

Show HN: Weekend Project - SlideWriter for iPad - mtholking
http://mtholking.tumblr.com/post/22539065261/slidewriter-ipad-demo

======
mrmaddog
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).

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peterkelly
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...](http://www.uxproductivity.com/blog/2012/05/05/text-selection-on-
the-ipad/)

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.

~~~
hawaii
"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...](http://thenextweb.com/apps/2012/05/07/slidewriter-might-be-the-app-
that-makes-text-editing-easy-on-the-ipad/)

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

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Gring
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?

~~~
mtholking
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.

~~~
ryanpetrich
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>

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aaronbrethorst
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.

~~~
iamgilesbowkett
+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.

------
oemera
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.

~~~
n9com
You do know that these features will only work within his app, not across all
iOS apps right?

------
smoody
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?

~~~
mtholking
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

~~~
yuchi
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

~~~
iamgilesbowkett
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.

~~~
peterkelly
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.

------
christiangenco
Simultaneously developed as a Cydia plugin called SwipeSelection:
[http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/06/editing-text-on-your-
ipad-s...](http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/06/editing-text-on-your-ipad-speed-
up-the-process-with-swipeselection/)

Works on iPhone as well, and is available now.

------
rel
I think i was sold with the nujabes background.

Great work by the way!

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

Sent from my iPad

------
frytaz
Are you going to put this on github ?

~~~
cncool
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.

