Selecting text -- help?

hbquikcomjamesl

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I've been having trouble selecting text on my Nexus (e.g., to copy it elsewhere, or just to delete excess quoted material when responding to an email message). It seems that at times, I get a single blue indicator at the insertion point, at times, two indicators at either ends of a highlighted block of test, and at times, no indicators at all, just a text cursor, and so far, I haven't been able to determine what it is I'm doing differently in these cases, or to find instructions in the manual.
 

a1kemist

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You are supposed to long press the text and two indicators will spawn. You then move the indicators to where you want.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Android Central Forums
 

hbquikcomjamesl

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Thanks. It took me a while to try it live. What you say works as advertised, up to a point.

But I find that in Chrome, in a large multiline text area (e.g., the "body" area in my ISP's web-mail interface), several things happen:

1. It immediately brings up the keyboard, and zooms and scrolls to fill all available screen area with the text area (illogically, it does so far more aggressively than it does with short text fields), often causing the indicators to become disconnected with the ends of the selected text.

2. If I squeeze down the screen so that I can see the entire text area, attempting to move an indicator will cause it to zoom back in, again frequently disconnecting the indicators with the ends of the selected text.

3. Moving the indicators to the boundaries of the text area doesn't autoscroll the text area, and attempting to scroll manually frequently either causes them to become disconnected with the ends of the selection, or loses the selection either

4. If the indicators have become disconnected, attempting to drag them frequently drags the selection instead, or loses the selection entirely.

5. If I dismiss the keyboard, I haven't found a way to get it back without losing the selection, or to delete the selection without it.

6. If I "Select All," I don't get indicators.

Where I come from, it is considered proper netiquette to (unless making a point-by-point response) always put quoted text above the response, and to always trim it to the absolute minimum needed to give the response context. Indeed, the latter is considered mandatory on one of the list servers of which I am a member, and members are frequently set to NOPOST for excessive quoting.

Unless I can precisely select and delete fairly sizable amounts of text, adherence to this standard is effectively impossible.
 

a1kemist

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Text selection still needs lots of work. Google tries to keep tweaking it in each major build but scrolling and selecting text is still a problem.

Maybe try connecting a mouse through OTG cable or bluetooth, otherwise I don't really have any tips for you, I don't select text much on my devices.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Android Central Forums
 

hbquikcomjamesl

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Text selection still needs lots of work. Google tries to keep tweaking it in each major build but scrolling and selecting text is still a problem.

I was afraid it was something like that. I do note that the home screen on the Nexus 7 now rotates, which is nice, and definitely gives me hope that other improvements are in the works. Is there an easy way for me to forward my complaints about text selection to the developers?

Is there a chance that the Android version of Firefox (my browser of first choice on all platforms) might work better in these situations?

Are any of the numbered points I raised anything I can do anything about? Especially the part about large multi-line text areas auto-zooming so aggressively that more than half the text area zooms clear off the screen?
 

a1kemist

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Google does listen to feedback, though sadly, I'm not sure which is the best channel to send ideas, complaints and requests too. Google itself is such a large entity.

I think firefox app *might* be broken right now, it was mentioned in another thread but I would read the most current feedback/reviews of it on the play store.

I do wish that I could provide more insight but this is an area I don't use much myself. Hopefully some others will chime in and give ideas and suggestions.
 

Nexusx13

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I have always `hated' Apple, but my iPhone is changing that. I chose the Nexus 7 for the same reason as most of you over the iPad mini. I'm considering returning it and buying the mini because the web browsing & text selection/copy/paste is annoying the hell out of me. How is it that on my iPhone I never had these problem( but i am having them on a 7 inch tablet!!)

I love everything about the nexus 7; however, iOS is much much much better. These blue selection arrows very rarely do what I want. After trying to write/edit/paste in an email to a coworker through godaddys webmail (I do this daily on my iPhone with no problems) I wanted to literally chuck my nexus at the wall.

My nexus cost me 270~( for 32 g ) with tax from office depot. So I'm going to get the mini and sell my nexus unless this issue can be fixed with an upgrade.

Can we download thirdparty software to fix this? I wrote this on my nexus and thus need a glass of WHINE.

-Reese G
 

dave1nyc

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You probably are better off with an iPad mini. I have a Nexus 7 witht the ATT cell option, and I like it very much, though text selection is a PITA. For most users, the availability of apps and the polished level of iOS (in things we take for granted) make it a much better choice.

Android is for those who don't want to spend as much and for those of us who want to be able to develop apps and be sure that we can put them on our non-rooted devices. While I don't have an iPad to try this with, there are a couple of apps I use on Jelly Bean for which (I understand from others who have iOS) there aren't equivalent iOS apps.

Having said all of this, JB was my first version of Android and the first version that seems 'production ready' to me.
 

repligation

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Appears to me that several of you might want try Tapatalk for forums.

I copy and paste text, quotes, and links quite often on my N7 and S3 on texts, emails, and forums without much difficulty.

If I am within an app that doesn't allow me select text, I have found that I can get around that by saving it to pocket and then selecting from within pocket.

OneNote can use OCR to convert a screenshot into text.
 

emirsmith1

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lol are you kidding me, did you just tell him to start writing on something and then pasting it somewhere else... really, are we going backwards in usability now? man i wish you never become the head of user experience department somewhere...

anyhow yes iphones ability to magnify the selected text area makes the selecting text amazingly much better than on android... this sucks because i too hate apple and so got an htc one mini...

i wish certain companies with certain budgets could have people or a team of web scours who find complaints from almost all forums regarding their products and start addressing such complaints quicker.. like instead of a super big OS update, a small patch can be sent to the android system that changes such function, like android 4.2.2 u1 can be update 1 and so on instead of big complete versions or sub versions just to add such a needed function that should have been designed that way from the get-go....

oh well... we cant always have the perfection of both worlds..
 

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