How text editing on the iPad should be

http://www.idownloadblog.com/2012/05/03/text-editing-on-the-ipad/

by superchink • 14 years ago

436 170 14 years ago

TwoBit• 14 years ago

Editing text on my Android is much easier than on my iPad. I don't know why Apple goes out of its way to make it so hard. And the Apple on-screen keyboard with its CAPITALS-ONLY display is inferior to others as well.

Karunamon2• 14 years ago

Capitals only? You mean like almost all physical keyboards ever made?

ehamberg• 14 years ago

By your reasoning, virtual keyboards should only have one keyboard layout as well. Why should virtual keyboards be limited by what's obviously a manufacturing constraint?

natrius• 14 years ago

Appeal to tradition. Most physical keyboards don't have dynamic displays.

pazimzadeh• 14 years ago

This is great. Apple's Bug Reporter UI is not so great: http://f.cl.ly/items/2G0o0n391o1V3b003C1v/Screen%20Shot%2020...

stinky6132• 14 years ago

sparknlaunch123• 14 years ago

Android and Apple text editing is painful. The dreaded auto complete does not help things. I don't think this feature is as good as it can be.

It will be interesting to see how the bug reporter works in grabbing Apple's attention.

Johngibb• 14 years ago

I hear a lot of complaints about the autocomplete, but it definitely makes me way more productive. It correctly fixed 6 words so far in this comment even. And, it can be disabled. Why hate on it? (there were 3 more fixes :) )

lloeki• 14 years ago

Indeed, and most of the time, it prefills the correct word for me so I just have to press space instead of five more characters.

People seem to hold a grudge for autocorrect from the times of T9 prediction, because they keep typing in shortened text language and because they feel they lack control. This feeling is reinforced when you first use iOS as the autocorrect system comes with a generic pre-trained prediction database that might feel jarring at first, yet the system will learn progressively from you as you type, including virtual key sizes.

kalleboo• 14 years ago

My problem with the autocomplete is it loves "fixing" words it doesn't know. I never had this problem with the autocorrect in SwiftKey on Android, which was always really good at know when it was wanted and when I was typing something else.

The other thing I hate about autocorrect is how I have to move my finger to the other side of the screen to say "no I don't want to correct to that". Android keyboards put the correction suggestions right above the keyboard for quick access. I have toubles typing the tiny blue "x" on the iPhone, and half the time accept the incorrect correction by mistake.

Taken together with the small screen, this making typing on an iPhone massively more frustrating than to the Android I switched from.

vilya• 14 years ago

This looks great! The lack of cursor movement keys is probably the biggest problem with text editing on the iPad.

Textastic on the iPad also has a great idea: they've implemented (not sure how) an extended keyboard, with an extra row of 5-way keys. Tap them and they give you the character in the middle of the key, touch and swipe towards one of the four corners and you get the character on that corner instead. It's amazing how much quicker this makes editing. The one thing it's missing is cursor movement keys (they have Home and End, but nothing finer grained), so I'd love to see it combined with features like those in the video.

tedmiston2• 14 years ago

From a development perspective, the keyboard is just another view. You can subclass it, or if that's been made unneccesarily difficult, you can just create your own custom keyboard view from scratch. Several apps in the App Store already take this approach.

britta• 14 years ago

If you have a jailbroken iPad, you can get a five-row keyboard in any app with "iKeyWi HD for iPad", and it includes cursor keys: http://www.ipadforums.net/jailbreak-applications-tweaks/6968...

SwipeShiftCaret is also a nice little tweak for typing better on iOS - it lets you swipe on the screen (although not on the keyboard) to move the cursor one character at a time: http://www.idownloadblog.com/2012/02/10/swipeshiftcaret/

FuzzyDunlop• 14 years ago

I'm not sure if it was supported before iOS 5, but there is an API which you can use to add a subview above the keyboard view.

It would be used for adding next/previous/done buttons to help navigate forms, for example. What Textastic does appears to be a more innovative or unique example.

ChuckMcM2• 14 years ago

So presumably he's filed for a patent on this technique? (Yes I'm being serious)

This is obviously a HUGE win. I agree that cursor motion really really sucks. And if there was an App that added this feature to the keyboard (is there?) then I'd certainly pay 0.99 for it. So that leaves me wondering about the whole viral bug report thing.

If I was being cynical I'd suggest that a there is probably a pending patent on it, and as soon as it is implemented blam! out comes the troll looking for his payout. While this seems crass and cynical in the tech world in the world of scripts and movies it is apparently a known, and defended against, tactic. Production companies being explicit to never suggest any ideas because doing so with out them asking (and pre-establishing the rights ownership thing) might leave them open to a 'stolen idea' lawsuit).

monochromatic• 14 years ago

> an App that added this feature to the keyboard (is there?)

This seems... not possible to do via an app.

MaxGabriel• 14 years ago

Um, why not? Before copy/paste was introduced, text editing apps introduced features to provide that functionality. And the video shows it is clearly possible.

ChuckMcM2• 14 years ago

Ok, check this : http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sec...

Since soft keyboards have a ZILLION patents on them there is very little 'innovation' room. I'd wager these guys in Singapore would claim ownership of this 'feature' if their patent issues.

wavephorm• 14 years ago

  So presumably he's filed for a patent on this technique?

Selecting text on a computer should not be patentable. But I bet it probably is because of how stupid the patent system is.

lukifer3• 14 years ago

It's a shame there are so many legal costs and constraints to applying for patents; we badly need a patent equivalent to copyleft.

mortenjorck• 14 years ago

About a year ago, I actually had a very similar idea to the one shown in the demo. I like this one better – mine used individual swipes to move letter by letter, two-fingered swipes to move one word at a time. The "analog" motion in the demo feels more natural and allows for much faster navigation.

I took another look at the US patent process (having never patented any inventions in my 2009 desktop interaction concept), with a vague plan of "shopping" it around were it to be granted, but the cost versus the timeframe, combined with the slightly scummy feeling of trying to monetize a patent without actually building anything, ultimately stopped me.

If the latter of those reasons doesn't stop the author of this demo from springing some kind of patent trap, the former probably will.

Angostura2• 14 years ago

Well, its in the public domain now. So if it isn't patent pending, its not patentable.

shennyg• 14 years ago

FastEver does something similar, you swipe the screen and the cursor moves on spot in the directions you swipe.

Look under features: "Swipe to move cursor (iOS4 or later)" http://rakkoentertainment.com/fastever/

fredley• 14 years ago

This is very interesting, and a really great concept, but I don't think a feature request 'bug report' is the best way to go about this, Apple are extremely unresponsive to feedback, even when you're reporting legitimate bugs.

A better thing to do would be to go out, make it, and get it on as many Android and jailbroken Apple devices as possible. Make it a 'must have' jailbreak app. It worked for notifications. If it's something that makes Android tablets easier to type on than the iPad that'll get their attention too.

tedmiston2• 14 years ago

Just because they don't publicly respond doesn't mean filing the bug report is a bad thing. Increasing the number of reports causes the problem to receive more focus (and visibility) internally. That said, I don't necessarily think that's the most appropriate way to promote this idea.

I would like to try it myself on a device first.

I hope the developer is willing to either: a.) open source his demo so other devs can try it b.) publish the demo in the App Store (or Cydia if Apple says no)

JumpCrisscross• 14 years ago

It doesn't even have to go that far - build an editor à la ia Writer [1] or, if willing to dive deeper, an email client. This gives you protection over the intellectual property and acquisition for technology or aqui-hire potential.

[1] http://www.iawriter.com/

Lockyy• 14 years ago

Android is already much easier to select text with. The arrow under the text that you drag is just so much easier than the magnifying glass that is just cumbersome and awkward to use.

davidlumley2• 14 years ago

iOS allows you to select text using markers that are dragged as well:. The blue markers you see in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aw2Y7FP8qko can be dragged to change the selection area.

The magnifying glass is used to set the exact cursor position, and can be invaluable when trying to position the cursor between similar looking letters on a mobile device.

parfe• 14 years ago

Talk about wrong tool for the job.

I understand you spent a lot of money on the iPad. I don't understand the obsession with editing on it. If you need to edit text, then get a laptop.

Text editing is a round peg people keep trying to jam into an ipad's rectangular hole.

edit: I'm sorry you all spent so much money. You're still using the wrong tool.

reason• 14 years ago

How does that have anything to do with improving the iPad's existing type functionality?

Plus, my mom (and I assume many, many others) has completely switched over to an iPad and manages all of her emails on it. I'm sure she'd appreciate better editing features. I myself use my iPad to do some light email managing when I'm out, and I too have issues with how tedious editing text is; so an improvement is more than welcomed.

davidlumley2• 14 years ago

I write emails and messages using both my iPad and my iPhone and would argue that such activity (which includes editing text) is an intended use case. Anything that increases how easy it is to do this is a huge win for both the users and Apple.

dbecker• 14 years ago

Sure. The ipad may never be the right tool to write a novel or business report.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't improve text editing so it's slightly less painful for email (and other applications that involve small amounts of text editing.)

jsz0• 14 years ago

Very often all I have is an iPhone and maybe an iPad. I don't do enough hardcore editing to justify carrying around a laptop anymore. So I would definitely welcome better text editing features on iOS even if it's not the best tool for the job. It's funny because I originally thought the text input via touch would be the biggest problem but I'm now crazy fast with it. It's the editing that really slows me down.

pirateking• 14 years ago

Talk about short sighted.

Editing text does not exclusively mean writing code or long documents. I and many others do a large chunk of casual web browsing, email, and messaging from iOS devices. Having better cursor movement to go back and fix a mistyped URL or quickly select a block of text from an email would be a huge improvement over the existing clunky behavior.

That said, I do not think there is anything wrong with using an iOS device for heavier text editing either. It is currently more inefficient than a laptop, but new interfaces may one day make it just as efficient as a traditional keyboard for text entry and manipulation.

stinky6132• 14 years ago

> You're still using the wrong tool

Although a pneumatic nailgun is faster than using a plain jane hammer, that doesn't make a hammer necessarily the wrong tool to use for a job.

Oh, and no one replying to you has said anything about money; only about your vague, substanceless remarks.

abruzzi• 14 years ago

as the old saying goes--the best text editor is the one you have with you.

erickhill• 14 years ago

This guy is really smart. Add to the fact that he's seems to be offering this purely in an altruistic (non-profit) way is beyond cool. Maybe with Apple's bags of cash they should simply "buy" his idea anyway. Imagine the number of people this could affect in a positive way. So simple.

guelo• 14 years ago

Some corporation better not go out and patent this idea.

joedev• 14 years ago

Like it!

jacobolus• 14 years ago

One of those cases where relative rather than absolute manipulation is a big advantage. I could see this being a nice feature on PCs as well (modifier key + mouse movement to change text cursor position, rather than precisely moving the mouse pointer and clicking where desired).

lukifer3• 14 years ago

I've wanted this for ages, especially now that I do everything with a trackpad right below the keyboard. (I wish I was a better Cocoa dev.)

abalone3• 14 years ago

I admire the effort but I don't think Apple will (or should) go for it. iOS is a direct manipulation interface. Swiping over the keyboard to move the cursor around another part of the screen is really counter to that.

What would make more sense is to add faster direct manipulation gestures. There's opportunity for that, without throwing out the whole paradigm.

For example, today to select a range of text you:

   1. Tap-and-hold to bring up the cursor magnifying glass
   2. Let go to bring up the context menu
   3. Tap "select" from the menu
   4. Drag one of the endpoints to one end of the selection
   5. Adjust the other endpoint if necessary

But why not this?

   1. Tap-and-hold to bring up the cursor magnifying glass
   2. While holding, use a second finger to drag out the desired selection!

Now that's something Apple might actually go for.

sthlm• 14 years ago

A 2-finger solution probably wouldn't work so well on the iPad, and especially not on the iPhone. Consistency across devices is a pattern that Apple clearly follows.

I agree however that the method in the video is not so feasible either, for exactly your reasoning.

hej• 14 years ago

It’s blow your mind time. Ready?

Double-tap any text you are editing in order to select a word. That also allows you to drag the endpoints. Tapping with two fingers selects the whole paragraph.

In short: Tapping places the cursor (and brings up the keyboard if it isn’t already up), double-tapping selects a word, tapping with two fingers selects a paragraph. I couldn’t find any other gestures.

If you you double-tap and hold, you can immediately change the selection, but you are anchored to the word you selected (i.e. you can add characters to the left or the right but not both). Tapping and holding with two fingers allows you to change both endpoints with your two fingers.

Web views (and most other views of text you cannot edit) don’t work like that. In those, you tap and hold to select text. It’s a bit inconsistent, though: in iBooks (for example), tapping with two fingers will select whole paragraphs.

abalone3• 14 years ago

Oh, thanks! Did not know that. That's even faster than the workflow in the video. :-)

Someone should do a video like this showing all the native gestures. Maybe there is one but a quick google search doesn't find it for me.

wiredfool2• 14 years ago

Is there a way to select a point within a word, such as just after the first character? If there is, if just not seeing it.

Gring2• 14 years ago

Very cool. This would imply there is a superfast method to select a paragraph and extend to two paragraphs: Doubletap with two fingers, then drag up/down. But unfortunately, this doesn't work (it starts scrolling instead). I would hope that Apple implements this as well.

Angostura2• 14 years ago

Bizarrely, two fingered tap only seems to work on editable text, not read only. So you cannot use it to select text on a Web page or a received e-mail.

wvenable2• 14 years ago

> iOS is a direct manipulation interface.

The keyboard is already breaking the direct manipulation paradigm -- you type at the bottom of the screen and text appears somewhere else. This feature is useful exactly because it's not direct manipulation. You are typing text; being able to control the cursor while doing that is brilliant. Tapping the screen is pretty much equivalent to, on the desktop, taking your hands off the keyboard and using the mouse.

I don't have an iPad but I do have an iPhone and I've found cursor manipulation to be a very frustrating experience. Trying to manipulate the address bar in Safari, for example, makes me want to pull out my hair. The cursor control just isn't fine enough.

greggman3• 14 years ago

not quite: You directly press 'A' you get an 'A'. You want to move the cursor you directly press where you want it.

In the model above you press this area of letter buttons and slide your finger and some unrelated thing 'the cursor' moves around.

Maybe that's okay but it's not direct like the current UX

schiffern2• 14 years ago

Precisely. Direct-manipulation text input would be handwriting recognition á la the Newton MessagePad.

Unoeufisenough• 14 years ago

I also can recommend a MUCH better way to input text into your apple device that works today. It looks a lot more like this: http://www.apple.com/macbookair/

jasomill• 14 years ago

Sucks for coding, though; not enough RAM or screen space. This http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/specs-17inch.html is a much nicer option, especially with an SSD.

As an enthusiastic owner of all three iPad models, I've found that "wanting a keyboard" is a very good sign that whatever you're doing isn't a good fit for the iPad.

With that said, here's an iOS feature that'd be very easy to implement: application-level "passthrough" mode for physical keyboards. Not only would it allow for better "traditional" editors, the fact that iOS doesn't rely on the keyboard for OS-level navigation would make it a perfect vehicle for VNC and RDP clients with "transparent" keyboard support.

I could understand Apple prohibiting the use of such an API for accelerators "merely" to discourage half-assed ports of traditional WIMP apps, but why not allow the use of a physical keyboard as an "IT controller" just as they permit external controllers for games? It's simply unreasonable to insist that developers build a more "touch-based" interface to fundamentally non-touch-based remote systems, and nearly as unreasonable to expect professional programmers to adapt to a "touch-based" UI paradigm for _editing text_. The fact that the Cocoa text edit controls play well with Emacs-style key bindings is, for me at least, a HUGE advantage of OS X, one that'd be very hard to usefully duplicate in Windows.

ricardobeat• 14 years ago

What do you mean by "passthrough mode"? External keyboards (Bluetooth or USB) already work with any text field.

pixelcort• 14 years ago

Don't forget some international keyboards, such as the Japanese Kana one, rely on swipe gestures to input characters.

gfodor3• 14 years ago

It's neat, but will never happen. The prototype misses the subtle intersection of all the constraints necessary for good design on the iPad. At a high level, here are a few that you want to optimize for:

- Efficiency: how fast can the user perform the task at hand?

- Intuitivity: how likely is it the user will understand how to use it without direct instruction? (based upon trial and error, previous experience, etc.)

- Consistency: how much is it like other patterns in the same UI/environment?

- Metaphor: how much does it 'feel' like other real-world objects and leverages how the user understands them already?

These are of course a sample of high level overlapping themes. This particular prototype is obviously optimizing for efficiency. It does so very well, but at a very, very deep cost to the others. It is an undiscoverable interface. It utterly destroys the direct manipulation illusion of the iPad. It causes the virtual keys to no longer be metaphorical buttons since you can drag across them for an effect. It is inconsistent with other use of gestures, particularly since you are controlling a cursor remotely much like you would with a mouse (likely a fire-able proposition at Apple!)

The thing that makes Apple's work so amazing is the balance they manage to strike between these things and so consistently get it right. For a power user, give me vim, Maya, Photoshop, and other tools that optimize for efficiency (much like this prototype does.) But when designing things that are meant to be universally available, a more subdued and balanced approach across these types of constraints is necessary.

weaksauce• 14 years ago

The holding the plus button in safari to reopen closed tabs was not intuitive at all and there was no subtle wiggle or other in iPad thing to show that it was even there.

Why not have this be a setting that you can turn on? Or have the two ways to edit text on at the same time? There are two ways to input text right now with the voice recognition and the keyboard so why not two ways to select text?

wmeredith• 14 years ago

This is just one example of a host of undiscoverable features lurking in many of Apple's touch interfaces. (Triple home button taps, anyone?) I could see them implementing this, and I hope they do.

gfodor3• 14 years ago

Discoverability is just one of several problems I mentioned above. Remote cursor manipulation, etc, are all against the grain. Taken together they lead me to think this is not in line with the type of thing Apple would do.

minikomi2• 14 years ago

I agree but I think it makes more sense as an "Advanced" option which can be turned on and off.

iusable2• 14 years ago

hey minikomi, i would love to get in touch with you. some of your comments on here are very intriguing. what's the best way to get in touch?

product50• 14 years ago

It is important to give suggestions rather than refuting existing proposals. I think we all will agree that Apple's current iPad keyboard design is broken. So, what do you suggest? It is easy to criticize or find fault with suggestions that others are giving. What is tough though, and that adds real value to any conversation, is what do you suggest and your reasons for it.

gfodor3• 14 years ago

I don't agree that it's broken. The UI they have fits nicely within the constraints I mentioned. When I want to type quickly, I have a bluetooth keyboard.

The issue I have with the iPad keyboard is the way autosuggest works, not sure if that's related, but that's for another post.

DavidAbrams• 14 years ago

A great many of Apple UIs fail those tests.

The main problem with this one is discoverability, but since most gestures are essentially undiscoverable, that hardly impugns it.

I think this is an excellent idea.

frankus• 14 years ago

I don't think the OP is proposing to phase out the current method of navigating and selecting text, but rather adding an additional shortcut for people who do a lot of text editing.

So the question you have to ask is "will this get in the way of beginners and/or casual users?". Precisely because it's so unobtrusive and non-discoverable, I think the answer is "no".

Like the multitasking gestures on the iPad (which will never entirely replace the home button), this would be a complement to the intuitive, consistent and metaphorical (but inefficient) method of selecting text currently.

In fact precisely positioning a cursor is very nearly unworkable as a direct-manipulation task, since the target is so much smaller than a fingertip.

armandososa• 14 years ago

I think the OP makes this point, in a very subtle way, by closing the app using the four finger pinch at the end, which is a not discoverable, not obvious, advanced feature which, I'm sure, not a lot of people use.

ajross• 14 years ago

I actually agree with you on most of those points.

Yet it's worth pointing out that a plain old $10 keyboard beats the iPad on every one of those. And it's not even close.

Yet people insist on putting lipstick on this pig, trying to believe that text editing on a tablet doesn't suck. They're great media consumption devices. Don't try to use them in contexts where they work poorly, nor fool yourself into thinking they can be "fixed".

sbuk4• 14 years ago

They're great media consumption devices.

Sorry, but this is a lazy and trite assertion. They are a extremely useful tools for visual designers and musicians for a start.

batista6• 14 years ago

>Yet people insist on putting lipstick on this pig, trying to believe that text editing on a tablet doesn't suck. They're great media consumption devices.

2009 called, they want their argument back. Lots and lots of people have created media (and even programs) on their iPads. From writers, to musicians, to programmers even (actually, just the other week, the first ever game created solely on the iPad was published to the App Store --it only needed external compilation and signature on XCode, all the actual coding and testing was done in the iPad).

>Don't try to use them in contexts where they work poorly

Really? Because for a "consumption device" I think my iPad is the best DAW controller available on the market for the money, to name just one use. It used to cost like $3000 for a comparable device just a few years ago.

And it's much more portable and distraction free to use with a bluetooth keyboard for writing than any laptop...

>nor fool yourself into thinking they can be "fixed".

Really? What exactly can't be fixed? We already have experiments with haptic feedback, and of course one can always use one with a wireless keyboard --you know, like the one Apple sells or the tens of keyboard+case combos.

Also, check out technologies like Blind Type (proximity to intended letter and word statistics based inference):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gDF4ocLhQM&feature=playe...!

Which was acquired by Google:

http://business2press.com/2010/10/01/google-blindtype-acquis...

ax• 14 years ago

Good points, though I don't agree that Metaphore is an important criteria. It's intuition that's important, and metaphore is just one way to aid intuition. Metro design guidelines even advise against using metaphore in favor of being authentically digital.

ecaradec• 14 years ago

Apple is doing a lot of undiscoverable things like that :

- focus to remove an app (people learn that from others )

- splitted keyboard left & right has invisible virtual keys

- double tab the button for process

- kill process by focusing on a process ( very useful when an app has crased, yet undiscoverable )

- double tab then slide left for volume

- screenshot with power + button

- take a photo with the volume button

Hidden features are very Apple-esque

greendestiny• 14 years ago

Not to mention a long touch to start a zoom cursor. I think its pretty arguable that thats more intuitive.

Gring2• 14 years ago

Yep. There is even an undicoverable swipe gesture accros the keyboard (just like grandparent suggest Apple would not do): To split the keyboard into two, do a unpinch gesture (two fingers start in the middle, one goes to the right, the other to the left).

joelhaasnoot• 14 years ago

Hidden features are just a way to implement adaptive interfaces right? As the user learns and discovers, the interface has more and more advanced features.

falling• 14 years ago

> - kill process by focusing on a process ( very useful when an app has crased, yet undiscoverable )

no. especially if the app crashed all you are doing is removing the icon from the list.

arantius• 14 years ago

> It utterly destroys the direct manipulation illusion of the iPad.

If you accept that a virtual keyboard is direct manipulation, can you accept that swiping the virtual keyboard is analogous to pressing the arrow keys on a physical keyboard? Then it's all the same stuff. Illusion barely broken, if at all.

uptown• 14 years ago

The worst part of editing text on iOS is getting the cursor somewhere in the middle of a string. It's just a nightmare to accomplish. Android's solution was to add arrow keys, but for some reason they felt out of place when typing to me. Love this concept. Hopefully it'll eventually make its way onto handsets.

booticon2• 14 years ago

It looks like this person put a lot of thought into how text editing could be improved in iOS, and the video is well-made. However, a great feature of the iOS keyboard is that if you press the wrong key, if your finger is still on the key, you can drag it over to the key you intended to use. Has he taken this into account? It would be pretty frustrating if I made an almost-typo, and instead of inputting the intended character, my cursor moved around.

stefanu• 14 years ago

Also if you press and hold a key, list of accented/alternative characters is opened. Anyway, OP has lovely idea, just the first trigger has to be tuned a bit. Maybe holding and dragging the space key?

peterkelly5• 14 years ago

The behaviour you described is specific to the iPhone. On the iPad, if you press on one key and move to another, it releases the original key and ignores the key press.

booticon2• 14 years ago

Well, I stand (somewhat) corrected!

Kilimanjaro• 14 years ago

Some people complain about swiping over the keys? Then add a scrollpad at the bottom of the keyboard where you can perform the same swipe to place the cursor. And use the shift key to select, same as the video.

I like that idea a lot.

codysoyland• 14 years ago

I'm surprised nobody seems to be addressing how easy it would be to accidentally move the cursor while using the keyboard.

Neat idea, but I don't see it happening.

peterkelly5• 14 years ago

In my own implementation I've added a movement threshold, so it only starts moving the cursor after you've moved your finger a certain number of pixels (currently 44) from the point at which you originally put it down. I've found this avoids problems of accidental cursor movement.

ptaoussanis3• 14 years ago

Great idea!

greggman3• 14 years ago

This seems U.S. centric. Isn't drag on keys used to select accents? Maybe some subtle timing thing make decide did you want the accent menu or did you want to move the cursor.

Dragging is also currently a correction thing. You can press 'E' then drag to 'T' if you that's what you meant. I don't know how many people use that feature though.

wiredfool2• 14 years ago

Dragging up on the comma and the period give you ' and " respectively. I'm not seeing what you're saying on clicking E and dragging to T. Doesn't seem to do anything here.

I find the iPad's text editing to be one of the biggest flaws of the device. Even on short things, like this comment, there's invariably some point where I've mistyped something by putting a space in one character early, and the only reasonable way I've found to correct it is to retype both words.

greggman3• 14 years ago

My bad, dragging E to T is an iPhone thing. It doesn't do it on iPad. I had assumed they were the same. They're not.

firefoxman1• 14 years ago

I'm surprised no one has mentioned how this feature was implemented in the Palm Pre/Pixi a few years ago. That was one of my favorite little things about WebOS.

When editing text, you held down the Orange key and then drag your finger anywhere on the screen and the cursor followed. And to select text, you did the same thing with the Shift key instead.

dvdhsu• 14 years ago

The problem, though, is that I still had to take my hands off the keyboard. This doesn't require me to.

joeblossom• 14 years ago

That's only because those devices didn't have an onscreen keyboard...

antidoh• 14 years ago

I don't have and have never used an iPad.

When I watched this video I was thinking "You mean this isn't how iPad typing works already?"

If I had an iPad, and typing worked this way, I wouldn't even notice it as a thing. Of course it would do this.

mekazu• 14 years ago

The qwerty keyboard was designed to prevent the jamming of metallic parts of a typewriter. Surely it's time to put this metaphor behind us? People have migrated easily from typewriters to computer keyboards, and from pianos to synthesizers (depending on the synthesizer) but neither metaphor works effectively for a touch screen. A touch screen is unable to provide the necessary physical feedback to let the instrument 'flow'. Even using the finger as a cursor doesn't work anywhere near as well as a mouse or a stylus when editing text.

Touch devices require a breakthrough in text input if they are ever to become useful for creative output of large chunks of text. We all learned to SMS using a 12 button mobile phone pad in the '90s, people have spent months and years learning vim and emacs (despite their lack of intuitivity, consistency and metaphor), why can't we get away from qwerty keyboards today?

I don't have any suggestions, but people must be coming up with better non-qwerty ideas all the time. Where are they?

chronomex• 14 years ago

I'm rather fond of the MessagEase keyboard on Android: http://www.exideas.com/ME/index.php

egypturnash• 14 years ago

Oh god I want this, or something similar to it. Because that little lens that pops up is a TOTAL PAIN IN THE BUTT when you keep your fingernails long; the close-up on the cursor is usually hidden by my fingernail. Every time I use my Nexus One to edit text, and move the cursor around with the trackball, it's like heaven compared to my iPad. (IMHO the stock Android autocorrect is also a ton better than IOS - I really hate that tiny little blue text that pops up beneath a word, and I hate iOS's refusal to let you go back and edit out its miscorrections even more.)

I've only had something like this happen once before, when I tried using some third-party controller hanging around a friend's office to try the game he was working on, and physically could not press the buttons because of a little ridge just above them, positioned perfectly to catch my thumbnail when I brought my thumb down.

tl,dr: if your product involves people poking at it, find a person with long fingernails and see if she can use it.

stephengillie• 14 years ago

The solution is simple: an optical trackball.

The HTC Incredible has one. So do Blackberrys. It does exactly what the OP is asking for.

czzarr• 14 years ago

i wish there was vi mode for iOS. seriously it would work great

rythie• 14 years ago

It's nice, but some arrow keys would be easier to understand for most people.

rplnt• 14 years ago

Can't you just make it as an app? Why would it have to be there by default?

lucian1900• 14 years ago

I think it's sad people let Apple be their paranoid abusive parent. This developer can't even make his own keyboard app.

Look at Swype on Android, it's both excellent and usable on any phone. There are tons of other alternative text input apps to choose from, too.

micheljansen• 14 years ago

I like it, but it's not perfect. First of all, I don’t think dragging one finger on the keyboard should have any effect. The iPad’s current keyboard is very forgiving when I mis-press a key initially and move my finger to the right key. This should not cause the cursor to move. An easy adaptation of this solution would be to just use the two finger gesture for moving the text (if you want to move it faster, just use the “tap and refine” strategy I mentioned earlier).

Additionally, I wonder how text selection would work when typing with one hand. I rarely use an iPad the way it is shown here, laying on a table in landscape mode. Perhaps in addition to using shift, holding the two finger gesture could also initiate “select mode”. That way, selection can more easily be done using one hand.

lamby• 14 years ago

> Set the title to “Editing Text on iPad (duplicate of rdar://11365152)”

twitch

peterkelly5• 14 years ago

This looks awesome; I'm just in the process of adding this to my own writing app right now. I have cursor movement working and am just getting onto the selection mechanism.

Should be finished in couple more hours. Anyone want to test it out and give me some feedback once I'm done?

ptaoussanis3• 14 years ago

Well that was quick ;)

In principle really like the idea of something like this- especially in the context of an app like yours where you're targeting long-document writers.

How's it feel to use in practice? I kind of liked the suggestion elsewhere here about needing 2 fingers to do the scrolling to prevent the cursor from accidentally running away.

peterkelly5• 14 years ago

I haven't had a chance to use it much but I definitely think it's an improvement over the existing mechanism. I already had some extra keys for cursor movement similar to those of IA Writer but this is better for moving across multiple characters.

I ran into a problem with the two-finger gesture, which is that Apple already use this for putting the keyboard into a split mode (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyQTkZjvSok). So I'm currently figuring out how do deal with that without preventing people from using the split keyboard. I've emailed the guy who did the video about how he did his implementation but haven't heard back yet.

antirez• 14 years ago

I bet there are a great deal of people like me that don't use / purchase tables because of the poor keyboard experience. With a real keyboard I can type fast, faster than I can speak, faster than I can write using a pen. My interaction with a computer always was this way: my ideas can flow fast to the form of text, code, emails, and so forth. With the iPad I feel dumb, because I'm no longer fast enough, and I refuse this kind of interaction. However the new text editing proposed on this story fixes part of the problem, but not all unfortunately, still it's a great step forward.

sparknlaunch123• 14 years ago

A stylus type pen device would be the best alternative to touch typing on a touch screen.

This is currently available for touch devices but not that frequently used. I am not sure why?

zevyoura• 14 years ago

Because stylus' are another thing to keep track of, easy to lose, and it's not seamless to switch between touch input and stylus. And people don't handwrite all that much faster than they can type on a virtual keyboard.

prawn• 14 years ago

How would you maintain consistency when it came to selecting text when the keyboard wasn't present? I like it otherwise. As everyone knows, selecting/etc text on iPad is a pain.

drivebyacct2• 14 years ago

Why would you waste effort implementing this on an iPad? The developer must know that it's not possible to distribute and that it's extraordinarily unlikely that Apple would make an exeception or utilize it themselves.

Meanwhile, it probably would have sold tens of thousands of copies in the Android Market already.

edit: Wow, the article even includes futile instructions to spam Apple's feature tracker. I'm sure they appreciate that move.

tree_of_item• 14 years ago

I don't understand why this person thinks spamming Apple's bug tracker will increase the chances of it being implemented. It's not a bug.

I don't understand why this person cares whether or not Apple agrees with them. The whole point of having a device capable of universal computation is to be able to make it do what you want without other people's permission.

A better use of time would be to implement this functionality for a computer that wasn't actively hostile to end-user extension. Android software keyboards sell quite a bit I believe.

zomgbbq• 14 years ago

I could implement this pretty easily in an app or as a library that people use as a replacement for the existing keyboard. So while I could not fix built-in apps, it could be a nice fix for downloadable apps. The only question is if I build it, would people come?

Too• 14 years ago

Firefox on Windows already has this feature. (i don't think its a feature of windows because it doesn't work in other programs)

Try scrolling sidways with your touchpad when you have focus on the url-bar...

Hold control to scroll word by word.

a5x2h9k41l4• 14 years ago

Can you attach a real USB keyboard to the iPad?

(Note the project on Kickstarter that seeks to make and iPad look like a MacBook.)

If you can't attach a keyboard, why did they do this? (The) iPad would make a good portable display.

Of course, an iPad makes a good coffee table piece. Pick it up, touch the screen, gaze at it, put it down. Wow, amazing.

biot2• 14 years ago

http://www.google.com/search?q=ipad+attach+keyboard

a5x2h9k41l4• 14 years ago

First few results are about "attaching" Bluetooth keyboards. Not wired USB keyboards. Then there's a Wired story about how overpriced iPad compatible wired keyboards are. So I take it the answer is generally no. My conclusion is the intent of the out-of-the-box iPad is not to let you type. I guess it's sort of like a self-service grocery checkout machine: just touch the big buttons. Could be useful to buy stuff online I guess. But hardly sounds like a real computer you can program.

a5x2h9k41l4• 14 years ago

First few results are about "attaching" Bluetooth keyboards. Not USB. Then there's a Wired story about how overpriced iPad compatible wired keyboards are. So I take it the answer is generally no. My conclusion is the intent of the out-of-the-box iPad is not to let you type. Which is a very interesting design decision.

How text editing on the iPad should be

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