Tagging 1.2.1, need to parse a bit smarter

[ctrlbrk]

vb 3.8.5
db tagging 1.2.1

Problem:
An email address or URL can screw up the user tagging. If there is a user called "microsoft", and someone puts support@microsoft.com (or a URL, if I recall) in the body, the parser tries to tag the username @microsoft.

It needs to be just a bit smarter. It seems to be this can be accomplished by either detecting if it is the first character of the body (post begins with @ character), or if there was a proceeding space or whitespace. In other words, only tag @microsoft when it is a separate word (so look to see if there is a space/whitespace before the @). If there is an [a-z][0-9] or . or some other character before the @, don't parse it. I think the exception is perhaps a comma. Many people use a comma after the @tagging, but I am talking about before the @ sign.

Something to consider. This has caused a few problems on my board.

Mike

 

[Fillip H.]

The next version will have an option of re-adding the ; delimiter as a requirement to parse mentions. For boards that have usernames like these, this is recommended. It's sadly impossible to account for every kind of eventuality

 

[ctrlbrk]

I won't be using the ; delimiter. Too many users don't understand it. I was very happy when you eliminated it, that is when I bought Pro.

Are you saying you disagree that testing for a space or whitespace before the @ is a good idea? Perhaps I haven't thought it through. Maybe there is a simpler way to solve it then. Is it possible to just let other bbcode take precedence, like email and url, and then only if the @tag hasn't already been surrounded by bbcode to add the mention tag?

Mike

 

[Fillip H.]

No not saying I disagree, but I'm not sure if we will ever be able to get it perfect, that's all

We will certainly look into adding options to let each admin customise their own experience (like requiring space / start of string) - so that people who have problems can try other options