Tap, Drag, Lock and snap to whole word

Question

Level 1

13 points

Tap, Drag, Lock and snap to whole word

This is a small issue, but it's been bugging me for a long time.

In pages if you double click-drag the selection will pop to each word.

If you have tap to click, drag, and drag-lock enabled, there's no way (that I've found) to get this behavior. If you tap twice and hold, it sees that as a single click drag and only selects letters. If you double tap, it selects the entire word, but then you can't drag.

Anyone know a way around this? In short, how can I drag to select whole words (or paragraphs for that matter) using tap?

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Posted on Sep 12, 2009 10:04 AM

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Answer 1

KOENIG Yvan

Level 8

41,819 points

Sep 12, 2009 10:16 AM in response to David Cottle

I don't own such a machine but maybe systems more recent than 10.4.7 offer what you want.
Updating from 10.4.7 to 10.4.11 is free 😉

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) samedi 12 septembre 2009 19:16:26

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Answer 2

David Cottle Author

Level 1

13 points

Sep 12, 2009 10:28 AM in response to KOENIG Yvan

Sorry, I thought I had updated my profile. I'm 10.5.8.

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Answer 3

Bekins

Level 3

734 points

Sep 12, 2009 10:30 AM in response to David Cottle

You need to add an additional tap. 3 taps (then hold & drag) will select by word. The first two taps select the word. The 3rd tap (& hold) is what starts the drag.

Also, 4 taps (then hold & drag) will select by paragraph.

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Answer 4

David Cottle Author

Level 1

13 points

Sep 12, 2009 10:38 AM in response to Bekins

Of course, that's what I expected, and I've tried it, and it doesn't work for me. Three tap-then release selects the whole paragraph. Two tap-release selects the word, but then I can't drag. Two taps-hold does a drag lock, and I can drag to select, but it's only doing letters. Three taps-hold selects the word, but I can't drag. I think I have my settings correct: Tap to Click, Draggin, and Drag Lock are all checked. If it works for you then I must have some setting wrong.

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Answer 5

Sep 12, 2009 1:32 PM in response to David Cottle

David

A quick double-click selects a word.

A quick triple-click selects the entire paragraph.

Then pause a bit and click again but keep holding down the mouse until it turns into a pointer, then you can drag.

You can adjust the sensitivity to the Double-Clicking in:

+System Preferences > Keyboard & Mouse > Mouse > Double-Click+

Peter

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Answer 6

David Cottle Author

Level 1

13 points

Sep 12, 2009 2:21 PM in response to PeterBreis0807

I promise, this is what I'm doing. Maybe I should make a video. I'll try to explain it. (And to be clear, I'm not clicking with the mouse, but tapping the trackpad.)

Quick two tap release: selects the word. From there if I tap once and drag, even if I wait, nothing happens. From there if I two tap and hold, it moves the word.

Quick two tap and hold, drag: It selects individual characters, as a click drag would. Any combination of a third tap has no change.

Quick three tap and release: selects paragraph with same subsequent results as above.

Quick three tap hold, drag: selects the word, but dragging has no effect.

I do know about the system preference, but hadn't tried any variations because I'm varying my tapping speed during my trials. (I just tried all of these with that setting to slowest and fastest. Same results.

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Answer 7

David Cottle Author

Level 1

13 points

Sep 12, 2009 2:35 PM in response to PeterBreis0807

Here is a video showing how I would expect it to work.

[Tap|http://fs.finearts.utah.edu/~dcottle/AD/tapdrag.mp4]

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Answer 8

Sep 12, 2009 4:30 PM in response to David Cottle

David

I appreciate what you are going through.

Even on a regular Mac and mouse it can be hit and miss.

Unfortunately I do not have a MacBook Pro to test this on.

Peter

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Answer 9

Kyn Drake

Level 7

21,597 points

Sep 12, 2009 9:30 PM in response to David Cottle

Nope, there doesn't seem to be a way to do what you're trying to do and it may be a limitation of the gesture. For example, when using tap to emulate a click, the "tap" is a binary action. For example, double-"clicking" a word selects that whole word and you have two choices as you're performing that second click HOLD it, so that it becomes a click-and-a-half, which gives you the option to drag select entire words, OR you make it two complete clicks and a single word is selected.

With tapping, two taps in succession starts the "click and drag" action from your insertion point (because that's how click and drag works). As such, there's no way to emulate the click-and-a-half using taps under the current way things work.

Now COULD it work? Not sure, because every thing I could think of actually performs some useful action that I rather enjoy as a tapper, as you've also found. Although, it sounds like a problem that could be readily solved by the iPhone's interface, eh?

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