Yes, and if you auto-deselect the text I've selected to try to prevent me from copying it, I'll copy it anyway, because screw you for interfering with your user's experience. If you try to disable right-clicking, I will disable JavaScript and right click anyway, because screw you for interfering with your user's experience. If you log what I select via AJAX, go check your logs, because I left you some colorful words, because you're an asshole.
Poll: Do you select text while reading?
341–350 of 366 posts
Re: Poll: Do you select text while reading?
#342For a long time the New York Times had a javascript thing that would pop up a dictionary reference for anything you double clicked on. As someone who compulsively doubleclicks to highlight and unhighlight, it bugged the hell out of me.
Yes, the New York Times was the worst. In a similar vein, snopes.com also forbids selecting on the page. And when they "fixed" Chrome so that clicking and dragging from within a selection dragged the selection instead of starting a new selection, I died a little inside. Why would I want to drag text on a web page? I guess random clicking and selecting is no more of a useful use case, but I still find myself messing t…
I do that sometimes. That way I can copy something to the clipboard and then drag something else either to a new tab or to another application.
Re: Poll: Do you select text while reading?
#343When people see that I highlight text while I'm reading, they always want to know what practical reason it serves. The simplest answer is that it kind of helps me track the text, but it's less than that. It also isn't quite just a nervous habit. The only description that makes sense to me is that it feels like a physical connection to the page. More like spinning a pen, or rolling an object in your hand while you thi…
Thank you for explaining it in this fashion. "Nervous habit" and "spinning a pen" completely capture the feeling and reasoning behing why I select text. I usually rapidly select random chunks of text while making my way through a piece. At some level, I think it may also help me stay focused on the page itself (as I have a tendency to get distracted easily).
Re: Poll: Do you select text while reading?
#344Hell no, selection is too distracting, and the margin above / under the selected text is too small to allow comfortable reading.
Re: Poll: Do you select text while reading?
#345The obvious reason that people do this is because of wider and wider screens. Some web pages or applications still show text that fills the width of windows. If you have to turn your head back and forth, then you are much more likely to lose your line on a large block of text. It's much easier to pick out the next line with a line marker.
I'm always surprised people actually use the web browser in full screen. I usually divide my (23" 16:9 2048x1152) screen in at least two, sometimes three "panes".
This is a lot easier to do when using a tiling window manager -- but I hardly ever use the entire screen for the browser.
Still, even with just half the screen -- the browser pane is roughly equivalent to an A4 page -- way too wide for a single column of text -- so on poorly designed pages I frequently end up resizing the window to get a usable line width.
Re: Poll: Do you select text while reading?
#346HackerNews is the only place I've ever heard of this happening :) In the "wild", I've never witnessed it once, so I'm actually curious what it means. Do you select the entire block of text you are in the process of reading? Do you drag your mouse cursor along as you read? Isn't this horribly frustrating most of the time with all bad style sheets and ad overlays and embedded ads, etc, on most big news sites?
Re: Poll: Do you select text while reading?
#347The obvious reason that people do this is because of wider and wider screens. Some web pages or applications still show text that fills the width of windows. If you have to turn your head back and forth, then you are much more likely to lose your line on a large block of text. It's much easier to pick out the next line with a line marker.
I'm always surprised people actually use the web browser in full screen. I usually divide my (23" 16:9 2048x1152) screen in at least two, sometimes three "panes". This is a lot easier to do when using a tiling window manager -- but I hardly ever use the entire screen for the browser. Still, even with just half the screen -- the browser pane is roughly equivalent to an A4 page -- way too wide for a single column of te…
I should add that due to RSI I use the mouse as little as possible, preferably using a tiling window manager like awsome or xmonad, and vimperator for Firefox.
Re: Poll: Do you select text while reading?
#348Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh my god, yes! I am a compulsive margin-clicker. I ostensibly do this to make sure that the browser page has focus, but really it's really just a tick. I love TheOnion.com, but they kill me with their ads-in-the-margins. What I typically do is fire up Chrome developer tools, and DESTROY the offending node. I find this therapeutic. :)
There was a blow-up-the-page book market posted to HNa while back... you might find some pleasure in tthat if someone can dig it up.
You mean this? http://www.webmonkey.com/2012/07/blow-up-the-web-with-font-b... Yeah, I played with that for hours.
Re: Poll: Do you select text while reading?
#349Coincidentally, I know of a new web service (http://amazd.com) that lets you record your highlights as you're reading an article (in the most natural way I could imagine) so you can save the parts that were insightful. That's the only reason I usually highlight text when reading these days.
Re: Poll: Do you select text while reading?
#350I used to scroll. Then I started scrolling so that the line I am reading is always the first line in the window (thus obscuring everything above), which means I can read about tracking downwards, and I don't have muck about with text selection.
Used to select, sorry.