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Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

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Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#621

Post by hutzlibu »

dundarious wrote: post #599
hutzlibu wrote: post #552

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But with 2-3 fingers you already have lots of combinations. 2 thumbs are enough. I have been toying with some ideas for a game and thought about the potential for normal use cases. Intuitive (like swiping and pinching) is none of it though and it can only be useful once muscle memory kicks in. So I guess this is the reason, we do not have a global standard for anything advanced multitouch.

Given 2 finger pinch-spread is already taken for zoomout-zoomin, what are the remaining useful combinations for 3 fingers? It can't detect which finger you're using. It should support one-handed operation, so the 3 finger gesture should be possible with one hand. You'll likely have to use middle and ring fingers, which are mechanically connected, so relative motion would be difficult. I think you're wrong. There are…

"You'll likely have to use middle and ring fingers"

Well, people who played the violin or alike can do this, but yeah, it was hard work to learn and cannot be expected of the general user.

So yes, it cannot be anything complicated.

One of my ideas is to use the position of the fingers and the timing they touch. No matter which finger, what matters is the position they touch down relative to each other. So 2 (or 3) touches, like double click, but with 2 fingers and you evaluate the positions.

Simple variant: "pointing finger", "middle finger" -> one action (one touching point, then another touching point shortly afterwards left of the first touching point)

"middle finger", "pointing finger" -> another action (first touching point, then the other touching point to the left of the first one)

Or you can use the 2 thumbs, or thumb and pointing finger. And use up and down as well. So you have "middle" "up"; "middle" "down"; ...

And the actions could be anything, like "middle" "left" could select the next word to the left or go to the beginning of the line.

But my main thinking evolved around game actions, but it is the same principle.

And then you could also advance it with "middle" "left" "middle", the only limit are the coordination skills of your average user.

And ... the hardware limits. I have never really implemented those ideas, because I got frustrated very quickly(some years ago) with how the native touch handling of the OS got in the way, and some unprecise sensor input. But if you keep it simple, it should be doable. I guess I am now motivated to give this experimentation another shot real soon ..

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#622

Post by mikecoles »

gatane wrote: post #575
FearNotDaniel wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh man, I long for the days of phones with T9 input and hardware keys you could physically feel. It was so easy to walk down the street and tap out a text message with results much more predictable than "predictive" text, only occasionally having to glance down at the phone to check what you wrote. You could do it all with one hand, it was very unlikely you would drop the phone in the process and even if you did, it…

See this, it has the T9 input method too: https://github.com/dessalines/thumb-key

I see mention of T9 in "On phones that used the 9-key numeric layout, T9 predictive text was used. Other phones used the full-hand layout with the familiar QWERTY layout, with other proprietary predictive methods." I'm unable to verify this app has T9 as an input method. Is there a custom layout for this?

T9 was pretty sweet as you could type without needing to look at the device.

Maybe this layout?

https://github.com/dessalines/thumb-key/issues/263

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1i6scYO3PHnyvA_JwB09W...

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#623

Post by mikepurvis »

eviks wrote: post #333
mikepurvis wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But nowadays you can install custom keyboards on every OS that could probably get you most of the way there.

Do you know of an example?

Sadly, no. There certainly are lots of novel keyboards out there that can be googled up, but perhaps the kinds of features that would make a vim/modal-type keyboard be interesting and useful on mobile require further API hooks into the standard text-input controls (to be able to do things like find word and line boundaries, perform complex selections and replacements, etc).

I wonder if ultimately, the advantages of a "stay on the home row" philosophy like vim has just don't really manifest when there's no longer a physical keyboard as the underlying HMI. But the core idea of doing something modal and separating movement/selection from input does still feel valuable.

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#624

Post by OrangeMusic »

bmacho wrote: post #43

Use a keyboard app with arrows. My choice is "Hacker's keyboard" [0] but I think there are others. (Search reddit for best keyboards with arrows.) I can't say more about it, text editing is not a problem on mobile. It's ok. I installed, then I forgot. [0] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.pocketwork...

SwiftKey has been my favorite keyboard for years (it was the first one to have word prediction). It has this option.

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#625

Post by dredmorbius »

ctenb wrote: post #608
dredmorbius wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which, specifically? I'm still using Hacker's Keyboard on Android 10. Though I'm also largely relying on F-Droid for apps. Is Hacker's Keyboard not installable via Google Play, or not runnable ?

Not installable on 12

Thanks, that's ... disappointing.

Alternatives?

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#626

Post by dredmorbius »

alanbernstein wrote: post #619
dredmorbius wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better than a Wacom tablet?

I've never used one. I know they're popular with artists but I have very little concept of how they're used. I would not have guessed that anyone uses them to crop images.

Given that what many touchscreen tablets (particularly e-ink) offer is a Wacom layer, the advantage is that you're getting far more precise indication of location. The difference between Wacom-in-display and Wacom-as-peripheral is much as with a mouse, in that you have to get accustomed to indicating actions off-screen which translate to on-screen movements, though in practice that seems to be a fast learn for most people. This can actually be better as depending on screen registration and depth of the display elements themselves, "direct registration" often isn't with offsets and parallax.

The precision of using a stylus and pen/pencil grip rather than a mouse, trackball, or trackpad is the primary win.

And yes, cropping is in fact a major function for graphic artists, though painting directly with the stylus + tablet is another option.

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#627

Post by kagevf »

boxed wrote: post #571
kagevf wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm surprised more people don't know about this feature. I have an iPad without that feature, and it's maybe 5 years old? I think it's a newer feature. Also, in the past you could tap and hold on text and it would magnify the view around where you were tapping, but that feature was dropped at some point.

It's been on the iPhone since before it was even called "iOS" and it's there today. It never went away, so I wonder what you are talking about.

Hmmm ... nonsense apparently!

I got my iPad, tried several different apps, and I now see that the feature is present in all of the ones I tried.

I think what I did differently this time was hold the spacebar down long enough for the feature to kick in. On my android phone there isn't that long of a delay, so I think that's what threw me off.

Thank you for the correction!

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#628

Post by eastbound »

codeptualize wrote: post #372
eastbound wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That doesn’t answer the question. Since the space bar is at the bottom, I can’t navigate lower than the initial position of the cursor. Aaaaaand since the keyboard is not wide, I can’t go laterally to a portion of a URL that is far away.

Just to prove it’s possible to do better: iOS used to have the two-finger drag (one force-press, one gently navigating wherever you want, like on the Touchpad) and it worked.

I know something that works and something that doesn’t.

iOS doesn’t.

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#629

Post by dieortin »

crazygringo wrote: post #154
failuser wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can use that for selection as well, tap somewhere else on the keyboard. Used to be even better with 3D Touch, you did not have to wait for the long press to register.

Holy crap. I've been using the space bar for years to move the cursor, I had no idea you could select with it too. Thank you! It's even officially documented as well [1]. I wonder if selection was introduced when the spacebar cursor was, or if it was later. [1] https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/type-with-the-onscree...

Selection was introduced at the same time as “space bar cursor”, which is with the introduction of 3D Touch in the iPhone 6s.

Actually, it wasn’t even a “space bar cursor”, as the way of triggering it was with force pressing and not by holding the space bar. It works much better with 3D Touch, as you can move the cursor around and press harder without lifting to start selecting, then release a bit to stop. My iPhone 8 can still do it, and I’m really going to miss it when I upgrade.

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#630

Post by JohnFen »

Woshiwuja wrote: post #554
lolinder wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find that typing on a phone (iPhone or Android) these days is substantially easier than typing on an iPad because of swipe. It's still nowhere as efficient as a keyboard in the hands of a skilled typist, but I can often produce text fast enough that it isn't worth getting out my laptop. On an iPad it's far worse, because I actually do have to use the bad QWERTY touchscreen key-by-key. What I keep hoping for as far…

Swipe is terrible and i dont know how people even use it

I don't get along with it either -- it's the worst possible option for me. But I know a lot of people who get along very well with it. Different people are different.
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