links on code blocks in mobile

Stream: Zulip meta

[Kevin Buzzard]

Am I right in thinking that the desktop app offers the functionality (a small icon) to run code blocks in an external URL but the mobile app does not? Right now we have an external lean web editor which works fine on mobile, and jumping to it directly would be far more convenient than what I just did (copying an entire message, pasting it in a browser window and then deleting most of it manually leaving just the code)

[Scott Morrison]

Sounds accurate to me.

[Kevin Buzzard]

Jumping directly to code in the editor on mobile would be a really nice feature! I wonder if it would even help with the super annoying "I can't even read this code block posted on Zulip on my phone because some of the Unicode characters are presented as boxes" because then I'll be able to inspect the code in more ways.

[Jon Eugster]

If one of these two features for mobile could be added, that would help a lot being productive!

• Allowing playground links for code blocks or
• Allowing us to select and copy only parts of a message.

I don't see a way we could work around this from the web editor's side without zulip adding such features :thinking:

[Eric Wieser]

Kevin Buzzard said:

Jumping directly to code in the editor on mobile would be a really nice feature! I wonder if it would even help with the super annoying "I can't even read this code block posted on Zulip on my phone because some of the Unicode characters are presented as boxes" because then I'll be able to inspect the code in more ways.

I doubt it helps much, but maybe upvoting https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=764754 will help this get addressed

[Eric Wieser]

(Perhaps a zulip developer can confirm if they're using a web view in the mobile app, and therefore inheriting behavior from chromium)

[Alya Abbott]

Eric Wieser said:

(Perhaps a zulip developer can confirm if they're using a web view in the mobile app, and therefore inheriting behavior from chromium)

Yes, the mobile apps are currently using a web view, though the Flutter apps currently under development will not be using one.

[Jon Eugster]

Completely unrelated to changes from Zulip side, we now have a new feature in the webeditor, @Kevin Buzzard :

You can copy an entire message here on Zulip with "copy to clipboard" then paste the content at lean.math.hhu.de using the menu option "Load > Load Zulip message"

This will parse the message for code-blocks and extract these into the webeditor.

(its a simple regex-parse, so Im looking forward to find edge cases)

[Alya Abbott]

"I can't even read this code block posted on Zulip on my phone because some of the Unicode characters are presented as boxes"

@Kevin Buzzard could you point to some examples of where this happens? We could check whether or not we still have this issue in the new Flutter app.

[Alya Abbott]

(We've confirmed that x₀₁₂₃₄₅₆₇₈₉ looks fine in the new Flutter app, if that's the sort of example you had in mind.)

[Alya Abbott]

I also filed an issue to make sure we add a button to open code blocks in an external playground: https://github.com/zulip/zulip-flutter/issues/365.

[Eric Wieser]

The example from the chromium issue (please upvote it!) is:

x₀₀ x₀₁ x₀₂ x₀₃ x₀₄ x₀₅ x₀₆ x₀₇ x₀₈ x₀₉
x₁₀ x₁₁ x₁₂ x₁₃ x₁₄ x₁₅ x₁₆ x₁₇ x₁₈ x₁₉
x₂₀ x₂₁ x₂₂ x₂₃ x₂₄ x₂₅ x₂₆ x₂₇ x₂₈ x₂₉
x₃₀ x₃₁ x₃₂ x₃₃ x₃₄ x₃₅ x₃₆ x₃₇ x₃₈ x₃₉
x₄₀ x₄₁ x₄₂ x₄₃ x₄₄ x₄₅ x₄₆ x₄₇ x₄₈ x₄₉
x₅₀ x₅₁ x₅₂ x₅₃ x₅₄ x₅₅ x₅₆ x₅₇ x₅₈ x₅₉
x₆₀ x₆₁ x₆₂ x₆₃ x₆₄ x₆₅ x₆₆ x₆₇ x₆₈ x₆₉
x₇₀ x₇₁ x₇₂ x₇₃ x₇₄ x₇₅ x₇₆ x₇₇ x₇₈ x₇₉
x₈₀ x₈₁ x₈₂ x₈₃ x₈₄ x₈₅ x₈₆ x₈₇ x₈₈ x₈₉
x₉₀ x₉₁ x₉₂ x₉₃ x₉₄ x₉₅ x₉₆ x₉₇ x₉₈ x₉₉

[Kevin Buzzard]

Screenshot_20231102-224300.png

That's what @Alya Abbott 's message looks like on my new Android phone (and I bet it also looked like that on my old Android phone)

[Eric Wieser]

(motivation for voting up the android bug: changing the zulip app won't help with the github webpage; the chance of be being able to prod some people at Google into fixing it go from very much zero to slightly non-zero if I have some evidence of impact)