Remove truncation of path alias

I posted a PR.

Uploaded a patch file in case anyone needs an immutable version.

I am working on fixing the test failures.

I did some digging into the history and found that this truncation came from this issue https://www.drupal.org/project/drupal/issues/86461 which arbitrarily picked 50 characters for the truncation by the first person attempting to patch it.

There was no discussion as to how useless this would render the UI and no discussion of alternative like CSS to solve the problem instead of hiding the relevant data completely. The issue itself did suggest truncation OR wrapping but it was never discussed and truncation was the first patch that came in.

This patch adjusts the test to not look for truncation.

Thank you @skywriter and @smustgrave

Just to be sure that this patch does not make a breaking change, I created a 255 char long alias. It displays just fine in the list of aliases

Thanks @larowlan. Glad to see you came to the same archeological roots that I called out in comment #6.

That issue made a lot of reference to the method of truncation and what tests were needed, but little was done to address concerns like

@Dries saying

... Not sure this is the proper solution.

@David_Rothstein : saying

but can someone clarify why we are choosing 50 characters as the number to truncate at? That seems like an awfully small number.

That went unanswered and the 50 count just came from the original patch in the thread.
Until @Poker_10 commented a decade later

3. Reopen this for D9 to change the truncated length from 50 characters to another number

The problem is, the purpose of the Alias UI is to help you manage aliases. By truncating them to any level, we get in the way that purpose. In its current state, managing the aliases is like a child's game of memory.

Which of the 27 aliases that all look identical is the one I really want?
Click.
Not that one.
Click.
Not that one either.
Click.
Nope.
{frustration builds}
Click.
Yay, I finally found the right one.

The way I read the thread of the original issue, the usability of the page was never considered, or at least not discussed. We took a usable interface and made it less useful but slightly more pretty.

I also think there are Accessibility concerns introduced in the original issue too because the link title was made the same as the next column (the system path). So anyone using screen readers is presented with not enough information (due to the truncation) and they also get to hear the system path read twice back to back.

Listen to it with a screen reader, it is annoying.

That is not to say that this issue does not need usability review. I agree that it does and by essentially rolling back #86461 we are undoing the usability review that was never done on that issue.

Sample html without truncation

<td><a href="/2021-post-911-gi-bill-chapter-33-rates" title="/node/39676">/2021-post-911-gi-bill-chapter-33-rates</a></td>
<td><a href="/2021-post-911-gi-bill-chapter-33-rates" title="/node/39676">/node/39676</a></td>

Based on what maggiewachs has identified, it sounds like we should be doing this

<td>
  <a href="/2021-post-911-gi-bill-chapter-33-rates">/2021-post-911-gi-bill-chapter-33-rates</a>
</td>
<td>
  <a href="/node/39676">/node/39676</a>
</td>

This includes:

1. Removing the title attributes from both alias link and system path link.
2. Making the system href use the system path rather than the alias.*

* Yes this system path should lead to the alias version via a rewrite but sometimes there are redirects that interfere so this allows testing that in the UI.

Here is an immutable patch file from the PR.

Proof of life

 <tr class="odd">
        <td><a href="/2021-post-911-gi-bill-chapter-33-rates">/2021-post-911-gi-bill-chapter-33-rates</a></td>
        <td><a href="/node/39676">/node/39676</a></td>
        <td class="priority-medium">English</td>
        <td>  <div class="dropbutton-wrapper"><div class="dropbutton-widget"> [Removed from this paste] </div></div></td>
</tr>

Example of untruncated output.

And here is the same output on a much narrower screen

Thanks @larowlan.

Crediting @larawlan because he gave great guidance on how to move this along. ;)

Added before and after screen caps to original.

Posted in the #UX channel.

I would call it a "Bug" because the Alias UI is intended to make make it possible to manage aliases effectively, and when we can't see the alias variations in a meaningful way, it prevents me from doing what I need to do.

This was presented at the #3350284: Drupal Usability Meeting 2023-04-07
That issue will have a link to a recording of the meeting.

For the record, the attendees at today's usability meeting were @benjifisher, @mgifford, @rkoller, @simohell, and @swirt.

Discussion on the call touched on whether this was fixing a bug, or just an improvement.
There was agreement that it borders on these bug criteria

• Incorrect or misleading user interface text. - This is considered because the system path link was href to the alias and not the system path.
• Usability issues that prevent people from using functionality (as if it didn't work at all). - Not fully useless as there is a workaround for sighted users by hovering over the truncated alias and have the browser surface the actual destination.
• Accessibility issues that prevent people from using functionality (as if it didn't work at all) - screen readers would not reveal the destination of the url so non-sighted users could not detect the actual alias by hovering over the truncated link.

Thank you both for reviewing and testing.

There were two reasons for this.
1. Having two visually different links that were the same destination in adjacent columns was misleading especially to visually impaired users since the links sound like different urls due to the anchor text, but are in fact the same href destination. (An accessibility concern)

2. There are times when a system link does not end up resolving to it's alias due to a redirect or some other rewiring. This allows the ability to verify where the actual system link resolves

@larowlan That aspect was discussed specifically on the Drupal Usability Meeting

Incorrect or misleading user interface text. - This is considered because the system path link was href to the alias and not the system path.

It received positive review from all in attendance. I tried to reference the meeting transcript or the recording but they have not been added yet #3350284

My vote would be not to separate it out as then this UI will still have have a significant accessibility issue.

Sounds good. I created #3362007: Make system path column more accurate and will break up this patch into two patches.

I updated the MR to remove the use of the actual system path. The system path is back the way it was, now only with the truncation removed.