So, here's my deal. When I noticed copy & paste (or selection) wasn't in the iPhone, it was a little annoying, but as a UI guy, I could see why. There was an ease-of-use they were going for, and for those operations, they needed to find a WAY to do it, inside of their new paradigm.
PROBLEMS:
1. iPhone has no MENUS (contextual, drop-down... NONE!)
2. iPhone doesn't support DRAG operations on content (hallmark of "selection"), as dragging is a "panning" behavior.
So, how to do "copy/paste/select"?
My solution is this.
Two-fingered doube-tap. If you double-tap on a textarea with two fingers, a selection will appear around the text. The "selection" will be a darkened area with a dotted line around it. At the beginning and end of the selection, will be a light blue DOT with an arrow pointing RIGHT or "INWARD". At the end of the selection, a light blue dot, with an arrow pointing LEFT or "INWARD". You are now in selection mode. You can now drag around the two ends of the selection however you like. Panning with your finger works on ANY OTHER part of the page. You can use the blue dots to increase or decrease the size of the selection, by dragging them around. Tapping ONCE inside the darkened area brings up a alert box. This is similar to most any alert box you see in Safari. "What would you like to DO with the selection?" The two button choices? CUT and COPY.
Now, for PASTE, its a slightly different animal. Once iPhone knows that you have something inside your CLIPBOARD from a CUT/COPY operation, the LOUPE suddenly gains a new behavior. ANY time you finish using the loupe (that special feature when you hold down over text, and you get the magnifying glass effect), an alert box appears with two buttons. "What would you like to do?" -- "PASTE" and "CLEAR". When you're done pasting, you can choose "clear". NOTE: If you are on a text control that does NOT support loupe (for whatever reason), holding down, automatically causes the alert box to appear.
LASTLY, in the "General Settings" area of the iPhone, we get a new clipboard option. This option specifies whether the clipboard automatically CLEARS when you paste something. By default, its set to "YES". The option options are "NO" and "ASK".
I think this would be a PERFECT solution to the problem in my book. It would conform to the iPhone's interface, and it wouldn't add any unecessary clutter... AND it would be easy for most everyone to use and get the hang of.
How would YOU implement it on the iPhone? I'd love to hear them.
~ CB
PROBLEMS:
1. iPhone has no MENUS (contextual, drop-down... NONE!)
2. iPhone doesn't support DRAG operations on content (hallmark of "selection"), as dragging is a "panning" behavior.
So, how to do "copy/paste/select"?
My solution is this.
Two-fingered doube-tap. If you double-tap on a textarea with two fingers, a selection will appear around the text. The "selection" will be a darkened area with a dotted line around it. At the beginning and end of the selection, will be a light blue DOT with an arrow pointing RIGHT or "INWARD". At the end of the selection, a light blue dot, with an arrow pointing LEFT or "INWARD". You are now in selection mode. You can now drag around the two ends of the selection however you like. Panning with your finger works on ANY OTHER part of the page. You can use the blue dots to increase or decrease the size of the selection, by dragging them around. Tapping ONCE inside the darkened area brings up a alert box. This is similar to most any alert box you see in Safari. "What would you like to DO with the selection?" The two button choices? CUT and COPY.
Now, for PASTE, its a slightly different animal. Once iPhone knows that you have something inside your CLIPBOARD from a CUT/COPY operation, the LOUPE suddenly gains a new behavior. ANY time you finish using the loupe (that special feature when you hold down over text, and you get the magnifying glass effect), an alert box appears with two buttons. "What would you like to do?" -- "PASTE" and "CLEAR". When you're done pasting, you can choose "clear". NOTE: If you are on a text control that does NOT support loupe (for whatever reason), holding down, automatically causes the alert box to appear.
LASTLY, in the "General Settings" area of the iPhone, we get a new clipboard option. This option specifies whether the clipboard automatically CLEARS when you paste something. By default, its set to "YES". The option options are "NO" and "ASK".
I think this would be a PERFECT solution to the problem in my book. It would conform to the iPhone's interface, and it wouldn't add any unecessary clutter... AND it would be easy for most everyone to use and get the hang of.
How would YOU implement it on the iPhone? I'd love to hear them.
~ CB