Impress URL Recognition

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domesticatedzebra
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Impress URL Recognition

Post by domesticatedzebra »

I have an Impress presentation with a slide that contains the URLs of various websites.
I noticed that Impress is able to recognize URLs of the form www.apache.org, but not other URL formats, like java.oracle.com.
The slide is attached for your reference.
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RoryOF
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Re: Impress URL Recognition

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Use /Insert /Hyperlink; you have more intelligence than Impress
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lalithr312
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Re: Impress URL Recognition

Post by lalithr312 »

I'm pretty sure they're asking us to make AOO smarter by improving the URL recognition code.
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orcmid
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Re: Impress URL Recognition

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lalithr312 wrote:I'm pretty sure they're asking us to make AOO smarter by improving the URL recognition code.
Thanks for opening this as an issue on the bugzilla.

I tend to prefer Rory's perspective.

The problem is that those are not assured to be URLs, even though it is popular to publish web addresses without the actual URL scheme information (i.e., the http:// or https://, etc.). Some software projects have decided that automatically converting from one to the other is helpful. However, this does not take into the account when that is a false-positive detection.

Using the Insert > Hyperlink provision gives the author complete control and it will always be what the author intends, however they name the text that has a link via a legitimate URL behind it. When an email reader is designed to make automatic inferences, that has only local consequences, generally. (And it will usually work better with the full URL in those cases too.) For Impress, that is an authoring decision, not a presentation decision.

If the popular treatment were made broadly automatic, I suppose the avenue for expert authors is turning it off under Tools > AutoCorrect > Options > URL Recognition. There are two questions then,

1. Should the URL Recognition option be on or off by default (it is on by default now)?

2. Should we really expand the cases for inference that non-URLs be turned into links and guessing what the URL is to be or stick with the notion that www.mumble.peg is very likely to be OK turned into a link that uses the URL http://www.mumble.peg but not leap to such conclusions for other variations?
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orcmid
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Re: Impress URL Recognition

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orcmid wrote: 2. Should we really expand the cases for inference that non-URLs be turned into links and guessing what the URL is to be or stick with the notion that http://www.mumble.peg is very likely to be OK turned into a link that uses the URL http://www.mumble.peg but not leap to such conclusions for other variations?
Bugzilla Issue 126946, https://bz.apache.org/ooo/show_bug.cgi?id=126946, has more about this. For example, the AutoCorrect feature also converts texts like orcmid@apache.org into links that have mailto URLs behind them. It appears that any of these that are not desired can be revoked using the context (right-click) menu "Remove Hyperlink" selection. If they are noticed during authoring.

PS: Note that in the quoted comment, the forum fails to recognize http:// as something deserving a link, but it makes one for https:// and either is most peculiar.
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Re: Impress URL Recognition

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Consider someone who is using the OO API, and has many entries of the form comp.sun.star.something.or.other. this person will not wish them autoconverted into URLs. My instinct is that only full URLs, prefixed with htp://, https;//, ftp:// etc should be autoconverted.

But I admit I'm getting grouchy - there is a whole generation who expect their computer to read their mind and to think for them; I await some major disaster caused by this - I only hope I am not in the middle of it as an unsuspecting victim..
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Re: Impress URL Recognition

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RoryOF wrote:Consider someone who is using the OO API, and has many entries of the form comp.sun.star.something.or.other. this person will not wish them autoconverted into URLs. My instinct is that only full URLs, prefixed with htp://, https;//, ftp:// etc should be autoconverted.

But I admit I'm getting grouchy - there is a whole generation who expect their computer to read their mind and to think for them;
I think casual users see the abbreviated formats thought to be URLs without any experience of those forms for non-URLs, so the auto-correction is seen as something that can be universally applied. Since products pander to this by presenting such forms with automatically-provided links, we now have to content with this being requested in authoring tools, not just presentation (e.g., email clients and forum software).

It falls to users having different concerns to disable the particular auto-correction.

PS: I thought I entered http://www.mumble.peg in my comment. Did I get it wrong or did the Forum actually rewrite it in the quotation?
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Re: Impress URL Recognition

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orcmid wrote:PS: I thought I entered www.mumble.peg in my comment. Did I get it wrong or did the Forum actually rewrite it in the quotation?
Hilarious. Even though I enter "www . mumble . peg" (without the spaces) and the preview shows just that much (but with a link), by the time I submit the post, it is changed to "http://www.mumble.peg" and with the link. I don't think I can control this.

Is there a way of using the URL button in BBCode to control this?
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Re: Impress URL Recognition

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orcmid wrote:
orcmid wrote:PS: I thought I entered http://www.mumble.peg in my comment. Did I get it wrong or did the Forum actually rewrite it in the quotation?
Hilarious. Even though I enter "www . mumble . peg" (without the spaces) and the preview shows just that much (but with a link), by the time I submit the post, it is changed to "http://www.mumble.peg" and with the link. I don't think I can control this.

Is there a way of using the URL button in BBCode to control this?
If you use FullEditor or PostReply buttons (not QuickReply), you have an options tab at the bottom which allows "Do not automatically parse URLs" and other options. Because I am at Moderator level I don't know which of these are available to ordinary users, so I do not enumerate them. These can be set as defaults in the Forum User Control Panel (Board preferences tabs) and the (some) selected defaults show on the right of your FullEditor or PostReply editor under the display of emoticons.

Also, the reply screens strip extra spaces, so you will sometimes note sample tabular data getting confused. If one must post sample tabular data or formatted sample data it is best to post it using code tags to preserve the formatting; these tags are available on FullEditor and PostReply screens, but can be manually inserted (on the fly) in QuickReply, as I think many regular posters do.
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Re: Impress URL Recognition

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RoryOF wrote:
orcmid wrote:Hilarious. Even though I enter "

Code: Select all

www . mumble . peg
" (without the spaces) and the preview shows just that much (but with a link), by the time I submit the post, it is changed to "http://www.mumble.peg" and with the link.
If you use FullEditor or PostReply buttons (not QuickReply), you have an options tab at the bottom which allows "Do not automatically parse URLs" and other options. [...] These can be set as defaults in the Forum User Control Panel (Board preferences tabs) and the (some) selected defaults show on the right of your FullEditor or PostReply editor under the display of emoticons.
My habit is to use the Quote button. What I see below the Smilies is some information about settings. BBCode is ON and has a link to the BBCode guide, where my question about how to use theURL button is answered.

I will see what I can do with my preferences. What is fascinating about the situation right here on the Forum is that it is a demonstration of some programming decision about what the intention is for any and all users and it becomes a mess. That the auto-creation of links appears not to be reversible, and happens after submission is even more thrilling. It is this sort of thing that would lead experts to turn off such functions, if possible, in order to have the necessary authoring control.

How we determine how much of this to make automatic for casual users is something for the community to reconcile, I think. But the one-size-fits-all approach and automatic link creation is a concern, especially if it is not easy to over-ride when the wired-in treatment conflicts with what is intended in a given case.
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Re: Impress URL Recognition

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orcmid wrote: My habit is to use the Quote button. What I see below the Smilies is some information about settings. BBCode is ON and has a link to the BBCode guide, where my question about how to use the URL button is answered used to make links behind selected text.

I will see what I can do with my preferences.
The "automatically parse URLs" option is not on my User Preferences. And apparently turning off BBCode does not work from my account when I do a quotation. I did turn it off but I still get an entry pane with "BBCODE is ON."

However, there is now an Options tab below the space for entering my reply (perhaps I have missed noticing it all this time?), and "Disable BBCode" is checked by default there now. I can also specify "Do not automatically parse URLs." So I have to do this every time if I do not want www.mumblety.peg to have an automatically created link.

This is sort of a rat's nest. I trust there is a better way to come out clean with the OpenOffice auto-correct treatment of links.
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Re: Impress URL Recognition

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I've just checked - on User Control Panel, Profile tab, Edit signature selection, one can choose to enter/edit a signature and choose default settings for "Disable BBCode", "Disable smilies" and "Do not automatically parse URLs". These are sticky.

Note: Profile tab - my previous comment was about Board Preferences tab.
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Re: Impress URL Recognition

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RoryOF wrote:User Control Panel, Profile tab, Edit signature selection, default settings for "Disable BBCode", "Disable smilies" and "Do not automatically parse URLs". These are sticky.
Great hiding place, that ;)
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Re: Impress URL Recognition

Post by lalithr312 »

RoryOF wrote:Consider someone who is using the OO API, and has many entries of the form comp.sun.star.something.or.other. this person will not wish them autoconverted into URLs. My instinct is that only full URLs, prefixed with htp://, https;//, ftp:// etc should be autoconverted.
There is a crucial difference-- comp.sun.star.something.or.other times out when you try to ping it.
So does www.mumble.peg, for that matter. :)
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Re: Impress URL Recognition

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Yes, but the URL recogniser is using only the appearance of the text when it formats the URL; it isn't pinging the possible URL to decide if it is an actual URL. If the recognition method was broadened to identify dot separated words as possible URLs, then the situation I outlined would apply. If the possible URL is identified with http:// or other known URL identifiers then there is no doubt.
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domesticatedzebra
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Re: Impress URL Recognition

Post by domesticatedzebra »

RoryOF wrote:But I admit I'm getting grouchy - there is a whole generation who expect their computer to read their mind and to think for them; I await some major disaster caused by this - I only hope I am not in the middle of it as an unsuspecting victim..
You're right. After all, little kids might stop watching Winnie the Pooh because they're too busy playing with their tablets. :roll:
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