Post to Twitter should not cut links when truncating post

[jaywink]

Post truncate if it is over maximum amount of chars cuts link if it happens to be there in the spot where the truncate wants to cut the text to.

Possible fixes;

1. Should add some logic to either make sure the whole link is removed in this case
2. Shorten link via bit.ly for example and fall back to 1) if it doesn't help

See this for example - link is destroyed by truncate: https://twitter.com/jaywink/status/343717220112793600

[jhass]

I'd go so far and consider that as a feature, I mean we still link back to the original post in that case.

[jaywink]

Yea I know we link back but with a bit of effort we can make the links in the post work as well. But feature tag is ok :)

[andrewcsmith]

Doesn't Twitter automatically detect and shorten links? So can't we just say that any link > 20 chars should be treated as just 20 chars?

I'll work on this if no one else has called it.

[Raven24]

@andrewcsmith well yes, we handle that in our code already. the problem is, when the link appears at the place in the post, where we would have to truncate it, so it doesn't exceed the maximum length - this is what happens here. the link is truncated, then sent to twitter, which shortens an already broken link...

[goobertron]

Can we, when sending posts to Twitter:

1. Detect any links in the post.
2. Count the number of characters in that link.
3. Replace that figure with 20, and calculate the total length of the post on that basis.
4. Only truncate the post and add a link to the original if it still exceeds 140 characters.

Obviously this process would need to be done separately for each link if there is more than one link in the post.

If this can be done 'live' in the Twitter counter when composing the post, that would be even better!

[jaywink]

@goob, this already works like that (except the live part :)) - it was
recently fixed. The problem is not the length of the post, but that
sometimes D* while truncating the post kills links in the middle. Just a
safety relating to that needs to be added, the logic for the actual
truncation of the post works already.

On 25 July 2013 14:21, goobertron notifications@github.com wrote:

Can we, when sending posts to Twitter:

1. Detect any links in the post.
2. Count the number of characters in that link.
3. Replace that figure with 20, and calculate the total length of the
   post on that basis.
4. Only truncate the post and add a link to the original if it still
   exceeds 140 characters.

Obviously this process would need to be done separately for each link if
there is more than one link in the post.

If this can be done 'live' in the Twitter counter when composing the post,
that would be even better!

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Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com//issues/4211#issuecomment-21547567
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[goobertron]

Thanks Jay (and thanks goob for correcting the notification). Apologies, I obviously misunderstood. I was responding to the last two posts in the thread, which seemed to be pointing out a problem for which I proposed a solution. I realised you'd recently solved the truncating issue, but thought this must be a new problem. Thanks for your response.

[andrewcsmith]

Anyone on this? I just finally finished up the initial Wordpress integration, and could work on this if it's free. Shouldn't be too hard.

[jaywink]

@andrewcsmith go for it :)

[andrewcsmith]

oh hey. finally got around to it! Check it out: #4384