search

zulip / zulip-mobile

Zulip mobile apps for Android and iOS.
https://zulip.com/apps/
Apache License 2.0
1.3k stars 654 forks source link

Can't copy and paste from previous messages. #3270

Closed daschuer closed 5 years ago

daschuer commented 5 years ago

I want to quote single sentences from a previous message. The mobile client only allows to copy the whole message. It is quite annoying to delete all the unused stuff from a long copied message. It would be convenient to enble to select and copy the quoted sentence via the usual way. With the two blue dots. I use the Gboard keyboard and Zulip Android 21.2.106

borisyankov commented 5 years ago

I can imagine how we can implement this, but I am not sure of how often people need that. Are there other chat apps that allow selection of parts of a message?

daschuer commented 5 years ago

GitHub in Chrome browser can do this. In Zulip, there are already the markers, but you just cant copy. Please enable it.

Alternative a kind of "Answer Inline" feature will also be great, something that does not allow to mess with the cited text.

timabbott commented 5 years ago

I would expect this to be particularly useful in Zulip in comparison to other chat apps, because people send a lot more multi-sentence messages in Zulip.

timabbott commented 5 years ago

(Options for improving this could include making it more convenient to delete the unused stuff from a copied message)

borisyankov commented 5 years ago

I could not find any app that does selective copying of text (even half of the apps did not offer any copy). This includes:

(the last two included because they have longer posts)

daschuer commented 5 years ago

Zulip is in the gap between Email and chat. For Email Inline responds is essential. So other apps do not disqualify my use-case IMHO.

Part of the issue is that it is already half enabled. In Telegram for example, you can only select whole messages only. In Zulip, you can set the selection cursor int previous messages. So it encourages to copy parts by a finger tab trick, but you fail after trying a while. Which is even more annoying than not have this feature.

borisyankov commented 5 years ago

I am confused about what is the suggested solution? The text in the compose box can already be selected and deleted in the normal and expected way with draggable handles. I am not sure we can improve much on that.

daschuer commented 5 years ago

Yes you can, but it is quite annoying, if the source message is a wall of text and you want to cite only a single line, all that on a tiny mobile phone screen with scrolling involved.

I am confused about what is the suggested solution?

The proposed solution is that it should work like here in GiHub (just done):

borisyankov commented 5 years ago

The long-press gesture conflicts with our already existing message menu that we activate on a long-press.

Also, selection would have been very tricky to do but luckily we use a WebView, which makes this selection at least possible.

I am not sure what the best UI that would not conflict with our other interactions.

borisyankov commented 5 years ago

@jainkuniya about this #1790 issue you fixed long time ago. How bad was it? Did you decide to fix it yourself or was someone complaining?

jainkuniya commented 5 years ago

At that time it was fixed, but currently sometimes on some devices it can be reproduced. Also it collides with current long press action.

How about adding a option in action sheet, on selecting it, a modal containing message content will be shown, where user can select message content and copy.

On Sun, Jan 13, 2019, 6:51 PM Boris Yankov <notifications@github.com wrote:

@jainkuniya https://github.com/jainkuniya about this #1790 https://github.com/zulip/zulip-mobile/pull/1790 issue you fixed long time ago. How bad was it? Did you decide to fix it yourself or was someone complaining?

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/zulip/zulip-mobile/issues/3270#issuecomment-453829338, or mute the thread https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ARp1SSsma4XN9FgqDdDHyXUc3zNn38mBks5vCzLzgaJpZM4Z7FLE .

borisyankov commented 5 years ago

A modal is a possibility I didn't think of. Seems a bit heavy-handed but would work, as long as we render the message as HTML of course.

The other implementation I examined is 'Copy to clipboard' to be turned to just 'Copy message' and we actually select the message in the WebView, then the user can copy parts of it.

During experimenting, I managed to start Google Translate, apparently, some of these gestures on a webpage start it, and also the app crashed for some reason 😄 Does not look as straightforward of a solution.

daschuer commented 5 years ago

The long-press gesture conflicts with our already existing message menu that we activate on a long-press.

What is on the short press? Can this start the context menu? If this is not possible, the context menu can be started on the headline only. I like the soution shown in Zulip in Mobile chrome browser very much.

gnprice commented 5 years ago

In Zulip, you can set the selection cursor int previous messages.

I'd be curious to hear more about this. If I understand correctly what you mean, then I'm unable to reproduce it (on v24.0.113 on Android 9).

Could you post a screenshot of what it looks like when you do this?

When I long-press on the text in a message (which is the usual gesture I use for selecting text), I get our long-press menu. Even if I arrange things so the text I long-pressed on is still visible after the menu comes up, I don't see it selected.

daschuer commented 5 years ago

I am now at v23.3.112 and I cannot set the selection in a previous message anymore.

gnprice commented 5 years ago

I am now at v23.3.112 and I cannot set the selection in a previous message anymore.

Good to know -- thanks for the update! And thanks for writing in with the original feature request.

For the reasons @borisyankov mentioned above, I think we won't end up adding this feature as described. You may be interested in following #1975, which is for a "quote and reply" option -- and once the message is quoted in the compose box, you can of course select and delete the parts you don't want, even if that's not quite as convenient when you want one sentence of a really long message.

The quirk where selection half-works sounds like a bug; since you can't reproduce it anymore and nor can I, we'll presume it was fixed sometime since 21.2.106. If anyone sees that behavior again, please file an issue for it and we can investigate.