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Am I the only one who constantly finds myself looking at the preview text instead of the edit text and trying to click to edit it?

When I only have text in the edit box, the edit box and the preview box look similar enough that I do a cursory, habitual click that is just as likely to be a click on the inactive page space ofthe preview box as it is to be on the more useful space of the edit box.

Edit: Splitting potential solutions out into answers, I guess.

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Happens to me all the time. –  Lance Roberts Nov 17 '09 at 18:17
I do this all the time. I would much rather have a preview button. –  Heather Nov 17 '09 at 19:03

4 Answers 4

up vote 4 down vote accepted

Another solution that I could conceive of being useful:

Perhaps clicking on the preview text could just toss your cursor focus into the edit box via javascript, so that the moment you start typing after clicking text that looks almost exactly like yours, you'll actually end up typing in the edit box where you should be.
This has the side benefit of actually doubling the target area where you can click to edit your posts (click in the edit textbox or the preview space, whichever you want, and both will work!).

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we're implementing this as a temporary workaround –  Jeff Atwood Dec 21 '09 at 10:16
Cool, good to know. –  Kzqai Jan 8 '10 at 21:23
@Jeff, in Firefox 7, it just seems to jump the cursor to the beginning of the edit box no matter where you click in the preview area. Shouldn't it jump to the actual character you clicked on? –  devuxer Sep 20 '11 at 21:14

It would be particularly awesome if when I click on the preview box, the edit box gets the focus AND the caret is positioned exactly by the character I clicked in the preview.

I'm sure it's possible through some really contorted javascript.

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One solution that I could imagine:

make the boxes a little more visually separate in some way so that a habitual click can be directed at a visual landmark attached to the edit textbox. Perhaps a bit of color or shape that differentiates between the two more fully.

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It's a programming site. You have a code window, and an output window. Wysiwyg can't save you now!

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eh? Perhaps I was unclear, but the point is that when you have just plain text in both windows, they look so similar that you just naturally try to click at whatever your eye falls on first, 50% of the time with no success. –  Kzqai Nov 19 '09 at 17:18

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