Getting `MarkupError: Expected markup style value` if title contains square brackets

[anuarkaliyev23]

On starting braindrop I got MarkupError: Expected markup style value (found '...(omitted)]'
I believe it is due to square bracket being unescaped, since title of link has a square brackets in it.
Locally seems to be fixed on adding escape in src/braindrop/app/widgets/raindrop_details.py as shown in this diff

class RaindropDetails(VerticalScroll):
             self._set(
                 "collection",
                 f"{PUBLIC_ICON if self.data.collection(self.raindrop.collection).public else PRIVATE_ICON}"
-                f" {self.data.collection(self.raindrop.collection).title}",
+                f" {escape(self.data.collection(self.raindrop.collection).title)}",
             )

I will create a PR with a fix.
First-time braindrop user and superficial Python user hence waiting on your validation of said issue — please tell me if I got something wrong

Thanks!

[davep]

Good spot! Thanks for flagging it up and for the fix. Wee bit busy just at the moment but that looks like the right fix and I'll merge it and get a release done once I have a free moment.

[davep]

Checking this out now, and I can't actually recreate the issue. I also note that you say that it's the title of a link that has the unescaped [ but the fix you're suggesting is for the display of the title of the collection of the bookmark, in the details panel, which is a different thing.

On top of this, if I try and recreate what you're seeing, I can't actually get the problem to occur; there is no crash.

Do you think you could give some more details about how you've installed Braindrop, the environment you're using it in, etc?

While I do think we need to add a wee bit more escape round the place (Textual had some changes to what handles markup where, and what is a problem or not, a while back) I can't recreate your problem and I'd like to be totally sure what it is.

[anuarkaliyev23]

Yes, of course:
I use it on M1 Mac machine
MacOS version: Sonoma 14.1.2
Braindrop version: v0.8.2

I installed it via brew following instructions in README.md

brew tap davep/homebrew
brew install braindrop

I successfully launched it, generated API Key in raindrop and after pasting it I kept seeing crashes with the message I provided earlier with visual tracebacks. Link indeed had brackets in title and I thought that there is some issue with escaping (and since Exception had only one bracket in message, it omitted first bracket). It was of a format MarkupError: Expected markup style value (found <text from title without opening bracket>] with a singular closing bracket

After that I cloned your repository and tried to find something linked with title and escape it. After that I launched local version with python -m braindrop it and I started to see downloading progress bar (since my token was already set by brew version of braindrop, I think).

At that point I concluded that this must be a resolution for this problem and opened an issue in GH. Since I thought, that I came up with a solution already and fix was supposed to be a one-liner, I didn't include full logs thinking that issue is very simple. It wasn't very wise, I'm sorry.
I also didn't try to just start the project after cloning to see if problem will be reproduced before my local changes adding an escape, which in hindsight is not ideal also

Main caveat is — I am now also cannot replicate original problem. I also now see, that several of my bookmarks have square brackets in titles and it seems strange since traceback always was specific to a singular bookmark. I tried to Logout, uninstall braindrop and cleaning $XDG_CONFIG_HOME. It seems that now braindrop is working without previous problem, after I paste my token I see no crash and previous traceback, but I do see message that says that local file format has changed; rebuilding from the server, so there might be some state left behind which I haven't cleaned properly.

I continue to try to replicate this issue, just wanted to give feedback asap

[davep]

Cool, that's all useful information. And please don't apologise for not having included more up front; your conclusion was a reasonable one.

I suspect that it's down to a mixture of more escaping being needed in the code, combined with whatever version of Textual got installed as part of it.

Let's keep your PR anyway (I'll merge tomorrow when I get a moment) and also look for anything else that needs an escape.

[anuarkaliyev23]

I reproduced an error, but in a very strange way — I located the "anomaly" link that was in all tracebacks and I am now getting a crash with the same traceback on just selecting(!) the link itself in a collection view

I'm afraid that link and its content (including title) is sensitive and I cannot share it directly. Traceback is being copied with a bunch of delimiter characters, so it's easier to include screenshot

Title has 105 characters, including unicode, spaces, square brackets and commas, but I don't see anything unusual in it. I checked in raindrop and link is working adequately. There are many bookmarks/raindrops with similar character count (including bigger ones) and symbols in them, following roughly same format that do not produce this problem

[davep]

That's helpful, and interesting. That does show in the traceback that it's during the rendering of the title -- which as you can see in the code is already escaped. It's possible this is a bug in Textual.

Is there any chance that you can provide me with a version of the title that causes the problem but which doesn't contain sensitive information? That would be really helpful to getting to the bottom of this.

[anuarkaliyev23]

I think there is a pattern — I checked several links that I have in a similar format with the same result, they all giving similar errors on selection.

Issue seems being reproduced mostly in cases where link title is ended with a square brackets with commas and spaces inside those brackets.
Cases when they are in start or in the middle seem to be more stable, but I don't have enough examples in own library to be absolutely sure

Examples of titles, that produce error

• This is some text [one, two, three, four]
• This is some text | This is some text [one, two, <-- unclosed bracket
• This is some text [one, two, three] this is some text
• This is some text [one](one) - text
• This is text [one] This is text <-- Inconsistent

Examples of titles, that didn't produce same error:

• [Text] This is some text [one, two, three] text here (!?)
• This is some text (this is some text) [one two]
• This is some text (one, two, three)
• This is some text — this is text — this is text
• [one] This is some text
• This is some text [one two three / four]
• One two three |
• This is text [one two three] This is text
• This is text [one] This is text <-- Inconsistent

So it's not very consistent, but having some commas inside square brackets mostly in the end seems to be pretty good indicator that I'll have problems selecting it

UPD:
Creating new raindrop (inside the braindrop or otherwise) with the title This is text [2025] some other text - trying text seem to be effective in reproducing the problem. I used https://google.com as link, since it was required to have a link.

Error now is read as MarkupError: Expected markup style value (found '2025] some other text - trying text').

[anuarkaliyev23]

Also, I think I found the reason of why I got braindrop to crash on my first launch
Now, trying to create new bookmarks with problematic titles, I found out that it will crash braindrop if problematic link/title will be the first in collection view (hence automatically selected)

So this explains why I couldn't reproduce an error — I got new bookmarks which could be selected without crash and somehow in the process got braindrop to redownload without opening collection view with problematic title selected/highlighted. After update/Redownload it all "just worked", hence my inability to cause the same issue even after reinstalling — order of titles was different and problematic ones weren't first in list

[davep]

I suspect there's something else going on here. I've just tried a couple of the titles you say caused the error and they work fine for me:

I think I know what might be going on now. I looks like I've not refreshed the Homebrew recipe for braindrop, and so it was still pinned to an older buggy version of Textual that would throw this error.

I've updated the Homebrew recipe. Can you please try updating and seeing how that works for you?