Sausage fingered pony

July 18, 2014 4:07 AM

I was wondering whether other sausage fingered mefites have the same problem I do. When bashing my opinions into the text box on my mobile or nexus starting the message often means accidentally hitting the link through my username or even the html tags link. Its a particular problem when trying to cut and paste at the beginning of posts since my paste function pops up over the username. If its not just me is there any chance these links could be given a little more space in the page design?
posted by biffa to Feature Requests at 4:07 AM (25 comments total)

I just zoom up the size of my screen.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:30 AM on July 18, 2014

For my sausage fingers, I'd like to request a little more space between the flagging, favourites, and user name links.
posted by hydrobatidae at 4:51 AM on July 18, 2014 [2 favorites]

So, the up side is that I've found this works much better if I go into preferences and change my text sizes up. The down sides:

1. The preferences screen is not responsive on mobile.
2. This seems from the 'info' help to be entirely known issues, so I have no idea why it's being allowed to stay that way, but why on earth can't the preferences page pull the data from my cookie if it's setting it in my cookie? It's pulling it from, I guess, the most recent time I hit 'save', which means that switching devices is always going to require correcting those numbers and, well, let's hope next time I remember what I set them to on my phone that worked.

But bigger text helps.
posted by Sequence at 5:07 AM on July 18, 2014 [1 favorite]

The Metafilter mobile experience really makes me long for an API. The Alien Blue mobile client for Reddit is an example how an amazing mobile experience can be created for onlines communities such as these.
posted by DWRoelands at 6:00 AM on July 18, 2014 [4 favorites]

Maybe if your fingers ate fewer sausages? Personally I'm on like a 92% Cherry Garcia diet, but my fingers are strictly crudité. Fewer typos, but I do have to admit that celery sticks aren't terribly capacitant.
posted by phunniemee at 6:02 AM on July 18, 2014 [1 favorite]

Typically on a mobile phone you can click anywhere in the textarea and device will zoom in to fill the screen. You might try clicking in the lower-right corner of the textarea to start your comment. That should zoom past the "html help" and username link.

...why on earth can't the preferences page pull the data from my cookie if it's setting it in my cookie?

A common scenario is that someone makes a display preference change and then they want that change made across all of their devices. If we pulled in the cookie value they'd need to remember what that change was exactly. The way it's set now you can just load your preferences page and click Save without making any further changes to set things the same in every browser you use.
posted by pb (staff) at 7:00 AM on July 18, 2014

I just whittled down my fingertips. Problem solved.
posted by shakespeherian at 7:53 AM on July 18, 2014 [5 favorites]

"To obtain a special commenting wand, please mash the textarea with your palm now."
posted by Rock Steady at 8:02 AM on July 18, 2014 [2 favorites]

The mobile interface on my phone is great. My ipad uses the regular interface, which works fine except for the + being small and close to the !, so I have to zoom in order to favorite things.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:03 AM on July 18, 2014

A common scenario is that someone makes a display preference change and then they want that change made across all of their devices.

I'm sure that's common, but I'm not sure I believe that the PC/mobile combination is a weird edge case anymore. But in the PC-to-PC case, if you loaded from cookie you could go back and look at the other PC for a reminder--currently, on mobile, those numbers are just kind of lost in the ether once you've changed anything on another browser, which seems kind of a problem. Once you've forgotten and made updates from another device, if you didn't write it down, it's gone. On a PC there's some chance of being able to get it out of the stylesheet if you know how to get those things, but I think on mobile that's not usually something you can look at directly.
posted by Sequence at 8:03 AM on July 18, 2014

This doesn't directly address your problem, but Swipe to Favorite is a thing.
posted by zarq at 8:07 AM on July 18, 2014 [1 favorite]

I don't like the phrase sausage fingers because it reminds me that I am curious about what humans taste like.
posted by maxsparber at 8:29 AM on July 18, 2014 [3 favorites]

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that the PC/mobile combo is a weird edge case. I see what you're saying and I agree that the current setup isn't ideal. The way we handle display settings is a bit strange but people have told us they appreciate having different settings for different devices. Finding a way to display the currently-set display preferences might be a way to help.
posted by pb (staff) at 8:42 AM on July 18, 2014 [1 favorite]

I would suggest displaying the last-set alongside, rather than displaying the current settings alongside, just because it seems like "no I don't actually want to change this device's settings" shouldn't require additional action while editing some other part of the profile. Like, it seems generally better for the status quo to be the thing that doesn't require action. But I'll definitely take any version of being able to see my current settings over not!
posted by Sequence at 9:33 AM on July 18, 2014

I just whittled down my fingertips. Problem solved.

Too bloody. I recommend an ensmallification ray.
posted by GenjiandProust at 10:20 AM on July 18, 2014 [1 favorite]

Simply tape pointy sticks to your fingers. Problem solved!
posted by billiebee at 11:11 AM on July 18, 2014 [1 favorite]

When bashing my opinions into the text box on my mobile or nexus starting the message often means accidentally hitting the ... the html tags link.

Yeah, I have been there. It's not just you.

(Though I don't currently have a mobile device, so problem solved for me. Ensmallified if only for humor.)
posted by Michele in California at 11:23 AM on July 18, 2014

I don't like the phrase sausage fingers because it reminds me that I am curious about what humans taste like.

Depends on their diet. Grassfed is so much better.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:24 AM on July 18, 2014 [2 favorites]

Don't ask me how I know, but they are delicious.
posted by axiom at 12:27 PM on July 18, 2014 [1 favorite]

lady fingers they taste just like lady fingers
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 3:27 PM on July 18, 2014 [5 favorites]

For your consideration.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 10:18 PM on July 18, 2014

Brandon Blatcher: "Depends on their diet. Grassfed is so much better."

It's so hard to get free range these days, though.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 10:23 PM on July 18, 2014

It's true; nobody lets their fingers do the walking anymore.
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:39 AM on July 19, 2014

Yes this thank you!
posted by divabat at 11:23 AM on July 19, 2014

I bought a stylus. Problem solved.
posted by MissySedai at 2:03 PM on July 19, 2014