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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

#441

Post by prng2021 »

pcthrowaway wrote: post #340
prng2021 wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What an absolutely lazy assessment of technology. I’d say using those two appendages we call legs to move around while still being able to do many things you use a desktop computer for is a revolutionary piece of technology. Do you really want to carry a Walkman around along with a backpack with a Rand McNally map to guide you so you don’t get lost in a neighborhood you’ve never visited? Maybe watch a portable DVD pl…

> I’d say using those two appendages we call legs to move around while still being able to do many things you use a desktop computer for is a revolutionary piece of technology. The above poster did acknowledge that smartphones absolutely win out in portability. Obviously you're stuck with mobile UIs for things like navigation, directions, location information, and a lot review apps, ordering a car, etc. Consequently,…

> Obviously you're stuck with mobile UIs for things like navigation, directions, location information, and a lot review apps, ordering a car, etc

The "etc" in your statement could be expanded to 100 additional useful things in everyday life. Given that, how can you agree with their original posters statement that mobile devices are terrible for everything except portability? It's such a ridiculous understatement.

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#442

Post by dandy23 »

bombela wrote: post #435
satvikpendem wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hold down the space bar and you can move the cursor wherever you want, also on Android. I'm surprised more people don't know about this feature.

On Android it often stutters, the cursor jumps across the characters at random speeds, sometimes it teleports sometimes it moves one character at a time smoothly. When you lift your thumb it often registers as an extra motion in an unexpected direction. And this is on a flagship Google phone. And it only allows left-right motion, not up-down. So even if you know about it. It's more an exercise in frustration than any…

On my budget Samsung Android it works great.

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#444

Post by jahewson »

Nition wrote: post #439
satvikpendem wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Edit: I just discovered now that if you long-press on the text to place the cursor, you get a little magnified view and it does let you place the cursor in the middle of a word. So that's probably the most efficient method currently available. I chuckled a little at this as this is one of the oldest features of iOS, probably even from back in the pre-iPhone 4 days.

:( In my defence apparently it was removed in iOS 13 and only recently came back.

It was still there but it required a force click anywhere on the keyboard.

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#445

Post by akdor1154 »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #257

This is absolutely a problem, but I'm not convinced the author has found a solution. I'd have to try it to know for sure, but from the description, it still sounds finicky. I believe touch screens are fundamentally a bad interface for productivity. Consider the range of actions provided by a mouse: You can hover without clicking, you can left click, or you can right click, all with nearly pixel-level precision. Add i…

The first gen or so of Android phones had an optical 'trackpad' below the screen, some were terrible but some were really good, allowing far more precise cursor movement than a touchscreen. I wish this feature had survived, it was awesome for text editing.

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#446

Post by Y_Y »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #257

This is absolutely a problem, but I'm not convinced the author has found a solution. I'd have to try it to know for sure, but from the description, it still sounds finicky. I believe touch screens are fundamentally a bad interface for productivity. Consider the range of actions provided by a mouse: You can hover without clicking, you can left click, or you can right click, all with nearly pixel-level precision. Add i…

I agree, but note that a lot of this is solved by having a pen with buttons.

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#447

Post by numpad0 »

bombela wrote: post #435
satvikpendem wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hold down the space bar and you can move the cursor wherever you want, also on Android. I'm surprised more people don't know about this feature.

On Android it often stutters, the cursor jumps across the characters at random speeds, sometimes it teleports sometimes it moves one character at a time smoothly. When you lift your thumb it often registers as an extra motion in an unexpected direction. And this is on a flagship Google phone. And it only allows left-right motion, not up-down. So even if you know about it. It's more an exercise in frustration than any…

It's not "on Android", it's whichever keyboard came with your phone. On iOS extremely small number of people use non-standard keyboard(it was later allowed), but on Android the keyboard was always an app and there are many.

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#448

Post by emmanueloga_ »

gcanyon wrote: post #97

The problem is far from invisible (to me at least). A few months ago on HN I used text editing as an example of how iOS wasn't ready for "business" use. I can't find the comment now, but my memory is that I listed several of the issues listed in this post and said something like "Text creation/editing is core to the 'business', non-content-consumer use case. Apple needs to either acknowledge these problems and work t…

I think it may be a pun since the cursor and the menus are invisible (or hard to see) under the problems described :-)

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#449

Post by plaidfuji »

happymellon wrote: post #263
JamesLeonis wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s just not your typical consumer. My only disagreement. I think many people don't know they want something better because they've never used something better. The video in the link describes how the users do short texts to get around the problem [0], including deleting whole blocks of text instead of editing. Teenagers, parents, and many others communicate heavily through texts and are often "up and down" like m…

I miss my Blackberry for typing. The tactile feedback of real keys was so much better than haptic screens.

It’s funny, as I was writing this comment I thought, “it’s almost like they need to make a blackberry for the smartphone era - oh wait…”

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#450

Post by hutzlibu »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #257

This is absolutely a problem, but I'm not convinced the author has found a solution. I'd have to try it to know for sure, but from the description, it still sounds finicky. I believe touch screens are fundamentally a bad interface for productivity. Consider the range of actions provided by a mouse: You can hover without clicking, you can left click, or you can right click, all with nearly pixel-level precision. Add i…

"A smartphone is like a computer with a one-button mouse "

Not quite. A touchscreen can detect many fingers, that can do many gestures.

The problem is, exept zooming (pinching with 2 fingers) and moving around (swiping with 2 fingers) the potential is pretty much unused.

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