Getting Image Links on Mobile Devices

mSummers

I write blog posts and post to forums frequently from my iPhone. When logged into my site and trying to copy the HTML or BBCode links I'm unable to get a "select all" option to appear requiring me to copy the code in two halves and re-attach them manually. Would it be possible to make the link selector more mobile friendly?

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1456502551.466331.jpg

mrneutron

There is no select all but if you tap it, you should get the selection bars and you can drag it across the whole text.

Then tap and hold to copy.

mSummers

I understand that, but for the HTML and BBCode, the amount of text in the link exceeds what is visible on the screen and when trying to drag the selection to the whole string of text it won't allow me to do it all at once. It seems to shift the selection from the first half to the second.

Also when the link first appears the whole thing is selected but when I try to tap and hold to copy it won't give me a copy button. Instead it tries to select just the part of the string my finger is on, which then starts the struggle with the selection bars not scrolling properly

leftquark

Clicking on the text once should automatically highlight the entire selection. If it doesn't, can you please provide your configuration (what device, os, browser, etc) and we can try to recreate and fix it!

mSummers

Tapping on the link once does highlight the entire section but there's no way to copy it at that point. Tapping and holding to get the copy option to appear re-selects a small portion of the link. Dragging the selection bars won't let me grab the entire link at once. If the box the link is in would auto scale to show the entire link at once the. The selection bars would work fine.

I'm using an iPhone 6, iOS 8.4.1 and Safari browser

mrneutron

When I tap and hold the entire link is selected and the copy option appears.

mSummers

Are you tapping a specific place? Whenever I do that, I only get a small section of the link selected.
ImageUploadedByTapatalk1456617889.205034.jpg

mrneutron

I just single tap in the middle. See my video. http://smu.gs/1oPBAKA

mSummers

Thanks. When I do that I get a smaller selection as shown in the image above.

My suggestion still stands that if whatever causes a select all option not to appear could be fixed or if the box the link appears in could auto scale so all of the text is visible, that would prevent this from happening.

Hero Amanda

Hi Michael,

It looks like your iOS is outdated, which may explain why we're having trouble recreating the problem you're reporting. When I tested it, I can tap the link to highlight, then press and hold to select "Copy". It doesn't change what is highlighted when I press and hold to copy, so perhaps it is an improvement on the updated iOS.

We'd love to hear how it goes after trying this

mSummers

Ok, sorry for the long delay. I got a new iPad that's running iOS 9.3.2 and I'm having the exact same problem. The text extends past the size of the box and when I tap on it to copy, it again looses the selection and I'm unable to re-select everything in one shot. Thoughts?

Teach

What happens when you tap once and not tap and hold? That should do the trick and allow you to get the code needed.

mSummers

Tap once does the same thing. The link gets deselected.

leftquark

We've seen this happen on rare occasions and appears to be an issue with iOS (we've seen other reports of this outside of SmugMug as well). The best we can hope is that Apple can figure out what's going on ... with a little prodding from us to see if they can figure it out. I wish I had a better answer. Have you tried using Chrome for iOS to see if it also has the same issue?

mSummers

Thanks for the update. I just tried Chrome and it is worse. When you tap in the link box, the text doesn't auto select. If you tap and hold, it eventually allows you to select the text but it brings additional code with it that has to be deleted out of the blog or forum post (see image below).

Would it be possible to make the link box scale on mobile devices so the entire link can be selected?

leftquark

mSummers wrote: »

Would it be possible to make the link box scale on mobile devices so the entire link can be selected?

We can try that and see if it helps!