@Mentions TODO

[lukebarnard1]

So far, mentions look like this:

There are a few things left to do on them before we release:

• Rooms that the client hasn't seen are not populated with an avatar. EDIT: this is non-trivial because there isn't an API for #room-alias -> room avatar. The directory stuff could be modified to work for exact matches on the alias, but ultimately this is a spec/server change.
• Various issues with /commands Completions when composing commands #4762
• Draft-js has a bug that has caused quoting to regress. Always use message body when quoting matrix-org/matrix-react-sdk#1279
• /join #alias doesn't work if the operand is tab-completed Cannot /join an auto-completed room alias #4676 Fix /join #alias command in markdown mode matrix-org/matrix-react-sdk#1254
• When autocompleting, insert MD entity (#someroom)[https://matrix.to/...] (Pills should not display the completions inserted, but rather the actual room alias / user display name) Insert MD links when autocompleting in MD mode matrix-org/matrix-react-sdk#1238
• Users who aren't in the room that they are mentioned in should have their pill populated using /profile API (Get user pill profile remote data and show unrecognised rooms as links matrix-org/matrix-react-sdk#1246)
• Unknown rooms in the timeline should look the same as unrecognised rooms in the RTE these should look like links.
• Don't send MD mentions of users in plaintext body (Matrix.to links in new highlights matrix-org/matrix-appservice-irc#477). This will effectively mean stripping out markdown links before sending if they match the matrix.to user URL and leaving the textual contents. (Strip MD user mentions from the body of sent messages matrix-org/matrix-react-sdk#1242)
• When populating timeline pills, prevent abuse by always inserting known display names for users and canonical aliases for rooms this is now done by the composer (Insert MD links when autocompleting in MD mode matrix-org/matrix-react-sdk#1238) but we should also do this in the timeline.
• Clicking someone still inserts the plain "someone:" Insert pill onClick of timeline profile matrix-org/matrix-react-sdk#1239
• Mention highlighting Add mx_UserPill_me class to user pills that match credentials.userId matrix-org/matrix-react-sdk#1234
  
• Fix the kerning matrix-org/matrix-react-sdk@ccf5d6f

[ara4n]

Some more thoughts:

• The space between the avatar and the first letter of the pill should be increased by 1px matrix-org/matrix-react-sdk@ccf5d6f
• Mentions with a colourless pill should have the spacing of the pill removed entirely (which is basically the 'fix the kerning' issue above) to avoid the invisible pill adding in lots of whitespace matrix-org/matrix-react-sdk@ccf5d6f
• If the first thing you type in the composer is a mention, one should still append :<space> to it, like we used to pre-RTE Implement old composer feature that inserts ': ' or ' ' matrix-org/matrix-react-sdk#1237
• We should probably have an option in UserSettings to hide avatars from mentions in the timeline - I can see the hardcore IRC contingent getting distraught at having little faces everywhere... Add optional setting for hiding avatars in <Pill>s matrix-org/matrix-react-sdk#1277

[ara4n]

• Ability to create room mentions for arbitrary room aliases. Perhaps hitting tab after something that looks like a #user:domain.tld should turn it into a pill?

[t3chguy]

it seems like seequ means that rooms which were not known by the recipient were not made into pills

[ara4n]

• Consider removing disambiguation when rendering pills? (We'd keep it in the line format for compatibility with clients which don't understand mentions, but when we render the mention we could replace it with the current displayname for the user, and rely on hoverovers for disambiguation - a bit like we will be doing for flair) Remove disambiguation from user mentions, add tooltip for mxid matrix-org/matrix-react-sdk#1245
• Show pills for rooms even if the receiving client doesn't know about the existence of that room (seequ's bug mentioned above by @t3chguy) Get user pill profile remote data and show unrecognised rooms as links matrix-org/matrix-react-sdk#1246

[uhoreg]

Consider removing disambiguation when rendering pills?

One possible way to do that is to wrap the disambiguation in a span with a special class (e.g. <a href="https://matrix.to/...">uhoreg<span class="mxid_disambiguation"> (@uhoreg:matrix.org)</span></a>), so that clients that understand the new mention syntax can just span.mxid_disambiguation { display: none; }

[turt2live]

other options could be to make it an attribute on the pre-existing node, or to just throw it into the event content (although that might be a bit dirty?)

[lukebarnard1]

To prevent abuse, we should be replacing the text content of the mentions with the actual display name or room alias of the resource linked anyway. It would be at that point where we would consider not inserting the disambiguation.

In terms of the implementation,

wrap the disambiguation in a span with a special class

would be done at the point we insert the disambiguation (after the message has been received) so perhaps we could just not insert it (and make that conditional on a user setting perhaps?) Not to mention allowing certain class names would be a bit weird during sanitisation.

make it an attribute on the pre-existing node, or to just throw it into the event content (although that might be a bit dirty?)

the receiving client has enough information to do the disambiguation itself so this feels redundant (although it's possible the client doesn't know about mentions (see next comment)). And yes, quite dirty 😛

[lukebarnard1]

We'd keep it in the line format for compatibility with clients which don't understand mentions, but when we render the mention we could replace it with the current displayname for the user, and rely on hoverovers for disambiguation - a bit like we will be doing for flair)

SGTM, and we will be replacing the pill text anyway to prevent abuse.

[lukebarnard1]

arbitrary room aliases.

Does it matter if there's no avatar? Currently there's no API for mapping #alias -> avatar

[ara4n]

it's not a huge problem; bit of a shame though.

[resynth1943]

I have another problem, but I'm not sure if it's covered (search didn't help):

If you mention people in the composer, then enter another key, the src attributes of the mention pills are re-set, making them load again.

I'm relatively sure browsers don't do an identity check on old and new src attributes, so any src set (regardless of identity) will end up re-requesting the image.

Would anyone like me to take a look at this?

[MadLittleMods]

Closing as the last item in the issue description todo list is covered by #16981

@resynth1943 Please create a new separate issue if you're still seeing problem ⏩