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Just let me select text

aartaka.me

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Re: Just let me select text

#161

Post by catapart »

fkyoureadthedoc wrote: post #146
petsfed wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, because fuck people who require additional accessibility options, right? On top of the real concerns around otherwise selectable text in a writing system not supported by the user's keyboard, there's also the issue of whether or not they can even operate enough of a keyboard to transcribe whatever text they want to translate.

> Yeah, because fuck people who require additional accessibility options, right? Just do whatever you want and then listen to your actual users' feedback. I worked on an application that I had to make button text not selectable because the old people using it kept selecting text on the buttons by mistake instead of clicking/activating the button and getting stuck during a clinical trial. Should I have left it selecta…

Thank you! Feels great to hear from another dev whom clearly has some shared experience with me. I can't count the screen-reader and keyboard-navigation based tickets I've had to field, but when it comes to translations, I haven't had a problem one.

I empathize with translation, as I have to do it to pretty much every chipset firmware documentation I come across. So I just don't really understand where all of these issues are occurring with people not being able to translate stuff. Feels like a lot of people are maybe using a lot of websites that they aren't the target users for...

Re: Just let me select text

#162

Post by catapart »

whstl wrote: post #127
catapart wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't even understand it; I just can recognize a character and type it in. The only time I have to do so is in looking at poorly designed firmware sites and stuff like that, but I manage when the developers do not accomodate for me. But that's not what the topic is. The topic is HOW developers should accomodate users. And I'm simply taking the stance that preventing user selectability is a lesser evil in specific c…

A native Chinese high school graduate is generally expected to know around 3500 characters. A middle school student, 2500-3000. For Kanji the numbers are around 2136 and 1200 and respectively. If you know the language, then you don't need this. But if you're claiming that you can type a random Hanzi or Kanji character you see in an interface without speaking the language, you are either missing something here or not…

[flagged]

Re: Just let me select text

#163

Post by ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7 »

ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7 wrote: post #145
dylan604 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can select the word "Reply" with no issues

Inside the button? Not the link? What OS/Browser?

I just tried this with every major OS and browser. I don't think it is possible.

You can highlight the buttons (most times) in Safari on MacOS, but you can't select the text and copy it or translate it.

Re: Just let me select text

#164

Post by gspencley »

catapart wrote: post #21

As a web dev, I fully agree with this, but with a huge exception: clickable text. Anything that is meant to be read as content should absolutely, without fail, be selectable and copyable (assuming appropriate permissions). But stuff like tab headers, buttons, or even text-sparse tiles - things meant for the user to click on - can, and usually should , prevent text selection. It is super annoying to be clicking back a…

I disagree. In a lot of cases text will be clickable, but will also contain content that you want to copy/paste into Wikipedia or a search engine etc. Think annotations (click on this text for more information) or headers/titles that are a proper noun that references something public... like a person's name or a place or a type of object or something.

I don't think that's an "exception." I think that's common enough to make me ask: "please don't make that text not selectable ever."

Re: Just let me select text

#165

Post by 1718627440 »

whstl wrote: post #119
1718627440 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try to navigate inside the article, it doesn't work at all.

The article doesn't have selectable text.

Yeah that was the point. Disabling text selection also inhibits cursor movement even without selecting anything.

Re: Just let me select text

#166

Post by catapart »

whstl wrote: post #136
catapart wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

You can do better than doing personal attacks. The article is not advocating for breaking anything. And unlike me you haven't provided a single example so far, only workarounds for people who don't like your suggestions.

[flagged]

Re: Just let me select text

#167

Post by whstl »

ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7 wrote: post #147
whstl wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can select the word reply, like sibling poster said, but also the glyphs. https://imgur.com/hEDe7Vd

Yeah, I removed the "glyphs" thing from my comment, because I realized they were SVG backgrounds, not actually text, but that is a common place to use user-select: none, on elements with font faces that are symbols. I am curious what operating system you can select text from the buttons on though. I might spin up browserstack to experiment.

macOS Safari

Re: Just let me select text

#168

Post by Reubachi »

mystraline wrote: post #47

Ive asked this before with no answer: A browser (say, Firefox) is a "User Agent". Agents are supposed to act on our behalf, and in our best interests when ambiguities are present. So, why are OUR user agents acting on behalf of website operators and their admins and users, and not on our behalf? Having CSS that prevents usability shouldn't be implemented. Or it should be an easy toggle to turn on/off, without having…

Because browsers and their operators, like any other industry, over time morph to a shareholder driven mess that needs to constantly be integrating with feature/product X.

If the same operator also controls the entire adspace in the web, and has significant impact/input on other connected media devices beyond webbrowsers, what incentive do they have to empower users to "ignore" content, be it ads, ai slop, bad UI? Ther's literally none, the number still goes up revenue wise.

Unavoidable content delivery attached to revenue generation is the present and the future and the only solution is disonnected services/products that aren't tied to dollars.

Re: Just let me select text

#169

Post by catapart »

Ukv wrote: post #135
catapart wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you also can't understand the icon? And the context? And the translations I provided?

A menu with "我的帳戶" in it, and often a generic icon or no icon at all, doesn't really have sufficient context to determine what the button means. If the website is already translated into your language then great, but many websites aren't (because it's a small site, or you don't speak one of the most common languages, or it's aimed at a different audience, etc.)

Ah, so the website had bad UX? I think we've found the issue!

Re: Just let me select text

#170

Post by acheron »

RandomBacon wrote: post #33
cubefox wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I prefer this easy solution: Print the website (with a printer), take a photo of the printed page, run the photo through OCR software. As simple as that.

I prefer this easy solution: Take a photograph of the website, develop the film, send it off to a transcription service, received the printed copy in the mail, take a digital picture of the document, run it through OCR software. As simple as that.

Need to make sure you take a picture of it on a wooden table. https://thedailywtf.com/articles/Web_0_0x2e_1
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