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The moment I opened the article and started reading an idea came to me before reaching the authors solution. Imagine if you could just double tap a word and sud

by iKlsR 3y ago

The moment I opened the article and started reading an idea came to me before reaching the authors solution. Imagine if you could just double tap a word and suddenly it becomes focused and enlargened while slightly blurring the rest of the text. The word in question now has easily targetable tap targets that you can modify quickly, swipe up to delete, rearrange, select etc like a sliding puzzle game. Like everyone I've had the same problem but in a majority of the cases its to fix something that the phone suggested or accidentally added to the directory that I can't easily remove (thanks ios) and nothing overly complex.

jprete 3y ago
A lot of the problem (for me at least) is that phone text-selection UIs are way too stateful. It’s very easy to mistime a tap and get a word select instead of selecting a different spot. It’s also very easy to misposition a tap and select too much, or not enough. Adding text-selection features is IMO not the best approach. I’d actually rather they reduced the feature set and made the effects of UI actions less dependent on the state of the text selection UI.
fragmede 3y ago
An especially sucky part of editing text is changing tense or plurality. Changing "run" or "ran" or "running" is a exercise in frustration because the editor could easily change it for you by reading what you're typing. Eg I have "bottles are falling" typed out, but I go back and edit it to say "bottle are falling", and then the editor offers to update "are" to "is" for me.
- paradox460 3y ago
  Swype keyboard used to have this feature built in. Put the cursor on a word, any word (made earlier by swype's edit keyboard, which had cursor controls), and tap the Swype key. You'd be presented with a list of alternates/stems, with the current word as the root. At minimum you got simple plurals Gboard has a similar edit keyboard, although I find it's a tad harder to get to than Swype's

by iKlsR 3y ago

jprete 3y ago

A lot of the problem (for me at least) is that phone text-selection UIs are way too stateful. It’s very easy to mistime a tap and get a word select instead of selecting a different spot. It’s also very easy to misposition a tap and select too much, or not enough. Adding text-selection features is IMO not the best approach. I’d actually rather they reduced the feature set and made the effects of UI actions less dependent on the state of the text selection UI.

fragmede 3y ago

An especially sucky part of editing text is changing tense or plurality. Changing "run" or "ran" or "running" is a exercise in frustration because the editor could easily change it for you by reading what you're typing. Eg I have "bottles are falling" typed out, but I go back and edit it to say "bottle are falling", and then the editor offers to update "are" to "is" for me.

paradox460 3y ago
Swype keyboard used to have this feature built in. Put the cursor on a word, any word (made earlier by swype's edit keyboard, which had cursor controls), and tap the Swype key. You'd be presented with a list of alternates/stems, with the current word as the root. At minimum you got simple plurals Gboard has a similar edit keyboard, although I find it's a tad harder to get to than Swype's