Add Internote Linking #1145

theck13 · 2020-09-10T04:54:17Z

Fix

Add internote linking with markdown syntax (e.g. [Title](simplenote://note/d34db3ef)). These changes include:

Opening linked notes from the Edit tab
Opening linked notes from the Preview tab
Listing inbound linked notes in the Information sheet
Copying internal note links from note editor and list

Test

In the steps below, the simplenote://note/d34db3ef internote link is used as an example. The d34db3ef part of the internote link will be the unique identification number for the note.

Copy Internal Note Links

Long-press any note in list.
Notice multi-select mode is enabled.
Notice Copy Link action is shown in app bar.
Select one or more notes in list.
Tap Copy Link action in app bar.
Tap any note in list.
Long-press anywhere in note content.
Tap Paste option.
Notice notes selected are pasted into note content with internote link format.
Notice simplenote://note/d34db3ef part of note is linkified.

Open Linked Notes

Tap any note in list with internote link in content.
Tap anywhere in simplenote://note/d34db3ef part of internote link.
Notice Link title and and simplenote://note/d34db3ef subtitle in app bar.
Notice the Open Note action in the app bar.
Tap Open Note action in app bar.
Notice note with d34db3ef identification number is opened.
Tap back arrow in app bar.
Notice note list is shown.
Open note from Step 1.
Tap ellipsis action to open overflow menu.
Tap Markdown item in menu if unchecked.
Notice Edit and Preview tabs are shown.
Tap Preview tab.
Notice internote link shows title of note and simplenote://note/d34db3ef part is hidden.
Tap internote link title.
Notice note with d34db3ef identification number is opened.
Tap back arrow in app bar.
Open note from Step 1.
Tap Edit tab.
Edit d34db3ef part of internote link to 1234abcd.
Tap anywhere in simplenote://note/1234abcd part of internote link.
Tap Open Note action in app bar.
Notice Note could not be found message is shown.
Tap Preview tab.
Tap internote link title.
Notice Note could not be found message is shown.

List Inbound Linked Notes

Tap any note in list that is note referenced in another note via internote link.
Tap Information action in app bar.
Notice Referenced In section is hidden in Information sheet.
Tap back button in navigation bar.
Tap back arrow in app bar.
Long-press any note in list.
Tap Copy Link action in app bar.
Tap any note in list.
Long-press anywhere in note content.
Tap Paste option.
Notice note is pasted into note content with internote link format.
Tap bar arrow in app bar.
Tap note selected in Step 6.
Tap Information action in app bar.
Notice Referenced In section is shown in Information sheet.
Notice note from Step 8 is shown in Referenced In section.
Tap note in Referenced In section.
Notice note in Referenced In section is opened.

Review

Only one developer and one designer are required to review these changes, but anyone can perform the review.

Release

RELEASE-NOTES.txt was updated in a7ccc74 with:

Added linking between notes [#1145]

# Conflicts: # Simplenote/src/main/java/com/automattic/simplenote/InfoBottomSheetDialog.java # Simplenote/src/main/java/com/automattic/simplenote/NoteListFragment.java # Simplenote/src/main/java/com/automattic/simplenote/NoteMarkdownFragment.java

This reverts commit 516cfa7.

SylvesterWilmott · 2020-09-11T15:54:23Z

All looks great to me.

A couple of things:

Can we make the touch feedback for the references match that in the "more" menu (both light and dark modes)?
On long press of the "link" icon from the notes list selection state can we use the string "Copy Internal Link" instead of "Copy Link"?

… dialog

theck13 · 2020-09-11T16:11:28Z

Can we make the touch feedback for the references match that in the "more" menu (both light and dark modes)?

I updated the touch feedback in 891981c. See the screenshots below for illustration.

On long press of the "link" icon from the notes list selection state can we use the string "Copy Internal Link" instead of "Copy Link"?

I updated the action hint in ac8d09f. See the screenshots below for illustration.

SylvesterWilmott

Thanks for the changes!

mchowning

Manually editing a "selected" link does not change the behavior of the open link app bar button

I think there is an edge case involving manually editing a link that could confuse some users. In particular, the link's "behavior" does not appear to update as you edit it. I think the easiest way to describe the issue is just via the steps to reproduce:

Open a note in markdown mode with a correct internal link
Tap anywhere in the internal link so the app bar updates with the link info
Edit the internal link to make it invalid (i.e., delete a character in the id)
Tap the open internal link icon on the app bar
Observe that the link succeeds and opens the linked-to note even though the as-edited link that is actually in the note is no longer valid
Check "information->referenced in" for the just-opened-via-internal-link note and observe that the previous note (with the invalid link that just worked) is not included (which makes sense in light of the fact that the link is invalid)
Return to the note with the now-incorrect internal link
Tap anywhere in the internal link so the app bar updates with the (incorrect) link info
Edit the internal link to be correct
Tap the open internal link icon on the app bar
Observe that the internal link fails even though the just-edited internal link that is in the note is actually correct.
Tap anywhere in the note other than the now-valid internal link
Tap the now-valid internal link
Observe that tapping the app bar button to open the internal link now works

It does appear that this is a pre-existing issue because I observed the same behavior with external links, so let me know if you'd prefer to address this in a separate PR and I can log an issue for it.

Going back after following an internal link

I was a bit surprised that opening a new note via a link and then going back via the back gesture didn't take me back to the previous note I had just come from. This was particularly noticeable to me when I was previewing a markdown note (so opening a link only required tapping it) because I was just sort of assuming that it would act like a web browser. I realize this is probably the intended behavior--I just wanted to note that it was a bit surprising/unexpected to me.

Strangeness I experienced unrelated to this PR

Uninstalling Simplenote

When attempting to build this branch and install it I got the standard install-failed-because-downgrade type of error, so I uninstalled both the debug and release versions of the app. I still go the same error though when I tried to build and install again. I verified that there weren't any simplenote icons in my app drawer, so I went into settings and opened the apps and there I saw that there was a Simplenote app. Uninstalling that cleared everything up. I'm sure this is just some weird consequence of me having different versions of the app installed, but it's not something I've seen before (and of course there's always the possibility that I didn't really uninstall both of the apps when I thought I did), but I was just curious if this is something you've ever seen before. I also wanted to note this as relevant background for the following issue I observed...

Links not being detected

When initially testing this, internal links were not being linkified in the note. In fact, no links were being linkified (i.e., not even something like ~~Some link~~). So then I went into the settings and verified that detect links was toggled on. Since that setting was right I did the standard unplug-and-plug-it-back-in move (i.e., toggled it off and then back on). Then I opened up the same note I was looking at before and the links were properly detected (both internal links and external links). I doubt this issue has anything to do with the PR, and I don't know how I got into this bad state, but I wanted to note it in case it rings any bells or you get more reports like this.

If you'd like me to file an issue for this, just let me know. I held off on doing that yet because I wasn't sure how useful it would be since I don't have steps to reproduce.

Simplenote/src/main/java/com/automattic/simplenote/NotesActivity.java

Simplenote/src/main/java/com/automattic/simplenote/models/Reference.java

mchowning · 2020-09-17T13:01:23Z

Simplenote/src/main/res/layout/reference_list_row.xml

+    android:background="?attr/selectableItemBackground"
+    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
+    android:layout_width="match_parent"
+    android:orientation="vertical"


A RelativeLayout doesn't use orientation, right? I'm guessing this is just a leftover from a time when this was a LinearLayout.

Correct. That was probably just a copy/paste error. I remove the attribute in 1be0b02.

Simplenote/src/main/res/layout/reference_list_row.xml

theck13

Manually editing a "selected" link does not change the behavior of the open link app bar button

I updated the link text in 178a5f17.

Going back after following an internal link

That is expected behavior. If we added a note instance to a stack rather than replacing the current note with the linked note, we could get into two scenarios which may be confusing.

If an internote link is tapped on every note instance ten times, you would have to tap back ten times to get to the note list. That's not so bad when you tap a few internote links, but it may become more frustrating the more internote links you tap. Similarly, if Note A has an internote link to Note B and Note B has an internote link to Note A, tapping the internote links multiple times could make you lose track of where you are. Take the steps below for example.

Open Note A.
Tap internote link to Note B.
Tap internote link to Note A.
Tap internote link to Note B.
Tap internote link to Note A.
Tap internote link to Note B.
Tap internote link to Note A.

You may not remember how many times you tapped an internote link, which would require you to tap back indefinitely. It would be even more confusing since the same two notes would be shown on every tap. It would appear more like a bug than the intended behavior. We decided that's not the best user experience and opted to always show the note list when back is tapped.

Uninstalling Simplenote

I've never seen that even though I always have both debug and release apps installed on my device. If that happens again, we should investigate it some more.

Links not being detected

I haven't seen that behavior either. If the Detect links setting is enabled, links are always shown in the editor. I'm wondering if it's related to the uninstalling issue you had above. Maybe the build variant was set to release rather than debug and your settings were crossing somehow? One thing I have seen with links is that it may take a second or two to set the link spans when a note is first opened. That is due to two things; the note content is saved after a two-second debounce and linkifying large notes takes time. The linking after a two-second debounce usually happens when the note content is edited outside of the Android app and the server pushes the changes to Android. In that case, the content is updated in the editor and the links are refreshed with the content. The linking of large notes is a known issue without a known solution. Parsing a large amount of content and linkifying it has been a performance issue for a long time.

Simplenote/src/main/java/com/automattic/simplenote/NotesActivity.java

Simplenote/src/main/java/com/automattic/simplenote/models/Reference.java

theck13 · 2020-09-17T15:09:42Z

Simplenote/src/main/res/layout/reference_list_row.xml

+    android:background="?attr/selectableItemBackground"
+    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
+    android:layout_width="match_parent"
+    android:orientation="vertical"


Correct. That was probably just a copy/paste error. I remove the attribute in 1be0b02.

Simplenote/src/main/res/layout/reference_list_row.xml

mchowning

Updates look good, and everything is working as expected! 🎉

We decided that's not the best user experience and opted to always show the note list when back is tapped.

I figured that was an intentional decision. Thanks for sharing the thinking behind it. 👍

I'm wondering if [the links not being linkified is] related to the uninstalling issue you had above.

That wouldn't surprise me.

One thing I have seen with links is that it may take a second or two to set the link spans when a note is first opened.

I've observed that, but I'm pretty confident that's not what I saw in this case.

theck13 added 13 commits September 9, 2020 16:19

Update linkify link pattern from preferences to note

b5dd817

Add copy link action to note list in multi-select mode

d7fbeee

Add copy internal link action to note overflow menu

3040aa4

Add open link action to internote link selection in note editor

6d451e7

Update open link action for large devices in landscape orientation

6d32ae2

Update action mode to reset subtitle when destroyed

724a774

Add opening internote link from markdown view

920a047

Add internote link autocomplete to note editor

516cfa7

Add inbound internote link reference list to info bottom sheet dialog

5e3c880

Update info bottom sheet dialog peek height to half screen height

70fef03

Move editor tab references from hard-coded values to static constants

4fc537e

Update view map string resources from sentence to title case

d40ba4e

theck13 added [Type] Enhancement Improve existing functionality. [status] needs code review [status] needs design review labels Sep 10, 2020

theck13 added this to the 2.11 milestone Sep 10, 2020

Add description to release notes for adding linking between notes

a7ccc74

theck13 marked this pull request as ready for review September 10, 2020 04:58

theck13 requested review from AmandaRiu, SylvesterWilmott, anitaa1990 and mchowning September 10, 2020 04:58

theck13 added 2 commits September 11, 2020 08:48

Revert "Add internote link autocomplete to note editor"

e85ff49

This reverts commit 516cfa7.

Add missing import statement for widget utils

c0974a7

theck13 added 3 commits September 11, 2020 10:06

Update background attribute in reference list row layout

891981c

Update title attribute of link action in bulk edit menu

ac8d09f

Remove unused word and character count methods from info bottom sheet…

8120f1f

… dialog

SylvesterWilmott approved these changes Sep 15, 2020

View reviewed changes

SylvesterWilmott removed the [status] needs design review label Sep 15, 2020

mchowning self-assigned this Sep 17, 2020

mchowning reviewed Sep 17, 2020

View reviewed changes

theck13 added 4 commits September 17, 2020 08:43

Update view link action from link url to link text in note editor

178a5f1

Add break statement to scroll to selected note method

70bc962

Add comment describing class and variables to reference class

d05263b

Remove orientation attribute from reference list row layout

1be0b02

theck13 commented Sep 17, 2020

View reviewed changes

mchowning approved these changes Sep 17, 2020

View reviewed changes

mchowning removed the [status] needs code review label Sep 17, 2020

mchowning merged commit 991b24c into develop Sep 17, 2020

mchowning deleted the add-internote-linking branch September 17, 2020 16:00

theck13 unassigned mchowning Sep 17, 2020

Add Internote Linking #1145

Add Internote Linking #1145

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theck13 commented Sep 10, 2020 • edited Loading Uh oh! There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.

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Fix

Test

Copy Internal Note Links

Open Linked Notes

List Inbound Linked Notes

Review

Release

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SylvesterWilmott commented Sep 11, 2020

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Manually editing a "selected" link does not change the behavior of the open link app bar button

Going back after following an internal link

Strangeness I experienced unrelated to this PR

Uninstalling Simplenote

Links not being detected

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mchowning Sep 17, 2020

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theck13 Sep 17, 2020

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theck13 commented Sep 10, 2020 •

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