<html> <body> This is a <input type="button" value="test" /> of the copied content </body> </html>
Firefox: This is a of the copied content Chrome: This is a of the copied content IE: This is a of the copied content Just style the button to look like regular text etc, add your javascript to minimize/close the window, and you're set. That works to notepad anyways. WYSIWYG editors are obviously going to cop more, but I think that is more desirable and falls under what someone else has already said, "don't try to be too clever" What you doing 2morrow? Wanna hang? - Pete On Sat, Jun 13, 2009 at 1:01 AM, Paul Novitski <[email protected]>wrote: > At 6/12/2009 01:42 AM, James Ducker wrote: > >> Something I've been pondering - how best to handle buttons and other >> purely functional content residing within a block of selected text? Often a >> user will select a bunch of text and get something like: >> >> > Some Headingminimiseclose >> > Some text etc etc. >> >> I was thinking about adding JS mouse drag detection to hide "minimise" and >> "close" (let's say they're <a> elements) when the user is mouse-selecting >> text, but it would fail if a user used the text cursor to select. >> > > > It sounds as though you've already answered your own question -- don't let > the controls reside within the block of copyable text. In most circumstances > the user will want to copy the header along with the body text of a given > section, so rather than inserting the controls in the middle of copyable > text I'd put them before or after. If you want the controls to appear to the > right of the heading in a left-to-right text flow, you could try putting > them first in the markup and then floating them right or absolutely > positioning them so the heading and text are contiguous. > > A more elegant & bulletproof solution might be to rethink the page layout > and visually place the controls above or to the left of the heading to allow > the natural text flow to exclude them from selection. If the controls look > like they're in the middle of the copyable text, a user with browsing > experience will naturally worry that the controls will get copied along with > the text, diminishing very slightly their sense of trust in the > intuitiveness of the design. A layout that puts them outside the selection > highlight altogether -- modelled by the resize & close buttons in pc & mac > windows that everyone's familiar with -- would be more of a no-brainer to > use. > > Finding a way to reliably make the controls disappear while the user > selects text sounds cool -- I can imagine all the ads and navigation and > chromy bits disappearing while copying a story from a news site, for > example, leaving my clipboard with the story I'm after not needing to be > cleaned up -- but it also sounds a bit paternalistic in deciding in advance > for an unknown user what they're going to want to select. If you place the > controls before the heading in the markup, you leave it to the user to > decide whether to include them in the selection highlight. For all you know, > their purpose in copying text from the page is to illustrate in a document > that aspect of the page layout that includes the controls. There's such a > thing as trying to be too helpful. > > Regards, > > Paul > __________________________ > > Paul Novitski > Juniper Webcraft Ltd. > http://juniperwebcraft.com > > > ******************************************************************* > List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm > Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm > Help: [email protected] > ******************************************************************* > > ******************************************************************* List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [email protected] *******************************************************************
