So mad! They removed a feature I used daily!

[stevemiller]

So, being nearsighted and with big hands I made a bit of a discovery this morning that should simplify this tap-tap/hold thing to get a whole paragraph and, now, a whole web page selected.

Choose a contiguous body of text to select - a paragraph is what I'm alluding to here. Pick one word in that paragraph, then double-tap on it and keep the finger pressed down - the "tap" followed with a "tap-hold" I alluded to earlier. So, a word is selected under that finger - now, slide it to the end of the paragraph, next to the terminating punctuation mark (or white space area, if there's no punctuation mark), and the selection then automatically expands to the entire paragraph! No more fumbling. And, that selection is movable as long as the finger remains pressed to the screen - switching between words and paragraphs as the selection is moved, and leaving handles to expand the selection.

A new option. Using the same selection method I just offered, "move" that selection to the left or right of the paragraph's body - and all of the text and/or images in that section (or whole web page, if it's not sectioned) will get selected.

I was able to copy selections and pasted them into OneNote or Notes - and they retained all the relevant information/data.

As I alluded to earlier, some web pages seem to block selection, like The Verge. Putting a page into Reader Mode may or may not get around that effort to block copying of data.

Thanks for noting this! I just tried it out, and while maybe it takes some getting used to, I was finding it would make weird choices as to what it thought was continuous text, grabbing paragraphs above and below in in unexpected ways. I tried to make a short video, and I seriously was not trying to exaggerate my difficulty. This is literally how hard it was for me to get a single paragraph of text selected using this method! Also pardon that its a portrait youtube video. I know thats like the cardinal sin of the internet!

Also note, that one part where I seem to be doing nothing, is when I'm trying to grab the bottom handle, but its basically sharing a touch target for the copy button so its near impossible to grab the handle!

 

[campyguy]

Thanks for noting this! I just tried it out, and while maybe it takes some getting used to, I was finding it would make weird choices as to what it thought was continuous text, grabbing paragraphs above and below in in unexpected ways. I tried to make a short video, and I seriously was not trying to exaggerate my difficulty. This is literally how hard it was for me to get a single paragraph of text selected using this method! Also pardon that its a portrait youtube video. I know thats like the cardinal sin of the internet!

Also note, that one part where I seem to be doing nothing, is when I'm trying to grab the bottom handle, but its basically sharing a touch target for the copy button so its near impossible to grab the handle!

Two observations about your reply, and thanks for the thanks! First, I've had more success with the tap-tap-hold-slide maneuver - BTW, it seems that this is sounding more like Twister as this thread continues - picking a word in the middle of the body as opposed to the edges or first/last words before the "slide" yields better success.

Second, and I'm surmising here in that "text" these forums in these forums have more going on than just text. There's some code associated with the text itself - I'm in Mac FF now, and selecting a passage or a word provides a pop-up to quote or reply; making a similar selection in Safari, the selection "behaves" differently. There's some "lag" and actions I perform in these forums yield some results I'm not accustomed to when either selecting text or typing in one of these comment boxes, including selecting with a mouse versus selecting with a keyboard (shift-hold + arrow keys). What I'm trying to convey is selecting text in one of these threads is different than any other web portal or site, while keeping in mind that there are some sites like The Verge that block selections altogether. Try your tapping on another web site, and give that a go! Cheers!

 

[unlovbl]

Two fingers used to quickly select an entire block of text. Now you have to go through a fiddly process of manipulating handles, which itself seems harder to use than before.

I used it all the time when cutting and pasting quotes!

It especially pisses me off that they removed it just so they could make it a 3D Touch feature. Hey Apple, why not let your new phones stand on their own merits rather than artificially removing functionality from existing devices to make the new ones seem better?

A similar feature in photos was moved into a submenu. Touching and holding an image in the photos library prompted a copy prompt but now you have to go into the same menu as the message/email/etc and choose copy.