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grumbler

macrumors member
Original poster
Feb 26, 2008
41
0
Hawaii.
Creating copy and paste on iPhone is difficult. Without any 'hard' keys, copy and pasting must be done using either gestures or on-screen buttons. (To save space, 'petting' will now be used in place of 'copy and paste'.)

The difficulty with using gestures for petting is that the obvious ones are already taken. Sliding your finger across text in entry pops up a loupe, and in a Mail or Safari web view, it scrolls the page. The problem with a petting 'button' or 'edit mode' is that it can clutter up the UI and could annoy users that aren't trying to pet.

Petting must exist subtly on the iPhone. Like on a computer, it should be there, but shouldn't scream its presence out.

Also, copy and paste must work across all applications with text, not only in text entry fields where the keyboard pops up. A

Here's my take!

The first thing I thought about was that when you're scrubbing through text with the loupe, you're not using the keyboard. That's about 40% of the UI that could be useful! So, I decided that when using the loupe, the keyboard should disappear. Now it's easy to select text, because the unnecessary keyboard isn't hogging screen real estate! This is a great idea, even if my petting implementation doesn't work!

Then, let's say that you want to do some petting. What do you do? Well, the keyboard doesn't just disappear, but it gets replaced with a small bar at the bottom of the screen. While holding the loupe with your pointer, use your thumb to press Cut, Copy, or Paste!

iphonesmscpxi8.jpg



How do you select text? Simple-- first position the loupe with the tip of your pointer finger. To begin highlighting, flatten your pointer and drag. Use the fattest part of your finger. The iPhone can recognize the change and will begin highlighting. Isn't that intuitive?


But what if you're in a web view? Easy! Hold your pointer over text for one second, to pop up the loupe and petting bar.

iphoneemailcphx9.jpg


iphonesafaricplk6.jpg




Am I on to something?


By the way, the 'fat finger drag' would be used system-wide for text selection. Dragging over text like this would always select it.
 
Hmmm, yeah, it's alright. I don't like that the keyboard goes away because what if you have realised there is a mistake in what you wrote two lines ago...put up the magnifying glass to change your mistake and then the keyboard goes away, sounds pretty silly to me.

My idea has always been to just have a universal gesture...you just do a quick circular motion over some text. In Safari it might be a little difficult to do so there could be just a button that makes the option visible.
 
I think this is probably the best idea I've seen with regards a copy / paste function on the iPhone.

I really hope someone writes an app on the sdk for copy / paste.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/4A102 Safari/419.3)

Afaiac Id use the volume up and down buttons to copy paste
 
Somebody needs to make it happen and then go from there! fix it after, copy/paste fxn needed badly!!!
 
I think it will be something simpler. Put your finger on some text and the loupe appears. Hold it steady for 5 seconds and the loupe color changes to signify a copy operation has started. Drag your finger and let go and the copy operation is complete. Pasting would have to be different though. It would require a button added to the keyboard or a multitouch operation.
 
Hmmm, yeah, it's alright. I don't like that the keyboard goes away because what if you have realised there is a mistake in what you wrote two lines ago...put up the magnifying glass to change your mistake and then the keyboard goes away, sounds pretty silly to me.

The keyboard would pop back up the instant you stop using the loupe. You sound like a silly person that doesn't actually own an iPhone; the keyboard actually really gets in the way when trying to use the loupe. When you're trying to type in Safari horizontally while a page is still loading, it's so ridiculous that the text you're typing is cut off half way.

My idea has always been to just have a universal gesture...you just do a quick circular motion over some text. In Safari it might be a little difficult to do so there could be just a button that makes the option visible.

This wouldn't work. It would move scroll the page around, and your finger isn't precise enough to create a circle around specific text. And if you've ever used an iPhone, then you'd know that you can't slide your finger as quickly as a stylus across the screen. That simply wouldn't work.

I think it will be something simpler. Put your finger on some text and the loupe appears. Hold it steady for 5 seconds and the loupe color changes to signify a copy operation has started

Hmm I guess that would work, but wouldn't pressing with your finger be so much cooler? :)
 
I think this would be awesome!

Please post any suggestions on iPhoneSDK.co.uk

Ben
 
The keyboard would pop back up the instant you stop using the loupe. You sound like a silly person that doesn't actually own an iPhone; the keyboard actually really gets in the way when trying to use the loupe. When you're trying to type in Safari horizontally while a page is still loading, it's so ridiculous that the text you're typing is cut off half way.

Hmmm, can't say I like your attitude. If I have insulted you by expressing my opinion then I am sorry. I do agree that the keyboard does get in the way when you are typing horizontally and the page is still loading, which is why I either wait for it to finish loading the page or just stop it half way.

This wouldn't work. It would move scroll the page around, and your finger isn't precise enough to create a circle around specific text. And if you've ever used an iPhone, then you'd know that you can't slide your finger as quickly as a stylus across the screen. That simply wouldn't work.

Which is why I said that Safari would have a button specifically for copy and paste instead of the circular motion. Suggesting to do a perfect circle is just stupid, I said a "circular motion". If you have seen some videos that incorporate multi-touch into huge walls you would see how great it is. I never said to create the circle around the text, just on the screen.

I just think your method might be a little complicated.
 
yeah im sorry to say that i think your method would be too complicated and i really like the idea of holding for say 3 seconds until, say, the loupe flashes and you can copy
 
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