Best Cut-and-Paste Proof of Concept to Date
David Friedman writes in to let us know he’s thrown his hat into the ‘This is how I think Apple should implement cut-and-paste’ ring. His idea is simple, intuitive, and doesn’t look to interfere with the current magnifying glass insertion point UI.
Here it is in a nutshell — when you have the magifying glass up, there’s a button you can press to toggle the various things you need for cut and paste — select, cut, copy, and paste. David recommends that the options shown would be contextual based on whether or not you have anything in your clipboard. When you’re in a text-entry field, that toggle button would appear in place of the space bar area at the bottom, while areas with text that lack text entry (like Safari) would need an unobtrusive button to appear when in the text-selection mode.
All in all, we like it.
- No convoluted finger gymnastics
- No trying to remember how many fingers you need to use for a given action
- Compatible with the current UI. In fact, it’s consistent and keeps the current text-selection metaphor of the UI intact. It just adds to it.
- Easily discoverable by all users
What do y’all think? Feasible?
August 12th, 2008 at 11:03 am
Some folks may be wondering: Haven’t I seen this guy’s blog before? Yes, yes you have:
Darth Vader in Type
August 12th, 2008 at 11:21 am
Very nice. Would Apple even tell you to hold to select though, or just make it slide up after a few seconds like the new Save Images feature?
As with screen cap, their ability to rely on the blogsphere to discover and disseminate functionality is crazy…
August 12th, 2008 at 11:22 am
About this cut and paste thing: I wish they would just add a screen to the keyboard that had arrow keys, a select button, and copy, cut, delete, and paste buttons. It’s a tried and true method, we’re all already familiar with it, and it’s ridiculous to suggest that the best way to select text or to place a cursor in every situation is with your thumb.
August 12th, 2008 at 11:55 am
Does the button come up every time the magnification loop appears? I don’t like that. This seems much better: http://magicpad.proximi.com/video.php
August 12th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
For copy and paste they should have you drag the magnifying glass to select the touch and hold the selected text to get a slide up that say copy (or in some cases cut and paste) Ex. The way you save a photo in 2.0.