Android web browsers - unwanted zoom on text field selection - Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hi,
This is a thing that has annoyed me with Android from the start, but after a lot of searching, I have not found a way to disable or stop the behavior.
So my problem is that with all versions of Android and all the web browsers for Android I have tried, web pages always zoom in when you select a text entry field on a web page.
So for example on my Note 3 and Nexus 7 I go to, say theregister.co.uk. The phone /tab is in landscape mode and the page is set to a zoom where all the article titles are legible. There is a search field at the top right hand corner of the web page which is also a a legible size. I select it to enter text and the screen is zoomed in so that the field fills the whole of the screen, that is not filled by the keyboard.
If any of the text I start to enter brings up any suggestions, due to the zoom level, they are lost behind the soft keyboard. I zoom out to look at them and they dis-pear. I select the text field again to add or delete text, to make those suggestions come up again and I get zoomed in to far again. I then give up put the phone or tablet down and use a windows laptop etc instead.
Now I understand why this would have been desirable initially in Android, when phones had small screens and on ones with small screens today, but why is this needed on larger screens or even tablets?
It makes things like posting this forum post very frustrating on an Android device. I know there is an App for XDA, but is is not a powerful as using the forum direct through a web page. So I cannot replace having a windows etc PC around as Android does not give comparable web page interaction experience.
So I wanted to know if anyone knew of a way of disabling this behavior if so desired? Or if there is a browser out there where this does not happen?

Related

[Q] Problem with Dolphin HD browser

Does anyone have problems with scrolling windows in Dolphin HD?
eg when I'm in Hotmail, the window won't scroll down at all, just displays as many messages as fit on the screen, with no obvious way to scroll down. Have also tried using the gesture to scroll to end of page, but the browser doesn't seem to recognise there is more to the page.
No problems, but I'm using Mini version.
fisha21 said:
Does anyone have problems with scrolling windows in Dolphin HD?
eg when I'm in Hotmail, the window won't scroll down at all, just displays as many messages as fit on the screen, with no obvious way to scroll down. Have also tried using the gesture to scroll to end of page, but the browser doesn't seem to recognise there is more to the page.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i have had it happen randomly. luckily, going to portrait gives me more page space, and zooming still works
Same problem in Google Reader.
I have problems time to time, with specific web pages.. but those pages have problems with Windows 7 & Firefox also
It's because of embedded java or flash crap inside web page.
Edit: Scroll works in those pages after you zoom it bigger, also links don't work before zoom..
There are some problems with scrollbars in Android. If you have a scrollbar into another scrollbar (for example an iframe) one of these scrollbars won't work. They said it's for make a better surfing experience
nc
10 chars
I belive that Dolphin is utilizing the base stock browser for rendering, and the scrolling problem also happens with that one. (I've seen it on Android 2.0, 2.1, and 2.2 devices so far.)
A workaround that usually works is to zoom in the page a little, and it should then be scrollable...

[Q] Editing Text in Browser

Using the default browser I've been finding it very hard to edit text fields at times - ie: Google Docs and generic web forms. On one site in particular I needed to remove a comma from a list of emails in a textbox, and it literally took me 10 minutes to position the cursor correctly. Since the box was scrolling off the screen, clicking in different positions kept jumping around and in general not reliably scrolling, let alone selecting a given character.
I've noticed that a number of Android Apps have that little magnifier-thing to simplify editing, but that doesn't seem to work for the default browser. Is there some other way of accurately editing text in the default browser, or do one of the other browsers work better?
In more generic terms, is there a better method of moving the cursor in Android, given that the Atrix lacks any physical trackpad? There do appear to be a few premium keyboard alternatives out there that include cursor keys, but I don't particularly feel like paying for something that should be part of the stock system (particularly on a phone without arrow keys!)
I couldn't agree more. Having the delete key as the only positioning key sucks. Given the four different keyboard screens on the stock virtual keyboard, each having only a delete key, it's clear that this was a decision rather than an oversight. Stupid. Sure makes me appreciate all of the things I took.for.granted in WinMo.

[Q] Anyone have a fix for this?

The reason I DON'T have an Android phone yet is because of a failing in Android navigation on a website that is important to me. Let me describe the situation.
A website that I frequent returns a display with a scrollbar on the far right side. Within the same display is a smaller "box" that also has a scrollbar. For those of you who are "show me" types, go to tvguide.com, click on "What's on TV", put in a zipcode, cable, pick a cable provider, select "all premium channels" (or whatever) then Go. The resulting "small box" is the one with the individual channel listings on it. Tell me what's on channel 45.
How do I navigate within the smaller box? If you touch the screen and move your finger "down" the big display moves down. I want the small display to move down.
The iPad, on the same website, has the same problem. But I accidentally discovered that if I touch the screen inside the small box with TWO FINGERS, spread a little apart, (like I am going to zoom in or zoom out), but keep the fingers exactly the same distance apart, and move BOTH of them down or up at one time, the small display moves up and down, while the big display stays the same.
Does that make sense? I have tried the two-finger method on TMo's newest Android phone, but can't get the bottom of the small box. TMobile says "tap the small screen first" but all that does on either of the two websites is "select" that line/television show.
Any suggestions?
Thanks!
TonyMo
Is the site optimized for mobile devices?
Try doing a double tap in the small box. That's what I do in situations like this. It usually works.
Sent from my DINC2
I would suggest trying a different browser. I know you may not have that option (since you don't own and Android device? Guessing you're borrowing?) but I use Dolphin HD and it works flawlessly. When I open the page you mention (tvguide.com) the scroll inside and outside the smaller widow work independently. This on a device running Android 2.3
No, neither website is (apparently) mobile-friendly. Then again, I'm not a fan of mobile-direct websites. They usually lack the content that I am looking for. Not a fan of "apps" because I don't want to have to have an app for every website I visit. I want a mobile browser that does whatever an immobile browser does! I want it all. And I want it now!

Few annoyances I have, are there any solutions for them?

Last night I has 3 minor annoyances with my Incredible, but really android in general.
1. When entering text in an input field in my browser (Opera), like a username or searching @ google.com. When I enter text that is longer than the input box I can't see the text in its entirety, I have to scroll left and right to see it all.
Are there any tweaks to enlarge the box or something like that?
2. When I search for a word in a webpage the keyboard takes up 4/5 of the screen and it's very hard to see the text. If I click into the website the search box gets hidden and I have to go through the menus to get to it again. I feel this is a keyboard issue, maybe a resizable keyboard or one that doesn't take up so much room when searching.
3. When I get linked to youtube in facebook, it will usually launch it with my browser and take me to the mobile site. When I want to email the link it always uses the mobile version of the link, is there a way to always send the regular youtube.com link without having to view the desktop version of the website?
Does anyone have any ideas?
For #1 and 2 you can type into the address bar, go back out of keyboard, and the cut and paste to desired text box.

[Q] Browser that open tabs in background without having to choose between options?

Hi,
I am looking for the perfect browser. That to me is a browser where you can open a new tab in the background just by long-pressing the link - without clicking anything else. And when you read a tab, you close it with one click of a button (often the back key), after which it stays on the other open tabs, before, when there are no other tabs open reverting to the first (origional) site. Typcially, you would be reading part of a newspaper, when you see the headings of an interesting article, you long-press the link. When you have opened some tabs (especially if there is a limitation on the number of tabs), you start reading them, and ends up at the frontpage again, and can start opening more tabs again.
And yes, a lot of the browsers can open a tab in the background, but I only know of Xscope that can open a tab in the background just by long-pressing a link.
Opera and Dolphin are almost there in the sense that they stay on the tabs until you have read them all, but you still have to choose what action to take when long-pressing a link, i.e. an extra click every time.
And these do no not stay on open tabs, but goes to first window when closing tab: Chrome, Opera Mini, Next, Maxton, Firefox, One, Baidu, UC Browser.
And why do I not stick to Xscope: because you can only open 6 or 8 tabs at a time, but even worse is that on LG G2, stock, 4.2.2 it does not format the view of the pages so you have to zoom, but that just makes the font too small to read. Worked find on Slimrom on Galaxy SII, so not sure what is wrong.
So, if somebody know of a browser that fits with the above, please let me (us) know.

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