the same method.
Maybe I don't understand what you mean?
Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem
#388You cannot edit much on a virtual keyboard imo. That's where BlackBerry and sidekick excelled but and touch screens would always be subpar. It's a tradeoff.
Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem
#389No mention of "undo"? That's usually my biggest bug bear, no way to undo accidentally deleted/garbled edits. Oh and the fact that intended deletion of half a sentence via backspace often ends up deleting far more than intended.
Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem
#390Not a single mention of the biggest problem, by far, of text editing on Android: no undo? Fix that before literally anything else on Android, please. > too many people mistakenly see text editing as “done” I can't imagine anyone that uses both desktop and mobile to think mobile text editing doesn't need improvements.
Seriously, it is beyond ridiculous that the default keyboard doesn't have an undo button anywhere. Copy/paste take way too many taps too. I like the changes to cursor motion proposed in the article.