10 ms·

Even today for semi- or non-routine tasks I'll do weird stuff like copy text to Notepad to remove formatting then past it back into the same app/web page to ent

by Yhippa 8y ago

Even today for semi- or non-routine tasks I'll do weird stuff like copy text to Notepad to remove formatting then past it back into the same app/web page to enter information. I'll also do some weird things like instead of using an entire screen to read text on a long web page article I'll just keep my eyes near the top of the screen and scroll so my eyes don't have to move. Not sure what I'm trying to say but maybe there are entirely new ways of building existing app types out there that have an audience out there. I wish we spent as much time on HCI in our field. I get a lot more value out of seeing how people I develop software for do their tasks and then thinking about how that could be improved. An implication of that is that I'm not building a fancy UI for my resume's sake; that I'm actually improving their day-to-day workflows. That takes some cost and time but in my projects nobody wants to pay for that.

jpatokal 8y ago
Pro tip: Ctrl-Shift-V pastes with formatting stripped in many systems. Also, on most Google apps including Docs and Gmail, Ctrl-\ (backslash) will reset the formatting of selected text.
- saagarjha 8y ago
  And on macOS, the standard way to do this is "Edit > Paste and Match Style".
  - rando444 8y ago
    Windows has the same menu options, theirs is just called "Paste without formatting" On mac the shortcut is Command-Option-Shift-V
    - Yhippa 8y ago
      This almost makes me wonder if paste with formatting should be the longer shortcut and that unformatted paste is the default.
      - zeropoint46 8y ago
        I think so. It's very rare that I need to paste with formatting. The majority of time that I actually use normal paste is when the source content is either of the same format or has no format already.
        dmurray 8y ago
        This way is better for discoverability, though, and for showing off when the feature was first introduced.
      - ygra 8y ago
        Word at least lets you choose the default action and offers a little contextual toolbar on paste to change the behavior for that pasted snippet as well. The options are iirc: Paste with original formatting, paste with formatting adjusted to document styles, and paste without formatting.
- Froyoh 8y ago
  To paste without leading white space you can paste into Chrome's address bar and recopy the from it. It stops out any formatting and surrounding white space.
- tempestn 8y ago
  And Firefox recently fixed it so this shortcut works! (Previously it was hijacked to show some toolbar or something—don't recall exactly what as I always just groaned and closed it, then opened notepad...)
forapurpose 8y ago
I'd love a utility that takes text from my clipboard, converts it to ASCII and strips all formatting, then pastes it. It would need to map Unicode (and other character set) characters to ASCII equivalents, but even if it covered only the common characters I would be very happy. Any tips? EDIT: minor edits
- sirsar 8y ago
  On Windows, AutoHotkey has all the tools you need for this. The built-in `Clipboard` variable contains only the textual data, and the `OnClipboardChange` event allows you to watch the clipboard for changes. You could then use regular expressions to remove unwanted characters and formatting.
- hk__2 8y ago
  On macOS I use the fact that pasting in the console strips all formatting. `pbpaste | pbcopy` in my terminal pastes to plain text then copy it again. It doesn’t map Unicode to ASCII, though.
  - copperx 8y ago
    What about using Shift+Option+Command+V to paste without formatting? isn't that easier?
    - hk__2 8y ago
      Yeah it’s easier if you remember it, which I don’t :)
- jimktrains2 8y ago
  iconv will convert encodings and do things like "translit" mode converting for ß to ss, € to Eur, and ö to oe.
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  KDE's clipper lets you do actions, so provided you have a script to convert input text to unformatted or ASCII or what-have-you then it's 2 clicks to get it in to your clipboard ready to paste.
martin-adams 8y ago
>> instead of using an entire screen to read text on a long web page article I'll just keep my eyes near the top of the screen and scroll so my eyes don't have to move Yes! I do exactly that. I use the window frame to act as a ruler so I don't lose my position when reading left to right. I also do the copy to Notepad, but since moving to Mac, Notes keeps the formatting by default, so I'm conditioned now to use Ctrl+Shift+V - on the second attempt. Other things are in Word or Google Docs to automatically backspace auto corrections, such as automatic links in the document. I do the same with auto complete on my iPhone to remove the trailing space.
TeMPOraL 8y ago
> I'll do weird stuff like copy text to Notepad to remove formatting then past it back into the same app/web page to enter information. I do that too! In fact, I do that so often that on Windows, I have the following workflow in my muscle memory: CTRL+C ;; copy Win+R ;; open "Run" CTRL+V ;; paste CTRL+A ;; select what I just pasted CTRL+X ;; cut it out (disappearing text serves ;; as a visual proof of operation completion) ESC ;; close the "Run" box, restoring focus ;; to original application CTRL+V ;; paste cleaned-up text I do that without thinking in under 2 seconds. On Linux, I usually abuse the address bar of the browser.
- copperx 8y ago
  On MacOS, it's Shift + Option + Command + V. Paste without formatting. Isn't there a small Windows app that can do that?
  - uxamanda 8y ago
    A fast way to work around apps that can't strip formatting on paste: command+spacebar (open spotlight search), command-v (paste), command-a (select all), command-x (cut).
  - endless1234 8y ago
    Ctrl-Shift-V does the same in a lot of programs, but it's not an os-level thing.
- diab0lic 8y ago
  I do this as well with the address bar, though Chrome will prepend http:// http:// to anything that looks like a url which trips me up at times.
- expiredtofu 8y ago
  I use the second code snippet in this link [1] for my autohotkey setup. It's pretty reliable. [1]https://autohotkey.com/board/topic/10412-paste-plain-text-and-copycut/ https://autohotkey.com/board/topic/10412-paste-plain-text-an...
urda 8y ago
> I'll do weird stuff like copy text to Notepad to remove formatting then past it back into the same app/web page to enter information On Mac you just need to: pbpaste | pbcopy Boom, plaintext.
- BoorishBears 8y ago
  It’s quicker to paste the text just about anywhere but the program you’re putting it into (like your browser address bar) then copy it again
- cakeface 8y ago
  I love that trick. Here is a variation I use frequently to format json or javascript. pbpaste | jq . | pbcopy
  - OskarS 8y ago
    Is that guaranteed to be safe, though? You don't have to go "sponge" there somewhere in the middle?
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  Is there any way to bind that globally to a key?
  - fredsted 8y ago
    BetterTouchTool will do it.
  - systoll 8y ago
    Services! macOS comes with Automator for this. -- Wrap a automator workflow around that shell script and you get: https://www.dropbox.com/s/njjyfzdptrzno6h/Strip%20Formatting.tgz?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/njjyfzdptrzno6h/Strip%20Formatting... If you open it up in Automator, it'll let you see the steps, and prompt you to install it [which really just moves the file into ~/Services]. This makes it show up in every app's Services menu. Once installed, you can head to System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Services, to set a keyboard shortcut for it.
mrisoli 8y ago
> I wish we spent as much time on HCI in our field. So did I, but IME, time and effort spent on minor UX improvements are rarely justifiable to upper management, especially in the case of business software it won't generate more revenue, often because the people using the software are not the ones buying it. I've had the fortune of working in a couple of places where the most hardcore users of our product were our own employees. So I often silently wandered into others desks and observed their workflows, it's amazing to see the little hacks they come up with because of their routine. Sometimes it's things we can easily fix but it's not prioritized. Quite often I've spent a couple hours of my free time hacking together some minor features to help these internal users and they are always amazingly grateful.
- 52-6F-62 8y ago
  This is huge in publishing. So many workflows are outdated or require so much copypasting and customized scripts, etc, that it’s pretty ridiculous. I’m part of a team searching for an appropriate tool and the pickings are slim. Thankfully the people buying the software that may be in use for the next five years to a decade are taking it very seriously and working closely with a number of experts around the company and editorial teams. They’re also very familiar with the regular workflows, so they don’t fall prey to salesmanship. My schedule’s kept fairly open lately to give me “free time” to develop something to help with a specific aspect of it (as upper leadership isn’t openly keen on any in house development). It’s been very interesting working closely with the people who will be using it just 3 floors away on a daily basis. I’ve done similar projects in the past and some people were ...more grateful than others... But the current situation is a little different, and the art and editorial teams this time through have been fantastic. I think it’s because they know exactly what they want to make their days and weeks easier, and they’re so grateful to even get close. And I’m happy to try and deliver as much relief as possible.
- gowld 8y ago
  If you want to justify minor UX improvements, you should give a copy of Steve Jobs' biography to your upper management ;-)
  - 8y ago
crazygringo 8y ago
(shameless plug) I put together https://pastemagic.com https://pastemagic.com exactly for that, except that I wanted to just preserve italics and links. Because for such a simple thing, there was no tool to do that.
steamer25 8y ago
> I'll just keep my eyes near the top of the screen and scroll so my eyes don't have to move That reminds me of the Spritz interface for reading text which came out a few years ago: http://spritzinc.com http://spritzinc.com I'm a little surprised it isn't super ubiquitous by now, especially since everyone has their own small but personal screen nowadays. Maybe it's too encumbered with licensing or didn't have enough marketing follow-through?
TuringTest 8y ago
> Not sure what I'm trying to say but maybe there are entirely new ways of building existing app types out there that have an audience out there. You may enjoy reading about The Humane Interface and Archy. It's how the original Macintosh would have worked, had its designer got his way. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Humane_Interface https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Humane_Interface https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archy

by Yhippa 8y ago

jpatokal 8y ago

Pro tip: Ctrl-Shift-V pastes with formatting stripped in many systems. Also, on most Google apps including Docs and Gmail, Ctrl-\ (backslash) will reset the formatting of selected text.

saagarjha 8y ago
And on macOS, the standard way to do this is "Edit > Paste and Match Style".
- rando444 8y ago
  Windows has the same menu options, theirs is just called "Paste without formatting" On mac the shortcut is Command-Option-Shift-V
  - Yhippa 8y ago
    This almost makes me wonder if paste with formatting should be the longer shortcut and that unformatted paste is the default.
    - zeropoint46 8y ago
      I think so. It's very rare that I need to paste with formatting. The majority of time that I actually use normal paste is when the source content is either of the same format or has no format already.
      - dmurray 8y ago
        This way is better for discoverability, though, and for showing off when the feature was first introduced.
    - ygra 8y ago
      Word at least lets you choose the default action and offers a little contextual toolbar on paste to change the behavior for that pasted snippet as well. The options are iirc: Paste with original formatting, paste with formatting adjusted to document styles, and paste without formatting.
Froyoh 8y ago
To paste without leading white space you can paste into Chrome's address bar and recopy the from it. It stops out any formatting and surrounding white space.
tempestn 8y ago
And Firefox recently fixed it so this shortcut works! (Previously it was hijacked to show some toolbar or something—don't recall exactly what as I always just groaned and closed it, then opened notepad...)

forapurpose 8y ago

I'd love a utility that takes text from my clipboard, converts it to ASCII and strips all formatting, then pastes it. It would need to map Unicode (and other character set) characters to ASCII equivalents, but even if it covered only the common characters I would be very happy. Any tips? EDIT: minor edits

sirsar 8y ago
On Windows, AutoHotkey has all the tools you need for this. The built-in `Clipboard` variable contains only the textual data, and the `OnClipboardChange` event allows you to watch the clipboard for changes. You could then use regular expressions to remove unwanted characters and formatting.
hk__2 8y ago
On macOS I use the fact that pasting in the console strips all formatting. `pbpaste | pbcopy` in my terminal pastes to plain text then copy it again. It doesn’t map Unicode to ASCII, though.
- copperx 8y ago
  What about using Shift+Option+Command+V to paste without formatting? isn't that easier?
  - hk__2 8y ago
    Yeah it’s easier if you remember it, which I don’t :)
jimktrains2 8y ago
iconv will convert encodings and do things like "translit" mode converting for ß to ss, € to Eur, and ö to oe.
pbhjpbhj 8y ago
KDE's clipper lets you do actions, so provided you have a script to convert input text to unformatted or ASCII or what-have-you then it's 2 clicks to get it in to your clipboard ready to paste.

martin-adams 8y ago

>> instead of using an entire screen to read text on a long web page article I'll just keep my eyes near the top of the screen and scroll so my eyes don't have to move Yes! I do exactly that. I use the window frame to act as a ruler so I don't lose my position when reading left to right. I also do the copy to Notepad, but since moving to Mac, Notes keeps the formatting by default, so I'm conditioned now to use Ctrl+Shift+V - on the second attempt. Other things are in Word or Google Docs to automatically backspace auto corrections, such as automatic links in the document. I do the same with auto complete on my iPhone to remove the trailing space.

TeMPOraL 8y ago

> I'll do weird stuff like copy text to Notepad to remove formatting then past it back into the same app/web page to enter information. I do that too! In fact, I do that so often that on Windows, I have the following workflow in my muscle memory: CTRL+C ;; copy Win+R ;; open "Run" CTRL+V ;; paste CTRL+A ;; select what I just pasted CTRL+X ;; cut it out (disappearing text serves ;; as a visual proof of operation completion) ESC ;; close the "Run" box, restoring focus ;; to original application CTRL+V ;; paste cleaned-up text I do that without thinking in under 2 seconds. On Linux, I usually abuse the address bar of the browser.

copperx 8y ago
On MacOS, it's Shift + Option + Command + V. Paste without formatting. Isn't there a small Windows app that can do that?
- uxamanda 8y ago
  A fast way to work around apps that can't strip formatting on paste: command+spacebar (open spotlight search), command-v (paste), command-a (select all), command-x (cut).
- endless1234 8y ago
  Ctrl-Shift-V does the same in a lot of programs, but it's not an os-level thing.
diab0lic 8y ago
I do this as well with the address bar, though Chrome will prepend http:// http:// to anything that looks like a url which trips me up at times.
expiredtofu 8y ago
I use the second code snippet in this link [1] for my autohotkey setup. It's pretty reliable. [1]https://autohotkey.com/board/topic/10412-paste-plain-text-and-copycut/ https://autohotkey.com/board/topic/10412-paste-plain-text-an...

urda 8y ago

> I'll do weird stuff like copy text to Notepad to remove formatting then past it back into the same app/web page to enter information On Mac you just need to: pbpaste | pbcopy Boom, plaintext.

BoorishBears 8y ago
It’s quicker to paste the text just about anywhere but the program you’re putting it into (like your browser address bar) then copy it again
cakeface 8y ago
I love that trick. Here is a variation I use frequently to format json or javascript. pbpaste | jq . | pbcopy
- OskarS 8y ago
  Is that guaranteed to be safe, though? You don't have to go "sponge" there somewhere in the middle?
TeMPOraL 8y ago
Is there any way to bind that globally to a key?
- fredsted 8y ago
  BetterTouchTool will do it.
- systoll 8y ago
  Services! macOS comes with Automator for this. -- Wrap a automator workflow around that shell script and you get: https://www.dropbox.com/s/njjyfzdptrzno6h/Strip%20Formatting.tgz?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/njjyfzdptrzno6h/Strip%20Formatting... If you open it up in Automator, it'll let you see the steps, and prompt you to install it [which really just moves the file into ~/Services]. This makes it show up in every app's Services menu. Once installed, you can head to System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Services, to set a keyboard shortcut for it.

mrisoli 8y ago

> I wish we spent as much time on HCI in our field. So did I, but IME, time and effort spent on minor UX improvements are rarely justifiable to upper management, especially in the case of business software it won't generate more revenue, often because the people using the software are not the ones buying it. I've had the fortune of working in a couple of places where the most hardcore users of our product were our own employees. So I often silently wandered into others desks and observed their workflows, it's amazing to see the little hacks they come up with because of their routine. Sometimes it's things we can easily fix but it's not prioritized. Quite often I've spent a couple hours of my free time hacking together some minor features to help these internal users and they are always amazingly grateful.

52-6F-62 8y ago
This is huge in publishing. So many workflows are outdated or require so much copypasting and customized scripts, etc, that it’s pretty ridiculous. I’m part of a team searching for an appropriate tool and the pickings are slim. Thankfully the people buying the software that may be in use for the next five years to a decade are taking it very seriously and working closely with a number of experts around the company and editorial teams. They’re also very familiar with the regular workflows, so they don’t fall prey to salesmanship. My schedule’s kept fairly open lately to give me “free time” to develop something to help with a specific aspect of it (as upper leadership isn’t openly keen on any in house development). It’s been very interesting working closely with the people who will be using it just 3 floors away on a daily basis. I’ve done similar projects in the past and some people were ...more grateful than others... But the current situation is a little different, and the art and editorial teams this time through have been fantastic. I think it’s because they know exactly what they want to make their days and weeks easier, and they’re so grateful to even get close. And I’m happy to try and deliver as much relief as possible.
gowld 8y ago
If you want to justify minor UX improvements, you should give a copy of Steve Jobs' biography to your upper management ;-)
- 8y ago

crazygringo 8y ago

(shameless plug) I put together https://pastemagic.com https://pastemagic.com exactly for that, except that I wanted to just preserve italics and links. Because for such a simple thing, there was no tool to do that.

steamer25 8y ago

> I'll just keep my eyes near the top of the screen and scroll so my eyes don't have to move That reminds me of the Spritz interface for reading text which came out a few years ago: http://spritzinc.com http://spritzinc.com I'm a little surprised it isn't super ubiquitous by now, especially since everyone has their own small but personal screen nowadays. Maybe it's too encumbered with licensing or didn't have enough marketing follow-through?

TuringTest 8y ago

> Not sure what I'm trying to say but maybe there are entirely new ways of building existing app types out there that have an audience out there. You may enjoy reading about The Humane Interface and Archy. It's how the original Macintosh would have worked, had its designer got his way. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Humane_Interface https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Humane_Interface https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archy