Looks really good! I think it would be useful if a two finger slide moved the cursor by word boundaries as opposed to speeding up the cursor. For example, in your video around the 1:00 mark, you two-finger swipe to get to the end of the line, but fall short by a couple of characters. If you moved by word boundary, then mistakes like this would be much less common. (I would suggest that when two finger swiping backwards, you move the cursor to the beginning of the previous word, and when swiping forwards you move the cursor to the end of the next word, much like how option left/right work in any Mac text area field).
I've been in contact with Daniel Hooper, who originally came up with the idea and made the video posted other day, and he says he's happy to see people adopt it in their apps. I think Daniel deserves a great deal of credit for putting this idea out there in the open instead of patenting it like some large companies might be tempted to do.
I've been implementing this functionality in my own word processor, UX Write, and will have it included in the first version when its released in the next few weeks. I've posted some details on my own implementation at http://www.uxproductivity.com/blog/2012/05/05/text-selection...
I noticed that in this video they have a separate button above the keyboard for triggering selection, instead of using the shift key like in Daniel's demo. I ran into some conflicts with the shift key between my own gesture recognition and the built-in keyboard logic, as I suspect the developer of SlideWriter did too. The separate button looks like a good solution.
"I think Daniel deserves a great deal of credit for putting this idea out there in the open instead of patenting it like some large companies might be tempted to do."
Agreed. I'm somewhat annoyed that TNW's writeup doesn't even mention Daniel Hooper's video, which sparked all this sudden interest in iOS text editing a few days ago:
How difficult would it be to have the sliding gestures on the keyboard itself? Keeping my fingers at the same place would make things even faster...
Also, have you tried experimenting with acceleration curves for moving the cursor - i.e. moving the finger slow would yield a 1:1 cursor movement, while moving the finger faster would move the cursor something more like 8 times faster than the finger. With the right acceleration curve, the two-finger gesture could be dropped, and you could be even faster.
I'd love to use this in the editor of my choice. Could you make this open source?
thanks! I tried implementing an area to slide over the keyboard, but the touch events of the keys were always getting priority. I'll try out some different methods and see if I can get it to work in a way that will get approved by Apple.
I like the idea of the acceleration controlling cursor speed, I'll try it out and see how it feels.
After I get it to a place that feels good, I'll either release it as a component that can be dropped in, or open source it.
In addition to submitting it to the App Store as a standalone app, I'd highly recommend componentizing your work and selling the source or a library through Cocoa Controls or BinPress.
+1 because I want access to the library, because I want every app out there to buy it from you and use it, and because I think the real goal of a project like this (just like the design prototype which inspired it) is to get Apple to recognize that this is how all text should work iOS-wide.
[+] [-] mrmaddog|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] peterkelly|14 years ago|reply
I've been in contact with Daniel Hooper, who originally came up with the idea and made the video posted other day, and he says he's happy to see people adopt it in their apps. I think Daniel deserves a great deal of credit for putting this idea out there in the open instead of patenting it like some large companies might be tempted to do.
I've been implementing this functionality in my own word processor, UX Write, and will have it included in the first version when its released in the next few weeks. I've posted some details on my own implementation at http://www.uxproductivity.com/blog/2012/05/05/text-selection...
I noticed that in this video they have a separate button above the keyboard for triggering selection, instead of using the shift key like in Daniel's demo. I ran into some conflicts with the shift key between my own gesture recognition and the built-in keyboard logic, as I suspect the developer of SlideWriter did too. The separate button looks like a good solution.
[+] [-] hawaii|14 years ago|reply
Agreed. I'm somewhat annoyed that TNW's writeup doesn't even mention Daniel Hooper's video, which sparked all this sudden interest in iOS text editing a few days ago:
http://thenextweb.com/apps/2012/05/07/slidewriter-might-be-t...
[+] [-] Gring|14 years ago|reply
How difficult would it be to have the sliding gestures on the keyboard itself? Keeping my fingers at the same place would make things even faster...
Also, have you tried experimenting with acceleration curves for moving the cursor - i.e. moving the finger slow would yield a 1:1 cursor movement, while moving the finger faster would move the cursor something more like 8 times faster than the finger. With the right acceleration curve, the two-finger gesture could be dropped, and you could be even faster.
I'd love to use this in the editor of my choice. Could you make this open source?
[+] [-] mtholking|14 years ago|reply
I like the idea of the acceleration controlling cursor speed, I'll try it out and see how it feels.
After I get it to a place that feels good, I'll either release it as a component that can be dropped in, or open source it.
[+] [-] aaronbrethorst|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] iamgilesbowkett|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oemera|14 years ago|reply
However the icon for the slide button could be better and simpler to understand. Maybe by showing a standard slider.
[+] [-] n9com|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] christiangenco|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smoody|14 years ago|reply
after a selection is made, it might be nice to pop-up cut/copy/paste options automatically (unless it does that and i missed it).
when will it be available to the general public?
[+] [-] mtholking|14 years ago|reply
good suggestion for the pop-up after a selection, I will add that in.
going to submit it to the App Store this week, I will follow up when it is available
[+] [-] christiangenco|14 years ago|reply
Works on iPhone as well, and is available now.
[+] [-] rel|14 years ago|reply
Great work by the way!
[+] [-] oellegaard|14 years ago|reply
Sent from my iPad
[+] [-] frytaz|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cncool|14 years ago|reply
It uses two fingers to select text because I couldn't figure out how to detect when the shift key was pressed.