No Cursor in Windows Phone 8.1

[byobg]

Indeed, since most of us don't.

And of course, when there's a feature that 49% of people want to work one way, and 51% of people want to work another way, the BEST solution is to hard-code it the way the 51 percent want it. (Because "options" are complicated.)

 

[byobg]

The new cursor is horrible! Its extremely difficult to get it to work 100% of the time. The handle is way too small. You cant even see the damn thing when you're dragging it around. Change it back!

My assumption is that the focus group that tested this feature had a statistically significant number of members with transparent thumbs.

 

[AndrewMBaines]

I just wish we could have cursor keys. Much simpler than all this dragging with a finger that's 1/4 the width of the screen

 

[PTH11]

I have big fingers and I am having trouble typing even on a 6" display (Nokia 1529).
You can imagine my frustration when the cursor behavior changed with the 8.1. update.
I found the new way extremely irritatiing and unusable. Even the old way was somewhat
difficult to use. If the text box was close to the bottom edge of the display, it was downraight
impossible to position the cursor, as one's finger would need to go over the bottom
edge of the display.

Although I sometimes succeeded to position the cursor, most of the time it seemed
impossible to hit the small round target, and of course I could not see the cursor under
my clumsy fingertips.

So I decided to try and live without cursor positioning on my Windows phone. I also
have an iPad and an Android phone, both of which have a reasonebly decent,
albeit not perfect cursor positioning method.

All this changed when I found this thread. Having read halfway into the postings,
I realized that there may exist a viable cursor positioning method in WP 8.1, I just
had not by myself discovered how to use it. So I followed the instructions and, in a few
minutes, I undrestood how it works. Now it seems to me the best and most usable
and intuitive method in all three platforms I mentioned above.

So here's a tiny "tutorial" for those who still struggle!

Write a small amount of thext - a few lines with a few words in each. To position
the cursor accurately and easily anywhere in the text, do as follows:

1. Tap (touch) anywhere in the text box: on a word, between words, or on white
space. It really does not matter where.

2. Depending on where you touched, you'll either see the cursor somewhere in
the text box with a small circle below it (this happens if you did not tap on a word),
or you'll see a highlighted word and two cursors at each end of the word, along
with small circles below both cursors (this happens if you tapped on a word).

3. In the first case (a single cursor with a circle below), you can now move the cursor
anywhere in your text by touching and holding your finger on the cursor, and then
sliding your finger anywhere on the screen. You do NOT need to accurately hit
the small circle, it's enough to place your finger roughly over the cursor in the
vertical center of the text line. This is easy once you get the hang of it.

4. When you have the cursor exactly where you want it, just lift your finger.

Please note that while moving the cursor, you can (and should) slide your
finger below or above each text line, and even outside the text box. Thus
you can easily see the cirsor as it wanders around from character to character,
word to word and line to line, without your finger obstructing the cursor. You'll
soon learn how to do this by experimenting. It is NOT necessarily to try to
move your finger exatly to the point where you want to place the cursor.
Instead, just move your finger freely with large gestures and watch the
cursor move!

5. In the second case (you have a highlighted word and two cursors with
small circles each side of it) just tap a second time on the word, and
you'll see a single cursor. Then proceed as in 3 & 4 above.

6. If you want to copy text, first select a word by tapping it. The word is now
highlighted and you'll see two cursors with small circles at each end of
the word. Then move each cursor separately as described in 3 above to
the words or characters where you want copying to start and end. Once
you are happy with the selected (highlighted) text, just touch the round
"copy" icon which magically appeared. Please note that you can not
only select whole words, but also place the starting and ending cursors
to any character within a word.

 

[Hariharan Nandakumar]

Spot on ... I can't adapt to what I can't see.

I think the people who find the new method easier dint really know how to use the old one.