My difficulty is that sidebars frequently show up when I do not want them. (I’m referring the the fly-out menus that appear when swiping in from the left or right side). I frequently select text and, instead of completing the selection, a sidebar appears. The Android app misinterprets my text selection as a side swipe. I do not use the side bars and would like to disable them. Is this possible?
It may (should) be possible with CSS but I wouldn’t go that way.
The trick is to select one word (the longer the better as it’s more difficult to select an indefinate article like a) and drag the handles afterwards. This is slower but it sounds like your faster, “eager” selection method is iffy and draws unwanted side effects.
With a larger portion of text, one would select text and go vertically first and adjust whatever there’s left to add or remove.
Thanks Yurcee. You’ve missed my point. My question was not how to select text — but how to prevent the sidebars from interfering with the text selection.
Also, you’ve made an incorrect assumption:
it sounds like your faster, “eager” selection method is iffy and draws unwanted side effects.
My original post gave no indication of how fast or slow I make selections, nor is that relevant to my question.
Additional information to help understand my problem.
After a long press which usually selects one word, then I do exactly as you say, moving the handles to select the text I want. The problem is that this move to select the text sometimes requires dragging near the edge of the screen, resulting not in a text selection but in one of the sidebars popping out. After closing the sidebar, I have to start the process of text selection over.
My question remains: I do not use the side bars and would like to disable them. Is this possible?
I understand my remarks were not considered relevant. I was kind of preparing you for a possible non-outcome.
It should be, but one savvy enough with CSS would need to buckle down: find selectors on PC first (there is no Dev Console on mobile) and try out on mobile where workspaces/sidebars are handled differently…
For example in the following plugin, sidebars are not tackled:
If this is a common problem not affecting just one person, there might even have been help or feature request posts about this or at least some advice, so one would need to look.
Thanks Yurcee. So the short answer is that it is probably possible for an Android developer, but not practical. There is no simple option to disable the sidebars. I appreciate your response.