For some, especially those of us who are part of a gang walking over a mountain, texting on a phone can be cumbersome. Since smartphone text itself, context menu items, and all other text tools are so small that they perform simple tasks such as selecting an address or phone number, copying it and then pasting it into the target application, this is not the case. only difficult to see, but somewhat difficult to manipulate.
The good news is that with features like smart text selection and text enlargement, later versions of Android (versions 8 and 9 or Oreo and Pie) have found ways to alleviate some of the tedium.
For example, with smart text selection, when you highlight text in one app, such as a postal address in your browser, Android offers you a suggested shortcut – in this case, the option to search for a location in Google Maps.
Smart Text works in several different scenarios, including navigating to specific apps based on selection (phone numbers, email address, postal addresses, and names) from web pages, emails, recent messages, notifications, and some other screens that display text.
Zoom text (a feature that has been available on the iPhone for some time), on the other hand, just displays a zoomed view of the text you highlight when you select it, in the first place to make it easier to see the what em> you swipe We’ll come back to this shortly, but first let’s look at a few smart text selection scenarios.
Smart Text Selection: URLs
Smart text selection is a constant feature in the latest versions of Android, Oreo (version 8) and Pie (version 9). In other words, he’s ready to go; you don’t have to do anything.
It’s so subtle though; that I didn’t even know it was there, waiting to make my life a little easier. All I had to do was use it. Before writing this article, I spoke with several friends and colleagues who use Android smartphones but were not aware of this handy feature.
Let’s start by choosing a URL.
Typically, web addresses are already “hot” or contain hyperlinks in the code of emails, web pages and most other documents, primarily because when you enter a URL, say in Microsoft Outlook or Word, this program automatically creates a link But this is not always the case, especially on the Reviews and Notifications screens of Android.
Before smart text selection was around, getting a URL from a document you read into the address bar of the browser usually required selecting and copying it from its original location, then pasting it into a browser that is on Android devices: of course, usually this is Chrome.
With smart text selection, you simply double-click the URL to select it as shown above. In addition to the standard Format, Cut, Copy, and other highlighted text options, Android displays a link to launch the default browser.
Like mine, you probably have Chrome. Clicking on Chrome opens the browser, which in turn navigates to the address of your choice, reducing the number of steps from a few to one.
Smart Text Selection: Locations
Obtaining a physical address from a document in Google Maps and in turn displaying that address as a location on a map entails several steps. With smart text selection, when you select an address in an email, web page, text message, recent, or notification, if Google Maps is the only map app on your phone, Android offers “Google Maps†as an option in the pop-up window. menu.
If you have multiple mapping applications installed on your phone, as on most Android devices, you will get a more general Map menu item, as shown below.
Clicking Map displays all available mapping applications.
What happens next, of course, depends on which app shortcut you click on. If you touch Google Maps, Android will launch this app, search and display the location.
(Hint: Note the “Only once” and “Always” options under the app shortcuts. These, of course, essentially ask if you want your selection here to be the default. If after selecting an application, you select Always, you will no longer see these options or this step of the procedure.
For example, if you select “Google Maps” and then tap “Always”, the next time you make a smart selection of text related to matching addresses instead of the general “Map”, the option “Google Maps” appears in the pop-up menu, thereby eliminating one more step. or two.)
Smart Text Selection: Email Addresses
The procedure for selecting predictive text for email addresses is the same. You choose your email address in your browser, email, or wherever you go, and Android includes a generic Email option in the pop-up menu.
Clicking Email displays a list of applications on your phone that can send and receive emails, as shown here.
Clicking on the desired application shortcut launches this mail client and generates a new letter with the “To” field filled in with the address you selected at the beginning of this procedure. (Here again, you can tell Android to represent the email client you want from now on by choosing Always instead of Just Once.)
Text selection made easy
Finally, here’s a text selection option that came in handy for me. I don’t know about you, but after all these years I still have problems manipulating the blue drag handles to select blocks of text. It’s not that I can’t move them where I want; The thing is, I can’t see what is under my finger or what actually stands out as I drag.
Android solved this problem by enlarging the text just below my fingertip and on both sides and displaying it just above, as shown here.
Of course, there is nothing to worry about here, and you don’t need to make any settings changes for this to happen. To be honest, after I first installed Android 9 and this started happening, I thought it was some kind of glitch until I investigated it. This feature works just about anywhere you can select text, including text input fields, as shown here.
I find this especially useful when composing text messages. This makes it much easier to check – view what I have written.
The ability to manipulate screen content with your fingers is undoubtedly a powerful tool, and small innovations like smart text selection and zoom in on selected text are just small examples of what developers can and will come up with. Anything that improves convenience and productivity, regardless of size, is progress.
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