The discussion revolves around a UX improvement request to auto-copy the invite link in Discourse. nathank suggests that when clicking the “Copy Invite Link” button, the link should be automatically copied to the clipboard instead of just being displayed and selected. codinghorror points out that forcing items into the clipboard without user action is considered a destructive act, but expressing intent to see the copyable link could be user consent.
bts agrees with nathank that a button labeled “Copy Link” implies the actual copy action. techAPJ initially updates the button label to “Generate Invite Link” to make it clearer, but nathank argues that this doesn’t eliminate the additional step for the user.
nathank later suggests renaming the button to “Generate Link” and adding a separate button on the modal to copy the link to the clipboard. techAPJ agrees with this proposal, and techAPJ updates the button copy to indicate that the invite link is not copied to the clipboard, with plans to improve the UX later.
This is a UX improvement request regarding:
At the moment, hitting 
results in the link being displayed and selected - but not copied to the clipboard. That is annoying, as clutzy users like me forget to ‘ctrl-c’ or similar, and then end up pasting the invitees email address where the link was intended.
When sharing in Google Docs, it behaves as I suggest - and it is much nicer. Should we copy them in this?
Forcing items into the clipboard without user action is considered a destructive act, as it erases the current clipboard. I don’t think browsers are allowed to do that.
However, expressing intent to see the copyable link could be user consent, depending on the UI..
I think that’s his point — a button labeled “copy link” implies just that, the actual copy action. Versus e.g. “generate link” or “show link”.
But yeah this is getting to be a common pattern now, one click actually copying directly to clipboard to save the ctrl-C. Not essential but if a button says “copy link” that’s now what I’d expect it to do.
Absolutely - the user is expecting it to copy the link to the clipboard, and is annoyed (at least I am) when it doesn’t.
I’ll update the button label to “Generate Invite Link”. That makes more sense here.
I agree that this makes it clearer. However, it doesn’t eliminate the additional step for the user.
Also, why would anyone ever want to generate a link but not copy it?
Time to flex a Discourse feature:
I’m bringing this back up because it has tripped me up once again. In this case, it is using /u/username/invited/links
There is a nice big button labelled ‘Copy Link’:
When you click it you get the modal:
This generates the link, but doesn’t copy it.
How about renaming ‘Copy Link’ to ‘Generate Link’, and then have a separate button on the modal which actually copies the link to your clipboard? This would make more sense and stop fools like me from pasting all sorts of junk where I intend to paste the link repeatedly!
This is what I mean by this (taken from @angus’s Custom Wizard Plugin):
This makes sense. Added on my list to make it so.
We updated the button copy for now to indicate that invite link is not copied to clipboard. It’s on my list to make the UX better but there are more pressing tasks to work on first.
