@mention broken when pasted

System

This discussion was created from comments split from: @mention someone.

masonic

I'm also adding to the existing thread as this is closely related to the issue reported by @PennysIntoPounds

What I did:

I wanted to selectively quote a section of a post that tagged another user. Here is the full post in question:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81864859#Comment_81864859

Here is my reply to it:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81864863#Comment_81864863

What Should happen:

I should be able to select the final paragraph, copy it to the clipboard (Ctrl+C), paste it into the rich text editor (Ctrl+V) with the @MSE_Stephen being preserved in the text that I paste.

What happened:

Does anyone know where to find the thread that @mse _Stephen (note that this isn't in bold and no drop down menu appeared) said he was setting up for specific issues as this one was getting too big. I thought I'd bookmarked it but now I can't find it.

@MSE_Stephen has been transformed into @mse _Stephen (there is no user @mse)

When I do the same for the first sentence in the post, I get:

I had a similar problem

@One-Eye

where an extra @ and a space was coming up before the final letter of a username .

A newline is inserted before and after the tag (this one isn't munged), and an extra space is inserted between "username" and "."

Why it matters:

It is no longer possible to edit full quotes, so our only remaining option if we don't want to fully quote a reply is to copy and paste extracts from it. If these are malformed when parsed by the RTE, then it creates extra work for the user in checking what they pasted hasn't been changed, and correcting it if it has.

Text copied to the clipboard should not be changed by the editor when pasted in.

Device/Browser:

Linux / Firefox

NOTE: I have upvoted this post, but I don't personally suffer any issues when using @ to tag users, either on Linux desktop or Android, but I do when I copy/paste others' tags when quoting them.

masonic

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81866446#Comment_81866446

I think it is force-breaking when the username contains non-alphanumeric characters (when the tag is pasted during partial quoting). I have no problem entering it manually in my own reply.

MSE_Stephen

Testing:

(pasting in image so not to trigger mention)

@masonic - I stand corrected. I thought it was having a better time of linking when no user existed with the shorter name before the hyphen. But it seems to have a problem with pasted names.

MSE_Stephen

…I've split this to a different issue

MSE_Stephen

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81864899#Comment_81864899

Hi

This has been reported to your provider.

The accidental mention of the wrong user definitely should not happen.

The answer may come back that @ mentions are intended to be typed and picked from a selection.
So I've pointed out that on forum as big as ours it can be difficult to find the right person from a list of very similar names

But it might be good to have any more examples where pasting a mention is essential.

masonic

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81870006#Comment_81870006

Here are a couple of situations where this is a problem:

1. Where people are quoting text from an earlier post that includes a mention. This breaking behaviour generates a mention for a different user, which will annoy this user.
2. Where an email address is pasted in (another issue was opened about this), such as when helping a user contact an organisation. Everything after the @ in an email address is parsed as a mention. This either inserts breaking characters into the email address or unintentionally mentions a user. See forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6653589/email-addresses-turned-into-mentions

If they say you should not be copying and pasting text from other posts, then they should be challenged to provide a quoting mechanism for parts of posts where a copy/paste isn't necessary.

I would propose the following resolution: pasted text should not be parsed for mentions, full stop. This would resolve two issues. This could be achieved through generating mentions on typing of the @ symbol and selection from the floating menu only. Not on comment submission. It would also fit perfectly with the answer "mentions are intended to be typed and picked from a selection" because this is not the current behaviour.

MSE_Stephen

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81870257#Comment_81870257

This breaking behaviour generates a mention for a different user, which will annoy this user.

Yes. Whatever the resolution, notifying the wrong user is clearly a bug that should be addressed.