Auto-copy the invite link?

[nathank (Nathan Kershaw)]

This is a UX improvement request regarding:

Copy Invite Link

We just improved the Invite feature, now you can copy invite link and send a personalized invitation email to your users! To generate copyable invite link go to your invites page, click on “Send an Invite” button, enter the email of the user you want to invite, now click on “Copy Invite Link” button: [image] That’s it, now you will see copyable invite link: [image] Copy and paste away!

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?

[codinghorror (Jeff Atwood)]

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…

[bts (Brendan Schlagel)]

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.

[nathank (Nathan Kershaw)]

@bts

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”.

Absolutely - the user is expecting it to copy the link to the clipboard, and is annoyed (at least I am) when it doesn’t.

[techAPJ (Arpit Jalan)]

@bts

a button labeled “copy link” implies just that, the actual copy action. Versus e.g. “generate link” or “show link”.

I’ll update the button label to “Generate Invite Link”. That makes more sense here.

[nathank (Nathan Kershaw)]

@techAPJ

I’ll update the button label to “Generate Invite Link”

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:

Which would you prefer?

• Rename the button to ‘Generate Link’ and leave the functionality untouched
• Keep the button ‘Copy Invite Link’, but make it actually copy the link to the clipboard

[nathank (Nathan Kershaw)]

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!

[nathank (Nathan Kershaw)]

@nathank

have a separate button on the modal which actually copies the link to your clipboard?

This is what I mean by this (taken from @angus’s Custom Wizard Plugin):

[techAPJ (Arpit Jalan)]

@nathank

have a separate button on the modal which actually copies the link to your clipboard?

This makes sense. Added on my list to make it so.

[techAPJ (Arpit Jalan)]

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.