URLs not automatically clickable

noitsnotme

@Grumpy_chap can you try editing that post and then put your cursor at the end of the URL and press return. That should turn it in to a link although it will likely be preview box rather than a clickable text link.

MSE_Stephen

So let's summarise, so I have it clear:

What's happening

When you add a plain text link to the editor (either by typing or pasting) it stays plain text. The cursor is sitting, flashing, on the right of the link.

If you then click 'Spacebar' or 'Enter', it's only then that the editor looks at what's left of the cursor. If it sees it's a link, it linkifies it.

Why this way of deciding to linkify is problem

If you've pasted text which has a plain text link not at the end of the text, it doesn't linkify - Because you never had the opportunity to press 'Spacebar' or 'Enter' when the cursor was beside the link.

Nor does it linkify if you put the url as the last thing in your post (unless hit 'Enter' for a new line, which triggers the editor to look at the text beside it and notice it's a link)

Does that sum up the issue? Or have I made sound even more confusing? 😀

noitsnotme

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81869906#Comment_81869906

Yes that pretty much sums it up. It's probably mostly happening as you said, where a URL is pasted as the last line in a post. It's not natural to hit enter/return/space at the end of the last line which is probably why we are seeing a lot of non-clickable URLs.

When hitting the 'post comment' button it should automatically linkify any URLs at that point. I'm pretty sure that's how it worked before the update and how pretty much every other forum and software handles URLs from my experience.

This goes back to what should be natural and intuitive to most users, especially those with less technical knowledge.

MSE_Stephen

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81870149#Comment_81870149

If I were to hazard a guess…

I think with a rich editor that's trying to do so many things with links automatically (some we haven't turned on) - formatting some from certain sites as cards, turning Google docs into embedded docs, youtube links turned into embeds - there's probably a lot of risk of just messing up a paste by sticking a big bunch of embeded docs and videos thought your paragraph because you had links there.

Whatever the reason, I'll feed this issue back to or provider. 😀

noitsnotme

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81870184#Comment_81870184

I believe the KISS acronym is very relevant here - do we really need all the bells and whistles, probably not. As I mentioned previously it would make more sense for a clickable text link to be the default and then give people the option to turn them into buttons/cards/embeds if they want.

MSE_Stephen

Hi everyone,

We've heard back from our forum provider, and based on your comments they've agreed that this behaviour isn't optimal. It's been added as a feature request to be addressed.

I'm afraid we can't say yet when it will be improved or in what way.

noitsnotme

Thank you for the update.

Grumpy_chap

Links and emojis still show as plain text rather than functioning hyperlinks and graphical icons on an as they feel like it basis: