Prevent Text Select


#1

Is it possible to prevent a user from selecting the text in an object but still have the object enabled for interactions?


#2

Don’t think so, unless you set the widget to hidden then you can still have interaction. but if its disabled or read only user can still select the text on it.


#3

@tklp,

You actually can do this. See this .rp file for a demo:
PreventTextSelection.rp (69.9 KB)

I accidentally discovered this years ago when I was trying to do the opposite: allow selection of text when it was in a dynamic panel that could be dragged around. The OnDrag event prevented dragging to select the text. So, just wrap your widget(s) in a dynamic panel and assign a “non-action” like “Move This by (0,0)” Voila! No more text selection.

It turns out this is a great way to make your prototypes more robust, especially for usability tests or marketing demos where people might unintentionally drag over several objects, selecting them all, including text, and everything turns “selected blue” --and you turn “Oops red”!

Oh, the other way to make text on widgets unselectable is to convert it to an image (right-click it for this option.) Of course, you can’t then edit the text, but if it is final and you don’t want to mess with the dynamic panel approach, it’s pretty easy. It’s also a way to ensure the text looks exactly as it does in the Axure editor, not as it is rendered in the browser (which will be subtly different in every browser and OS) and/or to use special fonts that don’t render in the browser. If you set the MouseOver, Selected styles, etc. before converting a widget to text, these will get preserved (as their own image states) which is pretty cool.


#4

Excellent - great workarounds. Thank you.


#5

such a great idea!!!
replace move by rotation to get rid of “move icon”
and replace drag by after drag for better experience