Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Just let me select text

aartaka.me

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

321–330 of 621 posts

Re: Just let me select text

#321

Post by kulahan »

ninkendo wrote: post #280
kulahan wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently read something that stated we've never really had more than 30% of students in the US at a level of mathematical understanding where they can tell that 3/4ths and 0.75 are the same thing, conceptually. I cannot stop thinking about this; it honestly explains so much.

That’s probably one of those cases where they use two different statistics to assume a conclusion, e.g. maybe only 30% of students pass a particular profiency test, and then add to the fact that that test is the minimum level where fractions/percentages are expected to be known, and combine it to make a scary sounding headline. You might be right but, citation needed.

Sure: https://www.nagb.gov/naep/mathematics.html

Additionally: https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/

22% of 12th graders are considered proficient in Math. This means:

NAEP Basic - Apply single-step percentages to solve real-world problems.

NAEP Proficient - Analyze information to solve real-world problems with proportional reasoning.

NAEP Advanced - Solve multi-step, real-world problems using percentages.

Re: Just let me select text

#322

Post by nmeofthestate »

DangitBobby wrote: post #199
nmeofthestate wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. I screenshot then send to Google Lens which is obviously more of a hassle than what you're describing. But I have gestures enabled and so no home button. I wonder what is the gesture-equivalent of long-pressing on home.

On my Pixel 5, if you swipe from the bottom bar up (as if you are gesturing to close the app), near the bottom some options will appear: Screenshot or Select. The Select mode is an OCR enabled text selection.

This just takes me to the horizontal scrolling list of apps displayed as screenshots of the app. I can swipe from the bottom corner to bring up "Gemini" but that doesn't have an option to OCR the screen. Android is so diverse - people always end up talking about their unique and differing experiences, unfortunately.

Re: Just let me select text

#323

Post by a5c11 »

litver wrote: post #65
oscaracso wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was not implied by the post.

The post implied the opposite. However, if the German girl writes in German, probably she wants to date in German, the dating platform follows her wish by making it hard to extract the text, translate it, and eventually waste her time.

Do you have a basic knowledge how those apps work? Both people must swipe right. If the German girl isn't interested in dating with non-German, she can just swipe left. No time wasted.

Re: Just let me select text

#324

Post by anthk »

whstl wrote: post #102
catapart wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that doesn't play well with automatic translation. I think I found your problem. Not sure why you think the solution is to make everything work worse for keyboard users.

And you still haven't explained why normal-selectable websites like HN itself are bad for keyboard users.

I use HN from Links daily, on a terminal. It's perfectly usable.

Re: Just let me select text

#326

Post by kps »

Theodores wrote: post #229
bobbylarrybobby wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's always bothered me that links on webpages are single click to open. They should require double clicking to open (like just about everything else on a computer) and single click should be used to start selecting text, like everywhere else on a computer.

I am sure that this would have been user tested many decades ago when mice had balls and three buttons. They might have even tested opening links on mouse over, which would be a bit too trigger happy. Users of just the web are not fully computer literate. The interface is super easy compared to actual programs where you need things like menus, right clicks and full hotkey support. If I think back to how my mother str…

Double-clicking originated with the Macintosh because Jobs wanted a single-button mouse above all else. We're used to it now, but they had training exercises to teach people to double-click because it's undiscoverable and takes practice.

Re: Just let me select text

#327

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

topspin wrote: post #301
zelphirkalt wrote: post #260

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 i…

Same habit. Can't remember when it started. I've caused myself problems doing this. Some PDF datasheets somehow prevent selection. Deeply annoying. You just know there is some fool calling that shot, thinking their protecting something precious.

With PDF you can have vector text that isn't detected as text. Some desktop publishing tools layout each glyph individually and the reader may not reconstruct the underlying sentence geometry to base selections on. You can also have scanned bitmap pages with no underlying OCR text layer for the reader to make selections from. PDF text detection and selection is a black art.

Re: Just let me select text

#328

Post by jeffwask »

The way websites and apps have screwed with copy/paste over the last decade is one of my largest tech pet peeves and I have used a number of extensions to work around this non-sense.

Re: Just let me select text

#329

Post by CM30 »

Let's not forget the frustrations of an online system disabling the ability to select anything other than 'all' the text in a paragraph/text area/whatever.

So many times I've needed simplify the data provided by an embed code or share link for some reason (usually a third party integration or API development), only to have found the site forcefully making me select way more than I ever needed to. It doesn't really change anything in the long run (since you can just copy it into any other text editor and get what you need there), but it's still an annoying extra step that shouldn't be needed nonetheless.

Re: Just let me select text

#330

Post by indymike »

einpoklum wrote: post #314
indymike wrote: post #306

I get a kick out of it when a product manager comes suggesting we diable text selection. "oh, you want to disable the single most usable and powerful interoperability feature in our product?" "Yeah. Do we really want people leaving our app with their data?" By leaving, do you mean kicking it off the phone or switching to another app and getting something done? "Oh, yeah, they are just getting something done. But not…

I can't even check out any time I like because of pop-up notifications :-(

They stil got the never leave part right.
Post reply on HN