Change with text area on languagetool.org

I’ve made a small but potentially important change to the text area on languagetool.org: if the user has modified the text and then switched the languages setting, their text will not be replaced by the demo text anymore. Instead, a “Demo Text” link will appear in top that they can use to get the demo text. Please let me know if there’s an issue with this.

That will probably improve the usability quite a bit for the many users who have to switch between two or more languages several times a day.

My worry is that it is not perfectly clear what that link does, though. Since it looks a lot like a normal hyperlink, it could as well navigate to another page that contains the demo text. That could be improved by

  • making it say “Insert demo text”, or
  • making it a button element with the same style as the “Check Text” button.

I prefer the latter, because it is more in line with the traditional design principles: buttons trigger an action, often on the same page, links are for navigation.

@dnaber wrote:

I’ve made a small but potentially important change to the text area on
languagetool.org: if the user has modified the text and then switched
the languages setting, their text will not be replaced by the demo text
anymore.

Thank you! This had bothered me many times, when changing the
language which loses the entered text.

@Jan_Schreiber wrote:

My worry is that it is not perfectly clear what that link does, though.
Since it looks a lot like a normal hyperlink

I agree. I would never have guessed that the title is clickable and
that it inserts a demo text.

A button “Insert demo text” next to existing button “Check text”
would be my preference.

It’s easier said than done, the CSS is quite complicated and the layout tends to break with each new button (at least with narrow browser windows). So I’ve just change the text for now.

Great, thanks. Could you also make the demo text disappear once I click into the text field? Especially on mobile devices it is really annoing that I have to mark and delete the demo text before I can use LT.

That’s a good point, but I would prefer a delete icon. After all, it’s a demo text, and new users may want to play around with it.

I agree with Jan, there should be a delete icon. Pull requests welcome, I currently don’t have time to work on it.

I agree.