Enter post/New line separation

On desktop it is possible to start a new line of text by using Shift+Enter, while simply pressing Enter sends your message.

It seems like same code was implemented on mobile version, making use of same shortcuts, even if they are impossible to use.

How it works now: pressing Enter button on mobile keyboard randomly starts a new line or sends your message. It is impossible to consistently create new lines to make long posts more readable.

How it should work: a separate button for mobile layout that sends message. Enter button on mobile keyboard only creates new lines.

Strangely enough, Wolfery Forum app already uses this feature. A separate button exists there, making it possible to separate this text into multiple small paragraphs.

2 Likes

Actually, there is no specific Mobile version. Both desktop and mobile uses the same app. The only difference is that it switches to a more mobile friendly layout. But that is beside the point! :slight_smile:

Yes. Mobile layout should support new lines. What should the interface look like?

One option is to have the mobile layout add a paper-plane send icon:

image

The yellow arrowed button would create a new line.
The red arrowed button would send the command.

But this design has some issues:

  1. Is the send button obvious enough, or will it be hard to find?
  2. Is the send button too close to the history buttons so that you may press send when you actually wanted to browse to the next history?
  3. Since we ALSO want to add a similar tab-completion button somewhere, where would that fit?

And there are one technical issue too:
Since mobile layout is determined based on screen width, we would end up with “desktop layout” for larger tablets as well - but tablets still doesn’t have a keyboard and would need the send icon button.

Therefore, this send icon feature should be activated based on whether or not you have a keyboard or not - NOT based on screen width. I need to make some research on how to detect that.

I am open for other suggestion on layout!
My image was just an example, but I don’t think it is the best solution.

1 Like

Another option of button placement after chatting with Varian:

image

In this suggestion, the Send button would be alone to avoid misclicks.

The right-pointing arrow icon would be tab-completion.
While it would be possible to press “Next history” by mistake when trying to do tab-completion, it is quite easy to recover from it by simply pressing “Previous history”.

2 Likes

There is also a third option some pages on mobile tend to use.
Let’s see, what do we need?
1 Enter => Linebreak
2 Enters = > New Section

Now we could make it so, that pressing enter a third time will send the message. Sure, a three-enter send may sound clunky, and I wouldn’t recommend it as the only way, especially if one is just a short prose writer, but you could implement it as an optional way for multi-paragraph writers.

As for the given options I really like the second for mobile, but wouldn’t allow the send button to touch the border keyboard/console. An accidental send can happen if it resides over a commonly used button.

3 Likes

Created a GitHub issue:

1 Like