Make text more easily selectable in the fields

SteveLinke

Unless I am missing something obvious, in many of the fields, the text is not easily selectable to copy-paste. This is true for some of the fields in the old pages, but even more fields now do not have selectable text--seemingly all of the ones that turn gray (and the cursor changes from an arrow to a hand) when you mouse over them.

Here are some examples of times when I would like to copy-paste selectable text, but the interface makes it very difficult:

• Copying information from FamilySearch to my computer-based genealogy software database.
• When the 1935 residence says "same place" based on the 1940 US Census result, I copy-paste the 1940 location.
• When merging two IDs that have a mix of more detailed information in fact fields between the two IDs, which would result in loss of information after the merge, I copy-paste the information that would be lost.

Is there some method to select text in these fields? If not, is it possible to make it selectable. This is very frustrating. It was already the case for some fields on the old Sources page, and it would be nice to make text selectable there, as well.

Gordon Collett

There are always trade offs in design. We can't just highlight the text you are referring to anymore because it is no longer just text. The grey highlight that appears when hovering over the text shows that the entire data block is now a button which can be activated by clicking anywhere in the grey area:

Clicking brings up the new Data View popup where you can see all the attached sources, go the filtered Change Log for that item, proof-read the standardized values linked to the data, or decide to edit:

In that box you can easily highlight just as much, or just as little, text as you need:

The new feature, and giving it such a large clickable area for people who may have difficulty aiming a mouse, seems worth the one extra click need to copy and past text.

SteveLinke

When I see what appears to be plain text on any webpage, it is not at all intuitive to discover that it cannot be selected for copy-paste. And the text is still actually selectable, but you have to first click outside of the gray field area and then swipe through it to select the text. The problem with that, though, is that it forces you to select all of the surrounding text--not just the text you want.

I am not a web programmer, so I am not sure how complicated this is, but it seems like there should be an easy way to provide both the larger "button" (gray field) for people to click on to get the "Data View" popup, but retain the ability to select specific text within that field. A Google search reveals that there are JavaScript routines that can distinguish between quick clicks/taps and long clicks/presses. A quick click/tap within the gray field could bring up the Data View popup, but detection of the mouse button held down (or a finger held on the screen) followed by a swipe could activate the ability to select the text. This is how touch screens typically work--pressing and holding activates the ability to copy/paste.

If this detection could be included in all of the text fields on all of the pages, it would save so many unnecessary additional clicks and opening of additional popups/windows.