Small link editing suggestion: Focus the Title field first

[yurivish]

Hi Jesse, I have a small suggestion for the link editing UI. I sometimes paste in a link and want to change the title text, or have an existing link and want to change the text.

I almost never want to edit a URL after the fact from this UI, but the field that is focused automatically is the URL right now if I press cmd+k and then l. My suggestion is to change it so the title is focused first. Not sure if the field ordering should change too; it probably doesn’t need to since you can tab between both fields just fine regardless of the order and the URL is in some sense primary.

Thanks for Bike – I’ve been enjoying using it for a while now.

[jessegrosjean]

I think you are right. I think what I will do:

1. Switch order of those fields so that title is first
2. Set focus on the first empty field
3. Or if no field is empty then set focus on first field (title)

Make sense?

[jessegrosjean]

You can try out change in latest preview release:

Bike 1.12 (135)

I changed the display to a range in the latest release: [Screenshot 2023-06-08 at 7.30.00 AM] I think that makes things a lot clearer, what the licenses capabilities are. If anyone’s got a better term for “Dawn of Time” I’m open to suggestions. I wanted to get the point across that ALL previous releases. Dawn of Time is a cute way to do that, but if there was a simpler term or symbol that might be better. I also did now show app’s build date in the case where the license’s date range doesn’t…

[horizon]

@jessegrosjean

Or if no field is empty then set focus on first field (title)

I do actually think that link popup should focus more on the URL.
I never edit Title in the link popup because if I want to edit it then I would simply edit the text without the link popup.
If I link the text to a website, I don’t really edit the URL so I see the yurivish’s point but when I link the text to a different row of bike document, I tend to edit the URL quite frequently.

[complexpoint]

@jessegrosjean

Switch order of those fields so that title is first

Good change !

Title first feels intuitive and natural – human-friendly overview first, then technical details below.

(Mileage will vary, but personally, I’m always more likely to adjust the verbal label than to change the underlying target of the link).

[jessegrosjean]

@horizon

I do actually think that link popup should focus more on the URL.
I never edit Title in the link popup because if I want to edit it then I would simply edit the text without the link popup.
If I link the text to a website, I don’t really edit the URL so I see the yurivish’s point but when I link the text to a different row of bike document, I tend to edit the URL quite frequently.

I do think there’s an argument either way. And I even think that when I first designed this popup I did it opposite other apps (they all seem to show title first) and felt clever… in particular I think I was optimizing for case where you select text, and then add link.

But stepping back it seems to me that the ordering “Title” > “URL” is what comes to mind first when considering links… it’s also the ordering that most other app seem to use.

And when we have that ordering I think it makes sense to default focus to the first text … except I also think it make sense to break that default in the case where the title has text and the URL doesn’t.

Anyway, lots of ways to do this, but I think I’ll keep current behavior. If anyone wants different behavior just wait 6 months until I’ve forgotten all this logic, and maybe I can switch my mind again!

[yurivish]

Just got the chance to try it out and I like it a lot – thank you!

[alltom]

Bike’s original behavior matched Google Docs’s original behavior, but now both of you have switched. I agree with @horizon that the URL is the only thing that you need a popup to edit, so it should be selected first, or even be the only field—but at least now my muscle memory has a fighting chance to rebuild.