Poll: Do you select text while reading? • Hacker News Board

Re: Poll: Do you select text while reading?

#201

Post by monk_e_boy » Wed, Nov 28, 2012, 1:13 AM UTC

MrUnderhill wrote: post #62

mason55 wrote: post #9

I just spastically double-click words all over the page while I'm reading. No real rhyme or reason to it, it doesn't help me read or anything. It's mostly just an unconscious tick.

I too do this, and sometimes compulsively drag large portions of highlighted text around as well. Annoyingly, Opera seems to open in new tabs any links in the highlighted area when the dragged text is released. This has led to me up/down voting everything at various sites on more than a few occasions (but ah, they shouldn't have GETs do anything anyway, I say :)).

Sometimes when you highlight and drag some text, it stays at 100% size so you can fit it exactly into where you dragged it from. If you select too much the OS resizes it to something like 80%. I often get lost trying to get as much as I can at 100%.

Drives my boss crazy.

Re: Poll: Do you select text while reading?

#202

Post by shakeel_mohamed » Wed, Nov 28, 2012, 1:14 AM UTC

Yes, usually for reading code if the syntax highlighting gets screwed up by one of the Chrome extensions I have installed.

Re: Poll: Do you select text while reading?

#203

Post by ekianjo » Wed, Nov 28, 2012, 1:16 AM UTC

aero142 wrote: post #51

When 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…

Definitely a nervous habit for me, too. No particular function attached to it.

Re: Poll: Do you select text while reading?

#204

Post by jasonpbecker » Wed, Nov 28, 2012, 1:18 AM UTC

I'm super surprised people do this. Generational gap? I'm 25 and absolutely never would think to do this.

Re: Poll: Do you select text while reading?

#205

Post by jamesmcn » Wed, Nov 28, 2012, 1:26 AM UTC

I occasionally do, but some spam-happy sites will pop up all sorts of crap when you click on their page. So I'm fairly cautious about where I'm willing to click.

Re: Poll: Do you select text while reading?

#206

Post by gruuby » Wed, Nov 28, 2012, 1:37 AM UTC

I was shocked to find out after my Google interview that you can see your collaborator selecting text in Google Apps. I was nervously selecting wafts of text constantly throughout the whole thing. I never heard from them afterwards :/

Re: Poll: Do you select text while reading?

#207

Post by rdwallis » Wed, Nov 28, 2012, 1:42 AM UTC

For those using selecting to track reading position, I built a chrome extension that specifically solves this problem.

I haven't started promoting it yet because of a bug in incognito mode but it's available at:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/magicscroll-web-re...

Re: Poll: Do you select text while reading?

#208

Post by nirmel » Wed, Nov 28, 2012, 1:42 AM UTC

The top story on HN is about how Gmail only includes the highlighted section of an email in the reply. This is the bane of my life for this reason! Highlight a paragraph to read it, hit reply, and only that paragraph is included in the response. Most unintentionally annoying feature ever.

Re: Poll: Do you select text while reading?

#209

Post by nvader » Wed, Nov 28, 2012, 1:47 AM UTC

The Evelyn Wood speed reading system recommends using your finger on a page to trace lines of text. When reading long passages on the computer, I achieve the same goal by highlighting. I generally only do this when reading longer content: never when reading comments on HN.

Re: Poll: Do you select text while reading?

#210

Post by tuananh » Wed, Nov 28, 2012, 1:47 AM UTC

i select text so that when i scroll down, i can quickly see where i was, to continue reading.