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Just let me select text

aartaka.me

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Re: Just let me select text

#241

Post by j1elo »

Add this as a favorite/bookmark:

  javascript:(function(){document.styleSheets[0].insertRule("* { user-select:text !important }", 1);})();
Extra treat: this other one allows to copy text and open the context menu in pages that are written by rats who disable it:

  javascript:['copy','cut','paste','contextmenu','selectstart'].forEach(e=>document.addEventListener(e,e=>e.stopImmediatePropagation(),true));

Re: Just let me select text

#242

Post by 9dev »

mvanbaak wrote: post #59
AlexandrB wrote: post #35

I like to idly select text as I'm reading and when it doesn't work it's super annoying. A pox on sites that do this.

I do exactly the same thing. thought I was the only weird one.

Blessed are the sites that allow symmetric selections, cursed those that make it wonky.

Re: Just let me select text

#243

Post by cptskippy »

Aaargh20318 wrote: post #29
magnio wrote: post #7

On Android, long press home button activates Google Assistant that can OCR the current screen and translate immediately. Unironically one of the only two features keeping me on Android until now.

On iOS 26 you can do basically the same thing. Take a screenshot (power button + volume up), click the thumbnail of the screenshot that appears. You'll see the screenshot full screen and there is a 'translate' button (along some other AI stuff).

Unless the App Developer has chosen to blanket deny screenshots. This is common on view accepting payment information but blanket application is also common.

Re: Just let me select text

#244

Post by dghlsakjg »

catapart wrote: post #53
whstl wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% disagree. Not everyone is fluent in every language, and not every website works perfectly with the browser's translator. There will be situations where people will want to translate that ONE word that is actually in a button or tab, and isn't selectable because someone thought they knew better.

isn't selectable because it breaks the UX for keyboard-only users. Has nothing to do with "thinking" anything. It's about testing with accessibility parameters and knowing* what practical problems occur. If you really need to translate ONE WORD, it's not that onerous to type it. You're bringing edge-case hypotheticals to a discussion about practical functionality.

Do me a favor and type this into a translation app without selecting it:政府

Re: Just let me select text

#245

Post by zahlman »

bambax wrote: post #232
NoraCodes wrote: post #16

Given that this page has the following styles which aren't applied anywhere else on the blog: body { -webkit-user-select: none; -webkit-touch-callout: none; -moz-user-select: none; -ms-user-select: none; user-select: none; } I think it's safe to assume that being unable to select text on this page is not unintentional, as several comments here assume, nor "ironic", but an intentional effort to demonstrate how annoyin…

Yes but the joke is moot, because on the web, you can't really make text non-selectable (you can try, but it can be defeated extremely easily). In an app, undoing that is pretty much impossible (or at least, above my pay grade). This is one of a million reasons why apps are so bad.

"Apps" of this sort are absolutely "on the web", and generally use browser engines to display the content. The real distinction IMO is between using a locked-down mobile interface vs. a full browser on a computer with an OS and UI intended to let you have that control.

Re: Just let me select text

#246

Post by p1mrx »

kuekacang wrote: post #222
Anon1096 wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something I absolutely loved while working at Meta was that basically every internal system has some kind of ticket ID, and more importantly, wherever it's displayed near the top of the page you very likely can click-to-copy it. And the click-to-copy gives you a rich version of the ticket ID that you could paste into Google Docs and have the link to the ticket page embedded already. Really small feature that improved…

Recently I've been considering simple click-to-copy button is a bad ux since it can destroy one's clipboard (granted, I'm not using clipboard manager). This might be mitigated with a confirmation before actually replacing the clipboard, but I haven't encountered such implementation. Maybe due to ctc more often appear in tech-related websites.

Instead of click-to-copy, you could do click-to-highlight, so that "right-click > Copy" highlights the text on right-click if it's not initially selected. There is some subtlety in the logic, because it shouldn't interfere when the user manually selects a substring.

For a demo of click-to-highlight, install IPvFoo and use your mouse in the popup window. See the 'selectWholeAddress' function in https://github.com/pmarks-net/ipvfoo/blob/master/src/popup.j...

Re: Just let me select text

#248

Post by kuekacang »

nahumba wrote: post #188
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…

Do you know how many times i wanted to select the clickable link in google search result?

Back in the day I requested chrome feature "copy text" in addition to "copy link" on context menu. Now I tried it it's no longer there.

Re: Just let me select text

#249

Post by zahlman »

iefbr14 wrote: post #212

On my system I use a little script coupled to a key that lets you select a graphical area with text in it and it converts it into real text that is placed in the clipboard: #!/usr/bin/bash maim -us | tesseract --dpi 145 -l eng - - | xsel -bi [[ "$(xsel -ob)" ]] || (notify-send "No text found"; ohno) You wil have to install maim, tesseract and xsel for it to work. Edit: you can leave out the ohno which is just an audi…

I've heard of tesseract and xsel, but what is maim? Seems a bit hard to look up given that it's also a common word.

Re: Just let me select text

#250

Post by cubefox »

gsa wrote: post #202
cubefox wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you open an image with Google Lens (or select the image in the Google Search app, which seems to result in the same thing) Google does by default an image web search and shows you similar pictures, but it also displays a blue "translate" button on the right, which activates OCR and text selection, and optional translation. Though it doesn't seem possible to avoid it doing the image web search first, which might be…

That's a very different flow with a much higher friction compared to simply long pressing the home button in any app.

Yeah. (What would be the equivalent to long pressing the home button when Android gestures are used, and there is no home button?)
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