Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by jads 3244 days ago
>The only thing that's really missing to make editing text on the ipad a breeze is a way to select while moving the cursor with the two finger gesture above.

You can. Double-tap a word or character so it's selected, then do the two-finger select gesture on the keyboard.

2 comments

You can go one better than that: double tap with two fingers on the software keyboard to initiate a selection on the current word and then drag to extend selection.

You don't need to double tap on the actual text or characters, you just tap-then-drag with two fingers on the software keyboard.

Amazing, thanks! I tried various versions of single finger tapping but the result is usually both disastrous and expected, replacing the selection with a single letter.
Yeah, I didn't think of that and it goes part of the way, but it would be nice if you could move the cursor to the exact position you want to select from, put down a third finger on the keyboard and then move the cursor. At least for me that would feel more efficient.
Yeah, that seems like it would be the best way, at least until they get 3D Touch on an iPad. On the iPhone you move the cursor with a light 3d touch on the keyboard, then can start a selection by pressing down harder.
Brilliant, that detail was news to me, even though I had tried versions of that.