85

In 11 months, all you've done is make the problem worse

The safe clickable area for selecting a favorite tag (especially for one letter tags, illustrated above) is quite small compared to the size of the remove button right next to it. Considering that the user is much more likely to want to filter by a tag rather than delete it, how about we move that option somewhere else.

Jeff even wrote about this situation on Coding Horror.

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20
  • 9
    +1 for moving it to the user page. Right now, it's especially easy to do on a phone.
    – Niall C.
    Aug 20 '10 at 15:46
  • 4
    I've ever requested adding a confirm dialog: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/30827/…
    – BalusC
    Apr 16 '11 at 23:41
  • 3
    Yes, but classic confirmation is quite annoying
    – fl00r
    Apr 17 '11 at 11:16
  • This is feature request not bug, please retag accordingly. :)
    – Shadow Wizard Is Vaccinated V3
    Apr 17 '11 at 11:20
  • No, it is about or removing z at all, or adding some new UI for suppressing accidental tag removing
    – fl00r
    Apr 17 '11 at 11:21
  • 1
    @fl00r WTH? I am 90% sure that when I posted that comment I had no more x in my tags. I was so pleased I came to meta, searched to find an announcement about it, found this request and left my comment.
    – Phrogz
    Jul 13 '11 at 19:51
  • 7
    This is especially bad on short tags like c or r, where the "delete" icon takes up most of the clickable area.
    – hammar
    Aug 11 '11 at 20:38
  • @hammar: Exactly, i was about to post a question but i thought that this had to be asked before (ans of course it has)...
    – H.B.
    Aug 11 '11 at 20:45
  • Also related: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/29584/…
    – Rob Hruska
    Aug 12 '11 at 2:30
  • 4
    Adding a bounty because it's been brought up many times stretching back at least 11mos and seems to be universally supported. I would really like to see a solution to this, it is something that bothers me at least a few times a week.
    – James
    Aug 12 '11 at 20:28
  • 2
    Related: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/29350/…
    – Lance Roberts
    Aug 17 '11 at 20:14
  • I come across this problem almost every day when browsing with an ipad. My finger is too big to safely click the word not the cross ( and I have tiny delicate lady fingers!) plus 1.
    – Brighty
    Dec 5 '11 at 9:18
  • 2
    Why has nothing been done about this yet?
    – Dason
    Jun 13 '12 at 2:37
  • 1
    We've decided to hide the close X's and the add text boxes by default and use a "modify favorites" text link to activate them. Clicking outside the area will return to the default state.
    – Jeremy T
    Mar 12 '13 at 16:03
  • 2
    FINALLY! Next step: allow tags to be dragged in the desired order while in edit mode.
    – BalusC
    Mar 19 '13 at 14:43
57
+250

Well, you can also remove it from within the box itself by clicking the highlighted star:

remove fav tag

So the additional X is indeed not really required - I agree for its removal.

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4
  • I like this solution the best.
    – James
    Aug 19 '11 at 14:54
  • Hope this gets implemented soon.
    – Marcelo
    Sep 5 '11 at 23:14
  • Yes please! It drives me crazy!
    – Gert Arnold
    Sep 15 '11 at 9:22
  • Not bad, but I prefer the Pelshoff's solution, because it is more intuitive to new users.
    – Tomas
    Sep 22 '11 at 14:05
31

Yes! This is annoying. I have accidentally deleted my favorite, favorite tags a few times and it shifts the tag order in annoying ways.

enter image description here


Proposed fix:

  1. Kill those X's.
  2. Add a delete link that opens a pop-over dialog.
  3. The dialog uses checkboxes to select tags to remove from the list. All checkboxes should default as unchecked.

Possible fix

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2
  • What about adding the ability to reorder the tags by drag and drop? This will solve the whole "order" issue. :)
    – Shadow Wizard Is Vaccinated V3
    Aug 14 '11 at 7:06
  • 1
    Like this solution!
    – Brighty
    Dec 5 '11 at 9:19
21

We've pushed out changes to this on meta. Feedback always welcome:

  • The text fields and advanced tag management link are now hidden behind an edit link in the header of each section
  • Clicking on edit reveals the add text box and button and also adds X's to the tags.
  • Clicking anywhere outside the favorite/ignored area returns the tags and form to the default state

Hopefully this should eliminate the problem of accidentally removing tags, and I think it looks better to not have hanging form fields in the right sidebar.

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10
  • Nice work around, when will this be pushed to all sites? By the way just picky... why you report this and not Oded who appears to be the one doing it? ;)
    – Shadow Wizard Is Vaccinated V3
    Mar 19 '13 at 15:23
  • I like the changes, the solution is rather similar to my own feature request on that topic.
    – Mad Scientist
    Mar 19 '13 at 15:26
  • I'm just pitching in to help. I did the wireframes, and he's doing the code. I've currently have him quite busy on several other things so I thought I'd take care of this.
    – Jeremy T
    Mar 19 '13 at 15:26
  • @MadScientist I may have subconsciously used some of your ideas when I was doing the wireframes but forgot where they came from.
    – Jeremy T
    Mar 19 '13 at 15:29
  • I didn't notice anything changed because I have no favorites on Meta. So when you add your first tag you're in "edit" mode, without realizing there even is an edit mode.
    – user7116
    Mar 19 '13 at 15:31
  • @sixlettervariables Basically, yes. However, you should keep in mind that the edit state looks exactly like the old default state. But when you click outside the area, it will clean itself up automatically.
    – Jeremy T
    Mar 19 '13 at 15:37
  • Cheers, wish there was a way to bump your answer to the front...
    – Shadow Wizard Is Vaccinated V3
    Mar 19 '13 at 16:10
  • I just noticed this on SO right now. Did it just get pushed to all sites?
    – Jeff Mercado
    Mar 27 '13 at 19:55
  • Nicely done ....
    – leonbloy
    Mar 28 '13 at 17:53
  • I know "thanks too" are discouraged, but i can't help. You did a really good job and it surely improved those favorite tags, there is no need to stop and double check the mouse position anymore before clicking.
    – martinstoeckli
    Mar 30 '13 at 13:24
15

It happens to me all the time, and is quite irritating. I think a confirmation dialog would be great, especially since re-adding a favorite tag, puts it at the end of the line, changing the order you had them in.

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  • 15
    Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure that I've never intentionally removed one of my favorite tags, but also manage to do it quite frequently.
    – Tim Post
    Jul 7 '11 at 22:35
5

For those who like userscripts: [Script on StackApps]

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5

I was having this problem as well today. Would it be an idea to add a small time delay before actually activating the delete button within the tag? A quick point and click would trigger the tag, a short (~0.5sec?) delay would activate the delete button and make it clickable.

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  • 1
    This is a very good solution!
    – Tomas
    Sep 22 '11 at 14:03
  • I came up with a similar idea today, when I asked the same question (meta.stackexchange.com/q/151683/190341). I would say that this is nice, but only works for users on an actual computer. This won't work properly on touch devices, as you don't have a hover-state.
    – insertusernamehere
    Oct 17 '12 at 13:11
1

I don't know how many users I can speak for, but I frequent a few less-prominent tags, and it's a very common use case for me to click a couple of my Interesting Tags to go see what's happening.

On shorter tag names, the delete button can often occupy up to a third of the button's area. This hardly seems ideal for a button that surely cannot be intentionally clicked that frequently.

The sum of the question votes for these four questions (all addressing the same issue) is currently 96, which would make it the fourth most popular feature request.

Yes, I know, I could just take that extra half-second to make absolutely sure I don't click that delete circle. But all those half-seconds add up. That's like, 30 seconds of my life!

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