Conversation
Fahim Farook
f
Whether it's software development, or simply using software, it’s the little things that get you 🙂
For example, quite a few Mastodon clients (or Twitter clients for that matter) do not allow you to simply highlight a bit of text and copy it … Sure, this might come from platform limitations, but still, it’s something that a user might reasonably expect to do.
Similarly, most URLs can only be clicked on to open in a browser — you can’t copy the URL or share it directly (except of course, by first opening in the browser and then sharing).
I ran into the latter issue with my Ice Cubes fork since I read Mastodon posts on my MacBook but share links to my iPhone to read longer articles there.
“Why?” you ask, well that’s a longer story for a different post perhaps, but the fact remains that we are constantly being constrained as to what we can do with content and software.
Is it just laziness on the part of developers? Or developers thinking that something wouldn’t be needed since 95% of the users don’t do things that way? Or, is it just that we are being herded in a certain direction by the platforms themselves?
I don’t know … But this is probably one of the reasons why I increasingly turn to building my own software — because then I can shape it to meet my own needs 😛
#Coding #UX #Features #UserFriendly
For example, quite a few Mastodon clients (or Twitter clients for that matter) do not allow you to simply highlight a bit of text and copy it … Sure, this might come from platform limitations, but still, it’s something that a user might reasonably expect to do.
Similarly, most URLs can only be clicked on to open in a browser — you can’t copy the URL or share it directly (except of course, by first opening in the browser and then sharing).
I ran into the latter issue with my Ice Cubes fork since I read Mastodon posts on my MacBook but share links to my iPhone to read longer articles there.
“Why?” you ask, well that’s a longer story for a different post perhaps, but the fact remains that we are constantly being constrained as to what we can do with content and software.
Is it just laziness on the part of developers? Or developers thinking that something wouldn’t be needed since 95% of the users don’t do things that way? Or, is it just that we are being herded in a certain direction by the platforms themselves?
I don’t know … But this is probably one of the reasons why I increasingly turn to building my own software — because then I can shape it to meet my own needs 😛
#Coding #UX #Features #UserFriendly
1
1
3
John Gordon 📷
Bluedonkey@mastodon.social@f Ivory does allow both of those operations on my iPad at least, so I don’t believe this is a platform limitation, although text selection only works once I’ve tapped the post in the list view to open it and its replies.
1
0
0
Fahim Farook
f
@Bluedonkey Yep, I’ve noticed that pattern too — I mean no selection on the main list (probably because a tap will take you to the detail view) but on the detail view you can select text 🙂
I simply implemented a context menu on the main list so that you can just copy the post text instead. Doesn’t have the flexibility of selecting text, but better than nothing?
I simply implemented a context menu on the main list so that you can just copy the post text instead. Doesn’t have the flexibility of selecting text, but better than nothing?
1
0
2
John Gordon 📷
Bluedonkey@mastodon.social@f Holding an item in the list does open a context menu, but no copy text option. That seems like a good option to have, and easy enough to delete any text you don’t need after pasting it.
0
0
1