Show HN: Weekend Project - SlideWriter for iPad | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Weekend Project - SlideWriter for iPad

mtholking.tumblr.com

50 pointsmtholking22 comments

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).

Seems like quite a few developers are starting to adopt this idea, which I think is great! There's already a jailbreak version that was done a few days ago (http://www.idownloadblog.com/2012/05/04/swipeselection/)

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:

http://thenextweb.com/apps/2012/05/07/slidewriter-might-be-t...

In fact, given that this technique doesn't have a name yet, I propose that it henceforth be known as "Hooper Selection"

Great stuff!

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.

It takes a few tricks, but it is possible to attach a gesture recognizer to the keyboard window in an App Store-compatible fashion: https://github.com/rpetrich/SelectWithSwipes

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.

Awesome solution for something I never thought would be possible without a jailbreak!

However the icon for the slide button could be better and simpler to understand. Maybe by showing a standard slider.

You do know that these features will only work within his app, not across all iOS apps right?

Here it is with jailbreak (works system-wide): http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/06/editing-text-on-your-ipad-s...

looks nice. was it somewhat-inspired by the video going around that demonstrates faster cursor movements by sliding fingers over the keyboard?

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?

thanks. I was working on a similar app - but yes, it was influenced by that concept video.

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

IMHO you should credit the author of that video. While your work is amazing and you should be praised for your achievement, you should also make it clear about your inspiration.

Awesome job, I'll install it as soon as it hits the App Store

very much agree. apart from anything else, the inspiration is so obvious that if you don't credit you're basically just asking for a fight. and if you get it in the app store he might even be in a position to hit you with a DMCA takedown. my guess is it wouldn't happen, but why take the chance when all you have to do is give credit where credit's due? it's the right thing to do anyway.

I emailed Daniel Hooper (the originator of the idea) about this when I did my own version and here's what he said:

"I'm glad to see others like yourself implement my idea, and it would be great if you could give me credit when you release your app."

I think giving him credit is the right thing to do. It costs nothing and is more than a fair deal given how brilliant a concept it is.

Simultaneously developed as a Cydia plugin called SwipeSelection: http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/06/editing-text-on-your-ipad-s...

Works on iPhone as well, and is available now.

I think i was sold with the nujabes background.

Great work by the way!

Awesome! Sent you guys a tweet, would love this on my iPad

Sent from my iPad

Are you going to put this on github ?

I made an similar implementation of this here: https://github.com/cncool/SlideSelection

It uses two fingers to select text because I couldn't figure out how to detect when the shift key was pressed.

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