This new “Copy Quote” button copies the quote markdown directly to the user’s clipboard. This is useful for when you want to copy the quote elsewhere – to another topic or a chat message for instance – without having to manually copy from the opened composer, which then has to be dismissed afterwards:
[quote="JammyDodger, post:7, topic:285376"]
Possibly a silly question, but what’s the difference between this button and the one I get normally?
[/quote]
This saves time for users who are constantly using quotes to reference information across multiple areas of the forum.
If you’re referring to the top set of buttons, these are iOS-only, and would just copy the raw text to your clipboard. The Copy button next to Quote and Edit in this case copies the Discourse markdown of that quote, which looks like this:
[quote="JammyDodger, post:7, topic:285376"]
Possibly a silly question, but what’s the difference between this button and the one I get normally?
[/quote]
If you press Quote, then the composer opens with this prefilled, but a lot of the time you don’t want to quote the selected text in the current topic as a reply – you may want to quote it in another topic draft that you already have, or in chat.
I’m just noticing that the outcome feedback modal (i.e. “copied”) appears in the top right for some reason? Is that intentional? Just my initial gut would be that the feedback should appear in the same vicinity as the text popover buttons, i.e. where I just clicked.
Same. It’s also got me thinking, wouldn’t it be cool to have a search option too? Highlight a term or phrase, and then in one click be able to search it.
Yeah, I like this suggestion. I do want to add though that this widget is getting large, the more buttons we add the harder it gets for users to use each of them. But we maybe it’s time to drop some buttons (looking at you “Share”) and/or organize them better.
Android has a Copy button as well. IIRC, we drop the “Share” button on iOS and Android for the same reason, because the OS provides close enough alternatives natively.
Yes I think @chapoi would prefer this too, she did this other copy button. I will hunt down the implementation of this and move the message to there.
The main difference is that, in the Copy button on quote, we hide the menu straight away, so hopefully this other message popup can stay where it is supposed to be when the underlying element disappears.
Because Ctrl-C does not add the quote format, but the new ‘Copy’ button does.
[quote="Charlie, post:14, topic:285376, username:chapoi"]
Why would you use a click-action on desktop when ctrl-c is so ingrained
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I think the problem is that the button doesn’t explain its function clearly. It’s not obvious that it does something different than just copying. Now, on mobile, I have two copy buttons. It’s quite confusing to have two options and, each time, I have to think about which option is my desired action (I know the result I want, but I have to think about which button achieves that).
On mobile, for me, quoting and cutting the quote worked perfectly fine. On desktop, I usually do it as explained in the Discourse New User Guide.
I see how this might be helpful for heavy users, but for new users (and even not so new), it creates a lot of confusion.
Because we are living in the world where most of people don’t use keyboard shortcuts because they are using a mouse. Same thing as google is the most used way to give an url, not browsers itselves.
I did suggest this originally (Copy quote) internally but people thought it might be too long. However it is an experiment so I’ll just update it to that and see what people say.
The double-menu situation makes things particularly difficult on mobile… the more we add there the more I start to wonder if we have to take a different approach than an additional pop-up (easier said than done).
Even without the additions, having two bars on text selection feels like a bad experience… 7 (or more) options spread across two menus is a lot to take in… and that’s before you start to wonder about the difference between “copy” and “copy quote”
button?
