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Just let me select text

aartaka.me

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Re: Just let me select text

#251

Post by spullara »

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.

on Mac/iOS you can just take a screenshot and then select out of the image.

Re: Just let me select text

#252

Post by hahn-kev »

parpfish wrote: post #223
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.

same here. i use it as a kind of mental bookmark as i move down the page because I know that its very, very likely i'll get distracted by somethingand have to temporarily leave the article. however, this is probably a habit for a minority of users because it only makes sense on desktop. if you're reading on a mobile touchscreen-device this highlight-as-you-go tic just doesn't make sense

I'll do it on my phone, but it's usually just over the area I was reading when I decided to look away, so it's not while I'm reading, only if I'm going to go somewhere else first.

Re: Just let me select text

#253

Post by pastage »

cosmojg wrote: post #225

I must admit, one of my favorite recent-ish Android[1] features is that all text is made selectable in the app switcher using on-device OCR. Regardless of the app[2], you can just swipe up and start selecting text. [1] ...at least on the Google Pixel. [2] ...unless it's a banking app and it blocks permissions for screenshots and similar things.

OCR seems to be working on recent Android versions not only Google hardware.

Re: Just let me select text

#254

Post by hahn-kev »

gsa wrote: post #115
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.

Like with all things Google, this feature wasn't available in Gemini (or only available on some devices) last I checked. With Gemini going to replace Google Assistant in the future, this is yet another useful feature that Google will be taking away from Android.

I use it for translation all the time on my Pixel 7a with Gemini

Re: Just let me select text

#255

Post by wkjagt »

I wonder how doable it is to fork a browser and just remove functionality from it, like for example making "user-select" unsupported. Or whatever it is that prevents me from pasting my password in a log in form.

Re: Just let me select text

#256

Post by tredre3 »

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.

> In an app, undoing that is pretty much impossible (or at least, above my pay grade).

In my experience it is above the average user's pay grade to work around it in a browser too. Even power users will probably give up if the usual ways don't work out (holding alt, browser extension, reader mode). The power-est of users might glimpse at the inspector, but they'll give up if the nodes are obfuscated.

All this to say that with things like Circle To Search or Apple's built-in screenshot OCR nowadays websites and apps are finally on a level playing field when it comes to anyone being able to circumvent text protection.

Re: Just let me select text

#257

Post by fread2281 »

zahlman wrote: post #249
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.

https://github.com/naelstrof/maim/ it's a screenshot utility

Re: Just let me select text

#258

Post by ZoomStop »

wkjagt wrote: post #255

I wonder how doable it is to fork a browser and just remove functionality from it, like for example making "user-select" unsupported. Or whatever it is that prevents me from pasting my password in a log in form.

Easier to just use a userscript plugin and have it override those settings on every page

Re: Just let me select text

#259

Post by baby_souffle »

spullara wrote: post #251
bambax wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

on Mac/iOS you can just take a screenshot and then select out of the image.

Google pixel devices have had this for years. It's one of the few things that keeps me glued to this platform.

Just push the button to go to the task switch view and as long as the window preview thumbnail isn't blanked out, I can just get the phone to OCR any part of the screen in real time.

Re: Just let me select text

#260

Post by zelphirkalt »

I have a habit of selecting and highlighting text on computer screens, while reading. I have no issues tracking lines usually, but somehow I still select and highlight. Maybe it is just easier to track lines this way. When I see some web page, that prevents this, then that website gets a -50 reputation score out of 100 in my book. So if the site is perfect in every other way (almost no site is) then -50 still makes it pretty terrible. If additionally it would actually be useful in other ways to highlight and copy text on a site, then I get really annoyed by web non-sense like that. Similarly I get annoyed, if every pixel is some clickable action trigger.

This is not what hypertext has been created for. Stop making the web into a cesspit of bad accessibility.

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