Change spaces or %20 in padnames to underscores, and back to space when showing as page title

[Wikinaut]

Change spaces (in user-entered padnames or urls) to underscore characters, and vice versa when showing as page title /pad2.js, timeslider.html).

This avoids breaking urls when saving or e-mailing them, if the user has spaces in padnames.

Example: a pad name such as "My first pad" or My%20first%20pad" is to be rewritten as "My_first_pad". Both versions are internally treated as My_first_pad only.

1. http://www.example.com/p/My first%20pad ==> treat internally as http://www.example.com/p/My_first_pad .
2. when pad is shown, show HTML page title as "My first pad"

[JohnMcLear]

+1

-----Original Message-----
From: Wikinaut [mailto:reply@reply.github.com]
Sent: 19 November 2011 10:11
To: John McLear
Subject: [etherpad-lite] Change spaces or %20 in padnames to underscores, and back to space when showing as page title (#215)

Change spaces (in user-entered padnames or urls) to underscore characters, and vice versa when showing as page title /pad2.js, timeslider.html).

This avoids breaking urls when saving or e-mailing them, if the user has spaces in padnames.

Example: a pad name such as "My first pad" or My%20first%20pad" is to be rewritten as "My_first_pad". Both versions are internally treated as My_first_pad only.

1. http://www.example.com/p/My first%20pad ==> treat internally as http://www.example.com/p/My_first_pad .
2. when pad is shown, show HTML page title as "My first pad"

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[jhollinger]

A few thoughts/questions:

Lots of the space-in-name-replacing systems I've seen (blogs, CMSes) use hyphens instead of underscores. (Wiki's I suppose are an exception.) Any objections to "My-first-pad?" Personally I think it's easier to read.

I assume the API should have the same behavior?

What about pre-existing pads with spaces in their names? I would think they should remain accessible.

[Wikinaut]

As a MediaWiki developer, I am biased to the method - and like it - MediaWiki behaves: spaces are replaced by underscores.

However, I see your point regrading that a "-" sign may be better readible. But, then, every "-" in padnames will be replaced by spaces in the HTML page title, which is a negative side-effect.

Example: (my proposal)
user entered "negative side-effekt"
padname, and stored padname will become "negative_side-effect"
HTML page title becomes "negative side-effect | Etherpad lite"
(My patch will also change the HTML title: first the padname, then the program name.
Reason: to show the padname in the browser's Tab and not the program name)

(your proposal)
padname, and stored padname will become "negative-side-effect"
i.e. looses information
HTML page title becomes "negative-side-effect | Etherpad lite"

I am in favour of to the MediaWiki method, i.e. substituting spaces and %20 by underscore, leaving "-" unchanged.

Regarding the compatibility with pre-existing pads: Yes, you are right. I already considered, but did not mention this (introduction of the space-underscore conversion should be compatible with existing pads and must not influence their accessibility).

[jhollinger]

@Wikinaut That's a convincing argument, I think I might give it a shot.

Something else just occurred to me. Since a pad named "old pad" remains available after the proposed change, what should "old_pad" resolve to: a) the original "old pad", or b) a new pad named "old_pad?" Unless anyone feels strongly, I think I'll go with B since it's probably cleaner code, and I think people are unlikely to manually type the _'s anyway.

[jhollinger]

Okay I've got a demo of this change running at http://etherpad-test.jordanhollinger.com/. There's an old pad with a space in it - "test 1" that should remain accessible. Everything else should automatically put in a _. I'd appreciate some testing on it. (I haven't updated the API to behave the same way, yet, but I'll get to that.)

After much debate I decided to use redirects to actually rewrite "/p/a new pad" to "/p/a_new_pad". In short, it resulted in a much smaller changeset. I can go into more detail if anyone thinks that's a bad idea.

Thanks! Let me know if anything seems broken. On, and here's the diff for the curious https://github.com/jhollinger/etherpad-lite/commit/d24f2beeb632d32ebade2c3594ecba781bc3fc84

[jhollinger]

If the redirect is adopted, it should be noted that use of proxy_redirect (or its Apache equiv) would be needed if the ep-lite instance is running under something other than /. E.g.

  location /etherpad/ {
    rewrite /etherpad/?(.+)  /$1  break;
    proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:9001;
    proxy_redirect / /etherpad/;
    proxy_buffering off;
  }

[jhollinger]

Fixed some bugs, API is resolving "a new pad" to "a_new_pad" now. The API change is pretty straightforward, but the key is UrdBfgceHYDZs4yr1rQ12rVOzo31XfEW if anyone cares to test it.

If I don't find anything wrong in the next day or two I'll probably submit a pull request.

[Pita]

this is done, thx to @jhollinger