Link field display should show plaintext URLs longer than 80 chars

No this a bug. I will provide a patch.

Change also settings summary.

Ok. I added a test.

To give more clarity about the new patch, I've Attached the interdiff between #9 and #12.

I just ran headlong into this one. If it's not a bug it's at least a major usability issue.

In my case the 80 character trim configuration was in place for some instances of the link field, but not in others and not in new ones that I created once I was aware of the issue. I will try to reproduce the issue on a fresh install.

I added the section "Steps to reproduce".

Added the state change again and also fix formatter summary.

Hello, thank you for looking at this issue.
I applied your patches for the core 9.3 and none of them worked.
Tried #18 and #25. Problem is still there.

UPDATE: This issue is only happening (with or without the patch applied) with "Separate Link text and URL format" is selected for the link in the form display. When just Link format is selected, the issue is gone. But there will be some updates needed in the twig file.

This patch will NOT truncate URL. If URL TITLE is NULL, it will use truncated URL as a TITLE.

I can confirm what #33 described. I have seen the same issue in a custom template where { content.field_link.0['#url_title'] } was used and it resulted in a trimmed URL being shown.

I can reproduce the issue with a fresh site install on 10.2 on the standard profile.

Adding a link field to the default Article content type and then configuring it on the content type's default display view mode shows the 80 character trim regardless of if it is the "Link" or "Separate link text and URL" option. It looks like this is defined as such in the respective plugins:

  /**
   * {@inheritdoc}
   */
  public static function defaultSettings() {
    return [
      'trim_length' => '80',
      'url_only' => '',
      'url_plain' => '',
      'rel' => '',
      'target' => '',
    ] + parent::defaultSettings();
  }

• LinkFormatter::defaultSettings
• LinkSeparateFormatter::defaultSettings

Digging into git history, it looks like this was added way back in 2013 at the early stages of Drupal 8 development. The issue doesn't have any clear reasons on why 80 characters is the default: https://www.drupal.org/project/drupal/issues/1796316

Back to the main topic: I agree that the default trim length causes more confusion than the good it does. This is especially relevant in REST views when you try to output a link, if your sample data doesn't result in a trim, it is hard to tell this will become a problem. I think removing it from the plugin defaults is a good idea.

1. The trim_length property is of integer type

trim_length:
      type: integer
      label: 'Trim link text length'

therefore default value is required in integer not string.

2. Assigned dafault value to

'trim_length' => 0

in LinkFormatter.php and LinkSeparateFormatter.php

3. Changed the '#min' => 1 to '#min' => 0 .

4. It solves the truncate issue and we can assign the 0 from the UI as well in the manage fields.

5. Raising the MR and attaching the patch as well for 11.x

Thanks

This kind of change will need test coverage.

I fixed the failing test and adjusted the link formatter test with an longer url and empty 'trim_length' value.
Can someone take a look at this?

Verified with the latest MR . In FE view the issue looks fixed and also the links redirect to correct page. Keeping it in Review state for further reviews

Testing steps:
1. Add Link type to any CT
2. Set the link display as separate link and text in display setings
3. Create a node and verify in FE

I git blamed this all the way to #501434: Move Link/URL field type into core where it appears the 80 was brought in when link module was merged in. Didn't see any discussion around it.

Believe making the change makes sense

Verified that existing link fields are unaffected by the change so no upgrade path needed.

New fields it works.

Added some questions on the MR. I think this change is a good idea, even better that it only changes new fields and not existing ones.

The questions on the MR was answered.

The default value/schema should be fixed in other issue. e.g. url_plain/url_only should be FALSE.

trim_length should be NULL, nullable in config schema, and int >= 1.

Tested this out on a standard install of 11.x
Added a link field to the Article content type
Didn't do anything special in the field settings
Went to view display and see that the link is not trimmed.

I git blamed the 80 trim all the way to #1796316: Convert Link/URL widgets / formatters to plugin system from 12 years ago and don't see any discussion around the use of 80 so believe the update should be fine and good quality of life improvement.

This only affect link fields when the plaintext option has been selected. I'm not sure that the 80 trim default is a bad default when you a displaying a link instead of plain text. I think the trim option should be disabled when you select plaintext because it is only in combination with the plaintext option that the trim option becomes destrcutive.

So is the current proposal

That 80 is left as is

If you check the two boxes like so

Then the trim should disappear?

@smustgrave when i Tested this on a standard install of 11.x and added a link field to the basic content type and i didn't do anything in the field settings then i got trimmed url and when i did changes in the field settings link check the 'Url only' and 'Show URL as plain text' with trim at 80 chars, in that case i also got the trimmed url.
But @alexpott when i tested the merge reuqest MR !6068 then i didn't get any trimmed url. And it's working fine.

The problem here is we're dealing with with a formatter that does two very different things.

• One is display the link in an anchor tag. Here the trim makes sense because you are not breaking the link.
• The other is to display the link as raw text - here the trim makes no sense whatsoever because you are breaking the link.

HEAD currently prioritise displaying as an anchor tag and this change prioritises displaying as a raw text. I think we should make the settings make sense depending on how you've chosen to display the link (raw vs anchor).

One is display the link in an anchor tag. Here the trim makes sense because you are not breaking the link.

I would argue that although the trim works within an anchor tag, it should definitely not be the default. On practically all sites I work on I have to modify this default (on each and every link field on each display mode). If we were implementing this new, there's no way we would choose to truncate by default (although it should still be an option)

Since I merged changes from 11.x, the current branch can no longer be applied to Drupal 10.x oder 11.1.x. Here is a patch.

The problem here is we're dealing with with a formatter that does two very different things.

Honestly, as I've been working on the Link module I've been thinking that I wish the plain text URL settings had been implemented as a completely separate formatter. I don't know that there's a way out of it now.

We can keep a default value for trimming, perhaps set it to a higher number.

Slack does trim a URL link text in form of http://www.example.com/content/articles/archive?[...]year=2012&month=february#com

This could be new option for URL only without entered title and disabled plain text.

The origin bug, can not be fixed when we just remove the default settings.

What I saw while fixing the test. We have a test which can not be configured via UI nor the formatter support it. (Case: url_only=false, url_plain=true)
I could remove it.

@alexpott thoughts?

Can this one get a rebase please.

MR rebased.

Hello,
Why do we have to trim the link url ?
As I can understand the formatter text "Link text trimmed to @limit characters", thought it would trim the link title ('#title'), and not the link url ('#url_title').
Who would agree this proposal ?

As I read the tests, I can check the results that only the text is trimmed, not the url value. hey seems to be OK.
See the files:

• core/modules/link/tests/src/Kernel/LinkSeparateFormatterDisplayTest.php
• core/modules/link/tests/src/Kernel/LinkFormatterDisplayTest.php

The Needs Review Queue Bot tested this issue. It fails the Drupal core commit checks. Therefore, this issue status is now "Needs work".

This does not mean that the patch necessarily needs to be re-rolled or the MR rebased. Read the Issue Summary, the issue tags and the latest discussion here to determine what needs to be done.

Consult the Drupal Contributor Guide to find step-by-step guides for working with issues.

Maybe this could be a change we just land in 12 if there's disruption concerns? But appears to be working as advertised.

I read the comments and the MR and updated credit. I didn't find any unanswered questions.

I also manually tested this and can confirm the change works.

A reminder to anyone testing a UI issue an uploading before and after screenshots. Those images need to be available from the issue summary to help reviewers and committers. Thanks.

Committed/pushed to main and 11.x, thanks!

While this is a bugfix it's a fairly obvious interface change for existing sites so I didn't backport it to 11.4.x - if someone feels strongly we could re-open but I given the issue has been open for seven years for me it's more important to get it into a release than a specific release.

Did my best with commit credit but this is quite a long issues so apologies for any omissions.