Difficulty with cursor control for editing typos?

[buttonstc]

I don't know if this is an android problem or more device related. All I know for certain is that its one giant headache. I thought it was just a matter of getting used to a different keyboard feel and figured I'd give it a while.

But its been several weeks now and its still
l driving me crazy. Many times if its just a minor typo I'll just leave it rather than go through the torture of editing it.

The main problem is that it cannot be placed with precision. If you try it just jumps around from back to forth and line to line.

I know I'm used to the way it works on iPhone where you can get it approx near where you want it and them just press down firmly to move it to the precise place you want it.

Its impossible for me to do that with this cursor so I have to keep taking multiple stabs at it and hope for the best. I have pretty small hands and fingers and am obviously quite used to online keyboatds. But this thing is driving me nuts.

Am I the only one with this problem? Or is there just some little trick or technique of which I'm totally I the dark about?

Hopefully someone can drop me a clue, please.

 

[Paul627g]

It does take some practice... I have difficulties many times too even after over a year of working with touch screen keyboards. One trick which many don't realize is sometimes you can't highlight or edit any word you want, you have to pick a word that is "correct" spelled so it gives you the option to move the cursor around. Some words you choose to pick will right away pop up the dictionary or word prediction rather than give you the option to move the cursor around... So it takes a little practice knowing what and where to select. I feel this is half the battle...

Otherwise, consider trying some different KB's... 3rd party from the Market.

 

[kirksucks]

The keyboard doesn't matter. It sucks trying to edit text on Android. Period. They need to really work this out.

Sent from my unrooted DInc2 via Tapatalk

 

[EvilMonkey]

I'm not quite sure I understand the issue. Don't you see an orange thing when you tap the screen like the top image here?

Just grab it and drag where you want it. Why are you "stabbing" at the screen? It's easier than the long press in iOS to get to the magnifying glass. Maybe just me but it's a piece of cake. I find it's easier than iOS as well since that forces you to put the cursor before or after the word then long press to get the magnifying glass to place it within the word.

 

[buttonstc]

@evilmonkey

I see what you're saying but my problem is that I just assumed that was for copy/paste.

And the other issue is that I can't get it to appear when I want it to. Sometimes it pops up seemingly at random and other times it just won't appear no matter what I do.

I have previously tried to figure out how to do c/p and have not been able to get a handle on that either. That was going to be my next area of questioning as well.

How can I consistently get those things to appear?


@Paul

Thanks for that hint. I'll have to start paying more attention to that feature. I'm more used to ignoring it because the auto correct feature in IOS is so off base and kerps correcting words which are spelled correctly because IT THINKS that it knows what I'm thinking better than I. I used to be an English teacher for crying out loud. My spelling is seldom in need of correction. Sometimes the whole idea of a "smartphone" which presumes its smarter than the person using it has its annoying moments.

For some reason I have a tendency to use the word thus fairly frequently. My iPhone STILL keeps insisting upon changing it to this after several years. You'd think they might have put in some learning ability after the millionth time I go back to override it.

 

[buttonstc]

@evilmonkey

I just tried to edit my post by following your suggestion.

Exactly how does one "just grab it" to move it where its wanted.

When I tried to do that it just jumped all over the place like crazy. Totally out of control. Each time I tried I totally lost my place on the entire post. It just jumped me around from one line to another and from beginning to end of lines.

This is why I have been stabbing at places where I want it and hope I get close. If I can get close then I don't have to erase as much extraneous letters.

Trying to grab it is sort of like trying to nail jello to a wall. What am I doing wrong or does my Acer Iconia just have an over sensitive keyboard.

I thought that typing an a seven inch screen would be so much easier than a tiny phone screen but that's not turning out to be the case at all. I'm finding myself very surprised by that. I was expecting the opposite.

 

[EvilMonkey]

EDIT: I am assuming you're running at least Gingerbread where these improvements have been made. Older versions were a little less friendly.

@evilmonkey

I see what you're saying but my problem is that I just assumed that was for copy/paste.

And the other issue is that I can't get it to appear when I want it to. Sometimes it pops up seemingly at random and other times it just won't appear no matter what I do.

I have previously tried to figure out how to do c/p and have not been able to get a handle on that either. That was going to be my next area of questioning as well.

How can I consistently get those things to appear?

1) To get the cursor thing to appear, single tap the screen (obviously within the text box).
2) To get it to enter copy/paste mode, double tap the screen and the "double handles" will appear. Alternatively you can long press and then you can choose from a variety of options such as "select word" and "select all" and "copy all." Once you have what you want selected, just long-press and you get the options to copy/cut/paste.

@evilmonkey

I just tried to edit my post by following your suggestion.

Exactly how does one "just grab it" to move it where its wanted.

When I tried to do that it just jumped all over the place like crazy. Totally out of control. Each time I tried I totally lost my place on the entire post. It just jumped me around from one line to another and from beginning to end of lines.
(

To grab it, just touch the big orange triangle thingy and drag it to where you want it. I typically just single tap the screen relatively close to where I want it (to get it to appear), then drag and drop it to fine-tune it.

If it's jumping around like crazy, perhaps something is wrong....it's smooth as butter for me (I'm using an EVO 4G if that matters). Sorry, I don't have a solution for you if it's jumping around like that, but it definitely points to it being something going wrong, since it's not supposed to act like that.

This isn't the best video, but perhaps this might help (jump to about 1:50 where he moves the cursor around and then selects some text to copy and paste):
[YT]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d014VsGGMuQ[/YT]

 

[Devinator]

While I agree sometimes the cursor placement triangle square thing itself is inaccurate, I never have trouble selecting it to move around. It picks up that I've selected it every time. Maybe there is something wrong with your touch screen, or, you just have a really small screen. What type of phone do you have?

 

[milominderbinde]

...The [cursor] cannot be placed with precision. If you try it just jumps around from back to forth and line to line.

I know I'm used to the way it works on iPhone where you can get it approx near...

You just need one of the Keyboards like SwiftKey that has arrow keys. Try it for free for 30 days. SwiftKey was just voted a top keyboard for 2011 on a number of sites. SwiftKey lets you turn the arrows on or off and chose how tall to make the keyboard keys.

Better still, SwiftKey learns how you write and often suggests the next word you are about to type saving you from typing it. The scary part is that sometimes it suggest an even better word than you were thinking.

 

[conzo427]

I thought it was just me! For some reason the little cursor zoom in "bubble" does not always appear. When entering text into a Google search is an example of this. So in this instance, if I search for "androids arse great" and I tap the "s" in "arse" it will put the cursor between the "e" and "a" in "great." Not even close! So I tap again but a little more to the left and the cursor is between the "d" and "s" in "androids" C'mon! after I fiddle for enough time I am sometimes able to tap like the "o" in "androids" and have the cursor show up in the right spot in "arse" BUT NOW, if I press backspace the cursor JUMPS back to the"i" in "androids" and deletes the "o". WTF!?!?! I worked so hard to get the cursor in the right spot by taping somewhat random spots on the screen just to have the edit NOT be where the cursor was!!!!

 

[kirksucks]

SwiftKey X arrows will make your life easier. PLUS, it learns what you type.

Sent from my unrooted DInc2 via Tapatalk

 

[buttonstc]

My version is Honeycomb 3.2 on an Acer Iconia A100 seven inch tablet so that's about as updated as one can get, I would assume. We're supposed to get an update to ICS sometime in Jan. I've read so hopefully that will improve a number of things I hope?

OK, I watched the video and if I could get a cursor that was as obedient as the one on that Guy's phone, I wouldn't be having the problems that I am.

Prior to your explanation, I wasn't even getting the single cursor. What I would get would be the double ones (with the tops slanted on one side) rather than the single one with one central point at top as seen in tIhe video.

But at least now the single one appears sometimes and I've sort of been fiddling around with it in this post.

Its definitely much jumpier still than the one in that video (which appeared to be working quite similarly to the way it does on IOS except without the magnifying bubble, which I really miss)

I'm wondering if its a peculiarity of my particular device so I'm going to ask about it in the Acer section. Since I've never used an Android phone I don't really have a basis of comparison but hopefully there will be others who have used both.

What I do know for certain is that my cursor is very resistant to being either grabbed or guided. It still jumps all over the place if I don't get it right on the first try. And from some of the feedback in this thread, apparently I'm not the only one experiencing this. At least its handy to know that much.

It took me a little while to get used to an on screen keybard when I got my phone three years ago but that's certainly not the problem now. Its just THIS keyboard which is generally so sensitive and jumpy.

For example, I kept trying to edit the first misspelled keyboard in thelast sentence and it just wouldn't go to the middle of the word. It would jump to the beginning of the line or even another line up or to the end of the sentence. Anywhere but the middle of the word. So I just gave up and figured people know what I meant and its close enough.

I might also stop by the phone store and try out a few Andtoid demo models to see if the keyboards differ. I appreciate everybody's input and I guess its just going to be an ongoing struggle for me.