Tags datatype - javascript error when including a space char in the 'tag group' name

[jono-k]

Which Umbraco version are you using? (Please write the exact version, example: 10.1.0)

10.2.1

Bug summary

Creating a Tags datatype with a space in the tag group name causes a javascript error when adding tags, and the tags aren't correctly saved. This is the js error when clicking on the property and creating a tag. Also happens when clicking into the tag field and then clicking somewhere else in the screen to remove focus:

angular.js:15697 TypeError: Cannot read properties of undefined (reading 'typeahead')
    at umbTagsEditorController.addTag (umbraco.directives.min.js?d=cfbce5a138cd15f23da237e5c8f8a98394e3a527:1:266252)
    at fn (eval at compile (angular.js:16548:15), <anonymous>:4:162)
    at e (angular.js:29123:13)
    at b.$eval (angular.js:19523:16)
    at b.$apply (angular.js:19622:20)
    at HTMLInputElement.<anonymous> (angular.js:29127:13)
    at HTMLInputElement.dispatch (jquery.min.js?d=cfbce5a138cd15f23da237e5c8f8a98394e3a527:2:43064)
    at v.handle (jquery.min.js?d=cfbce5a138cd15f23da237e5c8f8a98394e3a527:2:41048)
(anonymous) @ angular.js:15697
(anonymous) @ angular.js:11956
$apply @ angular.js:19627
(anonymous) @ angular.js:29127
dispatch @ jquery.min.js?d=cfbce5a138cd15f23da237e5c8f8a98394e3a527:2
v.handle @ jquery.min.js?d=cfbce5a138cd15f23da237e5c8f8a98394e3a527:2

Specifics

No response

Steps to reproduce

Create a tags datatype, enter a tag group name consisting of 2 words that includes a space.
Add the datatype to a document type, create a node and then click in the tag property.
Add a tag, or click out of the tag property, and a javascript error appears in the console.

Expected result / actual result

No response

[github-actions]

Hi there @jono-k!

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[jannikanker]

I am seeing this also, on a fresh 10.2.1 install. Will see if I can also reproduce on 10.3 and if so, I'll see if I can figure out what's going on (and might even try to fix it) :-)

[jannikanker]

Yup, same error on 10.3-RC. Investigating now.

[jannikanker]

Okay, so it's failing because we're using the group name as part of the source "name" for typeahead. According to https://github.com/twitter/typeahead.js/blob/master/doc/jquery_typeahead.md#datasets the name "must only consist of underscores, dashes, letters (a-z), and numbers."

So, the question is - what's the best way to fix this? I think there should be a regex validator of sorts on the tags group name property, but I'm thinking that could be a breaking change (or at least break the backwards compatibility).

We could maybe try and do a replaceAll on the name when it's set in the controller here - but that could lead to weird issues as well.

Maybe @nul800sebastiaan can advise here? Or knows someone who can? :-P I'll be happy to help implementing whatever we come up with.

Although... How long might that error have been around? If, say, using group names with spaces hasn't ever worked (or rather never been supported), do we need to worry about breaking anything?

[soreng]

@jannikanker it seems that the name should just be distinct for the sources being passed on - it dosen't seem to be used afterwards

Maybe a solution could be to just replace everything not "underscores, dashes, letters (a-z), and numbers" with an underscore, since there is only a single source.

[markadrake]

Is there a performance benefit of initializing multiple instances with the same name? If so, we could possibly use getSafeAlias on vm.config.group.

getSafeAlias

Otherwise, I'd suggest swapping vm.config.group for something else - such as the alias of the current property. Something we know will already meet these requirements.

[jannikanker]

@markadrake not a bad shout at all to use getSafeAlias.

I may have gotten this wrong, but say there's one group called "group 1" and another called "group1", defined in separate datatypes. Whichever way we replace the illegal characters the typeahead will then look for suggestions in both groups, right? That's not what I would call expected behavior :-/

Hence the suggestion to validate the field value itself, so that if there are multiple groups with the same name, it would be somewhat apparent to the user if they check their tags datatypes.

Maybe we should do both, to ensure that things don't break as they do now even with invalid group names from older versions, risking some "wrong" typeahead suggestions.

[jannikanker]

I think I'll just do a PR for getting a safe alias for the name put into the typeahead component. For now - I can't properly grep the consequences nor figure out how to add a custom validator to the group name in the tags editor, so... I am, however, on a currently very spotty hotel wifi, so it's not that easy :-D

[nul800sebastiaan]

So while reviewing @jannikanker's PR I noticed a js error every time I tried to do something, which is basically the reported error.

So for some reason typeahead is null at this point, but it doesn't matter if the tag group has a space in it or not, just any tag group that is not default doesn't work. The symptom is reproducible by using a tag editor with the group name green (for example!) and making a node with a few tags on it. Then create another node and observe in your browser's network tab that the tags you created are successfully pulled in:

But then when you start typing you don't get any autocomplete (you do when the tag eiditor is using the default tag group though).

I spent a few hours trying to debug but I can't for the life of me figure this out! Any additional help will be much appreciated 🙏

[jannikanker]

I can take another stab at it sometime next week, but if anyone else fancies taking a look feel free :-)

[kjac]

Seems this one has gone a bit stale, so I have created a fix in #13589

[nikolajlauridsen]

This has been fixed in the above PR and is heading for 10.4 and 11.1, so I'll go ahead and close this 😄