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Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

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Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#681

Post by TheHappyOddish »

awinter-py wrote: post #282
jameshart wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Typing is a separate problem. And if you want a physical keyboard on a mobile device you can actually have one. But that still won’t solve editing . Editing on your blackberry was even clunkier than the touch affordances that this post is about - just cursor keys, right? Now, you might argue that if you can type fluently you won’t need to edit as much - but the point here is about enabling mobile devices to be much m…

no the blackberry had a physical trackball with toothy tactile feedback for motion and a mechanical click action you could scroll vertically and horizontally I don't remember if you could highlight, but there was a shift key so I'm assuming yes, and I vaguely recall double-tapping backspace for whole-world deletion

Yes, you could (comfortably) hold shift whilst using the trackball, and it workd very well.

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#682

Post by TheHappyOddish »

crazygringo wrote: post #149
superkuh wrote: post #49

Nothing on mobile is okay. I know everyone loves their smart phones but they really are terrible computers in every way except for portability. Use a computer when you actually want to do things. Smartphones are just for when you're literally unable to use a real computer.

> Smartphones are just for when you're literally unable to use a real computer. Which is literally extremely frequent, since we often need to do stuff on the go. Which is why an article like this is so important -- we should improve, not give up. There's no reason to think text editing on a phone has reached its final form.

> since we often need to do stuff on the go

Do we though? It is a fair assumption, but I urge you to stop and inspect. We didn't "need" to do most things we do on the go 20 years ago, do we now? If we're being honest, most people using their smartphones on the go are not for critical situations.

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#683

Post by hilbert42 »

ndorf wrote: post #594
hilbert42 wrote: post #574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"People produce less text with more errors in more time on mobile." I absolutely agree, typing or editing text on a smartphone is just horrible. There are many times I've started to write an email or post to say HN and I've been so frustrated I've aborted the process and restarted it on my laptop. It's down outright infuriating I have to do this. [I just hope someone of influence at Google reads these posts and acts…

Speaking of selecting text, at least on Android there is a trend in both Google and third-party messaging apps of only letting you copy the entire message, not a substring thereof. I wish I could take a peek into the brain of whoever came up with that idea -- ideally, after removing it with a large, sharp rock.

"...there is a trend in both Google and third-party messaging apps of only letting you copy the entire message, not a substring thereof."

Yeah, right. But it's not just confined to Android apps, for years selecting text with the mouse and copying from within Windows Firefox has been flaky, it can work but often it doesn't. If I want such copy to work for certain then I highlight the text and use Ctrl-c/v to finish the job.

Similarly, selecting some text such as part of a URL is nigh on impossible in Firefox (the URL becomes a single entity). Also, when selecting such text it's better approached starting after the text rather than before and working backwards—and even then it's best to start from a few words further on and discard the extra after the paste. Sometimes, with 'awkward' pages it's best to do a 'Select all' on Android or Ctrl-a elsewhere then paste into a text editor and fine tune one's selection from there.

It's ridiculous. I cannot understand why this hasn't been fixed, surely I'm not the only one who experiences these problems.

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#684

Post by hilbert42 »

roge7331 wrote: post #647
ndorf wrote: post #594

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking of selecting text, at least on Android there is a trend in both Google and third-party messaging apps of only letting you copy the entire message, not a substring thereof. I wish I could take a peek into the brain of whoever came up with that idea -- ideally, after removing it with a large, sharp rock.

Most of the time the user just wants to share the entire speech bubble and it is way easier this way instead of fiddling with beginning and endpoints

Why? All those algorithms/selection code are commonplace and were solved decades ago so why aren't they used?

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#685

Post by hilbert42 »

ndorf wrote: post #672
roge7331 wrote: post #647

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the time the user just wants to share the entire speech bubble and it is way easier this way instead of fiddling with beginning and endpoints

I can't imagine why anyone would ever want to share an entire speech bubble, without any context (as in a screenshot). On the other hand, it's obvious that given a message like "My address is 123 Xyzzy Rd, come anytime," the user would only want to select a subset, not the entire message.

"...without any context (as in a screenshot)."

Right, it saves typing when using some of the words elsewhere, and or when there's something in the bubble like a URL or awkward Unicode character. Copying the text is much quicker than regenerating it from scratch—or it ought to be!

Also, with an address and or phone number it saves making copying errors (I regularly copy text this way).

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#686

Post by hilbert42 »

Given_47 wrote: post #614
hilbert42 wrote: post #574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"People produce less text with more errors in more time on mobile." I absolutely agree, typing or editing text on a smartphone is just horrible. There are many times I've started to write an email or post to say HN and I've been so frustrated I've aborted the process and restarted it on my laptop. It's down outright infuriating I have to do this. [I just hope someone of influence at Google reads these posts and acts…

> 3. Along the same lines, selecting or editing, say, a URL from a browser address line is painful. When the URL text exceeds the screen width then trying to get to the end of the text is a damn awkward. Because editing text on mobile is so tedious for all the reasons already outlined, this is basically the extent the of "editing" text that I do on my phone and it still drives me crazy! Stripping the UTM parameters f…

"...still drives me crazy!"

Yeah, right. ...But unfortunately I think we're preaching to the converted. :-(

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#687

Post by kffekfko »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #257

This is absolutely a problem, but I'm not convinced the author has found a solution. I'd have to try it to know for sure, but from the description, it still sounds finicky. I believe touch screens are fundamentally a bad interface for productivity. Consider the range of actions provided by a mouse: You can hover without clicking, you can left click, or you can right click, all with nearly pixel-level precision. Add i…

As far as clicking and basic functions, is a two button mouse really that different from tapping + short holding to open a menu wheel? There's a lot of pain points to me when comparing a touch screen to a PC setup but the mouse isn't one of them.

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#688

Post by hilbert42 »

vel0city wrote: post #666
hilbert42 wrote: post #574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"People produce less text with more errors in more time on mobile." I absolutely agree, typing or editing text on a smartphone is just horrible. There are many times I've started to write an email or post to say HN and I've been so frustrated I've aborted the process and restarted it on my laptop. It's down outright infuriating I have to do this. [I just hope someone of influence at Google reads these posts and acts…

Logitech makes a few good Bluetooth keyboards that are relatively compact. The K480 even has a lip to use like a stand. These are often multi-device so you can pair with a desktop and a phone and quickly change between them. I use the MX Mechanical Mini as my main keyboard these days and switch between my laptop, my desktop, and my phone. Were you thinking of something smaller than these options? Or just lamenting it…

Thanks for the info.

At the time I bought my Bluetooth Armaggeddon keyboard (see link) a year or more ago I looked at the Logitech ones and decided on the former specifically because it was more compact and almost an ideal size to use with a smartphone although I wouldn't make that decision now for reasons stated.

Moreover, despite being a mechanical keyboard, my 'A' key has deteriorated to the point where I have to push hard (often I only notice after the speller picks up the missing 'A'). This is another reason not to recommended it. And to make matters worse the key is soldered to the board in an awkward way (I was planning on swapping it with a key that wasn't used as much but it was too much trouble). There are other reasons too including bad (buggy) software that drives key LEDs. All up, it was a bad choice.

This stuff is always changing so I'll do another survey, also I've had good results from Logitech in the past so its KBs will be high on the list.

BTW, at the time I bought the Mk-17 Am. I'd first done a bit of a survey and I noted several comments/reviews that lamented the lack of Bluetooth keyboards due to the fact that there was little demand for them. I suppose that makes sense with WiFi availability but it also indicates that few bother to use an external KB with their phones or tablets. Thus, despite editing text on a mobile being such a pain it seems few do anything about it.

Incidentally, the mouse I use with my phone is the Logitech dual wireless unifying/Bluetooth model M590. It works well.

https://nextrift.com/armaggeddon-mka-17-hands-on-surprisingl...

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#689

Post by bangonkeyboard »

ask_b123 wrote: post #677
gorkish wrote: post #616

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, wait.... The new iPads don't support the split keyboard SOFTWARE FEATURE that is still present in the latest OS release and still working on "supported" hardware? I thought the removal of the orientation lock switch was user-hostile, but damn; this is another level.

I would think it does support it... In my iPad Air (latest model) I somehow ended up stuck with a split keyboard for a bit until I managed to restore it.

It does not support it. Here are the Settings of an older iPad model to the left of the latest iPad Air's: https://i.imgur.com/YaW0eeP.png

Apple repeatedly notes that only certain models support split keyboard (https://support.apple.com/guide/ipad/move-the-onscreen-keybo...). This page was even renamed since iOS 16 from "Use a split keyboard" (https://support.apple.com/guide/ipad/use-a-split-keyboard-ip...), the screenshot of a split keyboard was replaced with a floating one, and the legacy split keyboard information was moved to the bottom of the page.

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#690

Post by bombela »

sznio wrote: post #650
satvikpendem wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not been my experience on Android, I can go left right up down just fine. I've tried this on SwiftKey keyboard however but I'm sure it's the same in GBoard.

It's really bad in GBoard. I just tap the text itself and if I get close enough to what I want to edit I just backspace and retype. I regularly remove 5-10 characters just to fix a single mistyped one.

I do the same. It's really bad. US English version.

I do have long press on space bar to switch between EN/FR dictionary. I wonder if that makes things worse.

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