3 ms·

Browser text entry on mobile phones is notoriously hard to get right and some bugs are literally unfixable [1]. I'm a frontend developer in my day job and I str

by M4v3R 1y ago

Browser text entry on mobile phones is notoriously hard to get right and some bugs are literally unfixable [1]. I'm a frontend developer in my day job and I struggled with this even before AI was a thing. I think you just accidentally picked one of the hardest tasks for the AI to do for you. [1] Example: https://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/xaksu6/on_ios_safari_whenever_the_keyboard_opens_up_for/ https://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/xaksu6/on_ios_safar...

stavros 1y ago
Huh, that's actually my exact bug. I didn't realize this was so hard, thank you.
- mmastrac 1y ago
  I have a reasonably good solution for this project of mine you might find useful: https://grack.com/demos/adventure/ https://grack.com/demos/adventure/ The trick for me was just using a hidden input and updating the state of an in game input box. The code is ancient by today's standards but uses a reasonably simple technique to get the selection bounds of the text. It works with auto complete on phones and has been stable for a decade.
  - stavros 1y ago
    That's promising, thank you! I'll ask the LLM to implement it.
  - adelineJoOs 1y ago
    hidden input box is something I heard before from some hacker-ish old collegues - seems to be a powerful and reliable approach to store state & enable communication between components!
    - mmastrac 1y ago
      Oops, I worded my comment poorly -- it's not a hidden input, but rather a "CSS-visibility-hidden textbox input". Hidden inputs are useful but something completely different.
      - adelineJoOs 1y ago
        Gotcha, thank you for the clarification!
- gwern 1y ago
  https://xkcd.com/1425/ https://xkcd.com/1425/ One of the frustrating things about web dev, I find, is the staggering gulf between apparently nearly identical tasks and unpredictability of it. So often I will find myself on gwernnet asking Said Achmiz, 'this letter is a little too far left in Safari, can we fix that?' and the answer is 'yes but fixing that would require shipping our own browser in a virtual machine.' ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
  - Vecr 1y ago
    Did an LLM convince you to put in the anthropic argument entry in the galaxy brained section? Claude Opus? https://gwern.net/blog/2025/conference-size https://gwern.net/blog/2025/conference-size
    - gwern 1y ago
      Actually, I came up with that all on my own after I noted to myself that capture-recapture would work; and it amused me so much that I resolved to try to come up with a proper list filling out the idea. I did get some of the other ideas from LLMs, though.
deleted 1y ago
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by M4v3R 1y ago

stavros 1y ago

Huh, that's actually my exact bug. I didn't realize this was so hard, thank you.

mmastrac 1y ago
I have a reasonably good solution for this project of mine you might find useful: https://grack.com/demos/adventure/ https://grack.com/demos/adventure/ The trick for me was just using a hidden input and updating the state of an in game input box. The code is ancient by today's standards but uses a reasonably simple technique to get the selection bounds of the text. It works with auto complete on phones and has been stable for a decade.
- stavros 1y ago
  That's promising, thank you! I'll ask the LLM to implement it.
- adelineJoOs 1y ago
  hidden input box is something I heard before from some hacker-ish old collegues - seems to be a powerful and reliable approach to store state & enable communication between components!
  - mmastrac 1y ago
    Oops, I worded my comment poorly -- it's not a hidden input, but rather a "CSS-visibility-hidden textbox input". Hidden inputs are useful but something completely different.
    - adelineJoOs 1y ago
      Gotcha, thank you for the clarification!
gwern 1y ago
https://xkcd.com/1425/ https://xkcd.com/1425/ One of the frustrating things about web dev, I find, is the staggering gulf between apparently nearly identical tasks and unpredictability of it. So often I will find myself on gwernnet asking Said Achmiz, 'this letter is a little too far left in Safari, can we fix that?' and the answer is 'yes but fixing that would require shipping our own browser in a virtual machine.' ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- Vecr 1y ago
  Did an LLM convince you to put in the anthropic argument entry in the galaxy brained section? Claude Opus? https://gwern.net/blog/2025/conference-size https://gwern.net/blog/2025/conference-size
  - gwern 1y ago
    Actually, I came up with that all on my own after I noted to myself that capture-recapture would work; and it amused me so much that I resolved to try to come up with a proper list filling out the idea. I did get some of the other ideas from LLMs, though.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]