web links / URL in Mac Desktop app
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Using Mac Desktop app,,, when I have a text that is a URL,,, Simplenote detects it is a link and highlights it. This makes it difficult/impossible to click within a specific place within the URL. And unlike Word, I don’t see any way to “remove the hyperlink” from the URL/text
Is there a way to completely turn off the behaviour of Simplenote treating URL’s as links? For me, it’s more trouble than it’s worth
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Hi. Not sure if this helps, but in iOS, a long press opens the link in a browser window, a short tap positions the edit cursor. Also, in iOS, this behavior is linked to the screen keyboard visibility; the “hyperlink” format only appears when the KB is hidden. So you might try alternative mouse actions to drop the cursor into the URL.
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Hi @luch76!
Thanks for your feedback about the URL highlighting behavior in the Simplenote desktop app.
While we don’t currently have a direct option to disable URL highlighting, here’s a workaround to help you navigate URLs more easily:
- Click anywhere outside the URL.
- You can then use the left and right arrow keys on your keyboard to navigate within the URL and make specific edits.
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Hi @staff-frank, thanks for response!
Yep, what you described is the workaround I use,, But it’s not ideal, especially for longer URLs. Hopefully the desktop-app can have an option in the future to disable automatic hyper-linking
Any my compliments/thanks for the Simplenote app,,, It’s a great app that I fully depend on
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Thank you for the feedback on this, I’ll be sure to forward this along to our development team to take into consideration for future development.
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Yeah me too. This is something new – I’ve been using Simplenote since 2019 on both Mac desktop and iOS. I switched from TextEdit to SimpleNote for the very reason that Apple added automatic hyperlinks and I needed to work in plain text across devices.
Like Luch76 I fully depend on Simplenote, and suddenly, after a new installation on a new desktop today all URLs in that installation are live clickable links.
Puzzlingly, all my other installs of Simplenote are working as expected – so in fairness it may be caused by some systemwide setting on this particular installation of OSX. But seriously – please give us the option to toggle URL highlighting is a major headache for anybody whose work involves moving and editing text between devices on a daily basis.
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@mikerockwell In case this helps you come up with a quick fix, I managed to fix the issue by copying the folder ~/Library/Containers/com.automattic.SimplenoteMac from one of my other desktop machines into the new installation. So a setting does exist somewhere in that folder which tells Simplenote to ignore links. I’ve put a zip copy of the folder at https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/b99lgevhqkzj9cszeih38/com.automattic.SimplenoteMac.zip?rlkey=5ad6689kkiwprcnxwr72nocwp&dl=0 in case any other Mac user has the same problem and wants a quick fix…
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Hi @robint02,
We appreciate you taking the time to share this information.
We actually received requests for clickable links in the desktop app several years ago, and this feature was subsequently added.
However, we’ve added your comments and the workaround details to the existing feature request for a “disable clickable links” option in the desktop app.
While we can’t guarantee a specific timeline for implementation, please know that your feedback is appreciated and will be considered for future updates.
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I’d very much welcome this change (a “disable clickable links” option) as well
I’d also suggest going forward, any feature that “takes away” from Simplenote being a “pure plain text editor”, that there should be an option to disable it
Thanks for all you do!
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