Safari (Text Select)

drumbug1drumbug1
Posted:
in Mac Software edited January 2014
Hey.. this is cool. (if this has already been posted... well nevermind!)



Select some text and then carefully click and hold on the text (it must be ON the text, not in between the letters) and then move the text. You should have a "copy" of the text "attached" to your mouse cursor.



...anyway... thought that was cool.



[ 02-24-2003: Message edited by: drumbug1 ]</p>

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 10
    ghost_user_nameghost_user_name Posts: 22,667member
    FYI, this is how all selectable text is supposed to work on Mac OS X. It's a sign that the developers have properly implemented the drag-and-drop calls. Apps with standard widgets that are developed in Cocoa automatically inherit this behavior.



    Once you've pulled up the text, you can drop it into any other standard text field. You can use that for dropping text into forms you may be filling out. You can keep a small TextEdit document window in the background to drop text clippings into for later reference. Alternatively, you can drag text clippings right onto the Finder's desktop to create little clipping files. (note: there is a flaw in the Finder in that you can't easily copy text back out of these clipping files.)



    Try the same in a TextEdit document or iChat conversation or Mail message. Apple is smart about putting selectable text in other places too. Open the System Preferences and click the Network pane, for example. If use use DHCP like I do, you'll find that you can select some of the "static" text elements in the pane. Try it on the IP address, subnet mask, and ethernet card MAC address. Since those elements are selectable, you can copy-paste them also. Pretty slick, huh?



    Lemme guess... are you a new Mac OS X switcher?



    [ 02-23-2003: Message edited by: Brad ]</p>
  • Reply 2 of 10
    drumbug1drumbug1 Posts: 155member
    [quote]Originally posted by Brad:

    <strong>

    Lemme guess... are you a new switcher?

    </strong><hr></blockquote>



    Ouch....



    I switched four years ago... (See "where I am from") and I also have Darwin running on x86 (as mentioned in the original post), so i'm not exactly "new" to the mac or a "newbie" to computers....



    This just happens to be something I never came across until today....



    Oh well... I was excited.
  • Reply 3 of 10
    ghost_user_nameghost_user_name Posts: 22,667member
    Oh, whoops... I did see the bit about Darwin but I missed your "from" field there. *nervous chuckle*



    Well, I guess you do learn something new every day after all!
  • Reply 4 of 10
    ibrowseibrowse Posts: 1,749member
    So when you drag selected text, is it always supposed to show the actual text attached to the cursor like that? Because every other app that I have ever done it in just shows a grey outline.
  • Reply 5 of 10
    jlljll Posts: 2,713member
    [quote]Originally posted by iBrowse:

    <strong>So when you drag selected text, is it always supposed to show the actual text attached to the cursor like that?</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Yes.
  • Reply 6 of 10
    frawgzfrawgz Posts: 547member
    [quote]Originally posted by iBrowse:

    <strong>So when you drag selected text, is it always supposed to show the actual text attached to the cursor like that? Because every other app that I have ever done it in just shows a grey outline.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    *Carbon Alert*



    BTW, prior to the latest public version of Safari, the text was not draggable.
  • Reply 7 of 10
    hobbeshobbes Posts: 1,252member
    [quote]Originally posted by frawgz:

    <strong>



    *Carbon Alert*



    BTW, prior to the latest public version of Safari, the text was not draggable.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Or rather, *Bad Carbon Port Alert*.



    e.g. Tex-Edit Plus -- a very thorough Carbon port -- handles text beautifully.
  • Reply 8 of 10
    hobbeshobbes Posts: 1,252member
    [quote]Originally posted by Brad:

    <strong>(note: there is a flaw in the Finder in that you can't easily copy text back out of these clipping files.)</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Isn't the idea that you can drag and drop the text clipping from, say, the desktop into an open document or editable field? Works for me.



    I do agree though that one should also be able to copy the contents from an open text clipping, or dragging the clipping into a text editor in the Dock.
  • Reply 9 of 10
    kim kap solkim kap sol Posts: 2,987member
    [quote]Originally posted by Hobbes:

    <strong>



    Or rather, *Bad Carbon Port Alert*.



    e.g. Tex-Edit Plus -- a very thorough Carbon port -- handles text beautifully.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Yeah...except that Safari isn't Carbon. There's such a thing as selectable text fields and non-selectable text fields.
  • Reply 10 of 10
    hobbeshobbes Posts: 1,252member
    [quote]Originally posted by kim kap sol:

    <strong>



    Yeah...except that Safari isn't Carbon. There's such a thing as selectable text fields and non-selectable text fields.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Hmn? I'm not saying Safari is Carbon. fraqwz's comment about the earlier Safari beta not having selectable text was just an off-the-cuff, "BTW" remark. No relation to an app being Cocoa or Carbon.



    [ 02-23-2003: Message edited by: Hobbes ]</p>
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