Using Chrome, Firefox, Brave, Samsungs ‘Internet’ app, and every other browser I’ve used/tried on Android:
I’ll go to select some text on a page by long-pressing on it and it’ll select the word I’m touching as well as expand that selection to a somewhat random amount of additional text (usually not following any structure such as selecting a whole sentence for example).
I’ll then go to adjust that selection by grabbing one of the two tabs on either end of it and the moment I do, the opposite tab jumps to a completely random spot on the page vastly expanding the selection, then the whole page scrolls to an entirely different section; Leaving me holding one end of the selection unable to see what was originally selected. I can’t scroll to where I was, and If I let go and just click copy I’ve now copied 90%of the page to my clipboard… Attempting to modify the selection any further yields the same lack of control and just makes things worse.
This doesn’t happen everywhere, but I get these results far far more often than a successful copy+paste. Like just now trying to copy an address from a local transit guide.
I end up having to drop the paste into a notepad app, reselect the bit I actually wanted (if it even made it into the pile of garbage I was forced to grab) then delete the note once I’m done.
This is fucking stupid and I hate it. Rant over. Thank you for listening.
/edit: I don’t have the power to pin a comment, but d3Xt3r@lemmy.world has a great solution: Use the rectangle select tool in androids ‘Edge Panel’ (must be enabled in settings), then press the ‘T’ button to copy text from the area you’ve selected.
Yean, I hate it too. The difference to selecting text on a desktop system is night and day especially because with a proper mouse you can shift click the desired start and end points and don’t even have to drag.
I’ve found that zooming in generally makes it more precise but that doesn’t help if it means that you now need to scroll the screen because of the zoom. For some reason drag-selecting text upwards also yields better results for me than downwards.
Another trick is to request the desktop version of a page instead of the mobile version and see if it’s easier there.
All I can say is that it is kinda cathartic that someone other than me is experiencing this nightmare.
Also, this pages where it is impossible to select any text at all.
Also, this pages where it is impossible to select any text at all.
On android, you can still select text on those pages from the switch apps screen (swipe up from the bottom, hold, then release on Pixels). Found that workaround on accident lol
That seems to be OCR based though. Sometimes when I do it like that I get complete gibberish
It happens to me in a lot of apps too, even Liftoff. Is it maybe related to the keyboard app? Which one do you use?
Interesting thought: I’ve been using SwiftKey for probably 10 years now.
I’m gonna have a play with some others and see if that changes anything. Not sure it will, but worth a look.
/edit: Sigh. Nope. Same results with Samsungs built in keyboard and with GBoard.
The keyboard doesn’t pop up during text selection so I don’t think that’s having an effect.
I used AOSP keyboard for a very long time and now Simple Keyboard, it experience this on both. I think this may be an Android thing.
