Can't copy (mostly) anything when "<carets are placed like this>"

JP1 · November 2, 2016, 9:26pm

Steps to reproduce

Starting from scratch, what are the steps to make the bug happen? The fewer the steps, the better.

Write anything that is between “<” and “>”(other combinations, e.g. “<…<” “>…>” “>…<”).
Copy it (edit: including the carets).
Try to paste it.
3a. Check your clipboard.

Expected result

What do you expect to see after carrying out the steps above?

It should copy when I copy the text and paste when I paste it.

Actual result

Instead of the expected result, what happened?

It doesn’t actually copy it at all (and therefore either pastes nothing, or the previously copied thing). However, if I have something outside of the the “<…>” it will get pasted. It’s only “negated” one time. So I can enclose it with even more carets in the same direction on both sides, and only the innermost carets (and the content inside them) will not be pasted.

So something like “<<>>” will be pasted as “<<>>”.

Environment

Which operating system are you using? Which browser are you using? If you’re using a desktop or mobile app, what’s the version number of Dynalist?

Anywhere on any platform that Dynalist supports (Chrome + Ubuntu, Windows Desktop Beta, the mobile website). I have double checked via programs that log my clippings as well (and they do not pick up anything).

Erica · November 1, 2016, 11:34pm

Weird, I can’t reproduce this bug with the steps you provided. What I get:

When I copied some text between < and >, the paste was successfully. When I copied text that includes < and >, pasting inside Dynalist didn’t work, but with Clipboard Test I could verify that things were copied, it’s just that paste stopped working for some reason.

I used Ctrl+C. Did you use the right click menu to copy instead?

JP1 · November 1, 2016, 11:41pm

Huh, that’s strange that it copies. I tried it with the Clipboard Test as well. and it works for me too.

Sorry about the confusion - the first thing you tested does in fact work. The second one is the one that I’m pointing out.

I used Ctrl+C as well.

tl;dr I’m experiencing & doing exactly the same thing; no new information other than that.

Erica · November 1, 2016, 11:52pm

So if what you copy contains < and >, does it copy (checking with Clipboard Test)?

I know pasting doesn’t work for a fact (at least on my OS & browser), not sure about the copying part.

JP1 · November 1, 2016, 11:56pm

It does on the desktop, but not on mobile.

It won’t paste on either platform, as you’ve said.

Erica · November 2, 2016, 12:41am

Hmm indeed I didn’t test on mobile. Thanks for the clarification!

JP1 · November 2, 2016, 12:44am

It’s more as though I assumed that since it didn’t work on mobile, that I thought it didn’t work on the desktop. I didn’t check the clipboard loggers on my desktop, because I assumed that through the a clipboard sharing program (Join), it would have sent to my mobile device. But it wasn’t on, so it never shared anything. Hahaha.

EdJr · November 2, 2016, 2:17am

Hey,

I’m currently facing the same issue with Chrome on Windows 10 (and also on Ubuntu 16.04). Ctrl+C is fine; pasting works everywhere except inside item’s “titles” (that is, it does work inside notes). It looks like a misbehaving input sanitizer, but I may be wrong.

By the way, thanks a lot for this forum (and everything else)! Keep being awesome!

Erica · November 2, 2016, 2:54am

Thanks for the kind words!

Same issue meaning can’t copy when when content is surrounded by < and >, or can’t copy at all? Since you’re replying to this post I’m guessing it’s the former, but just want to make sure.

EdJr · November 2, 2016, 5:15am

Oops, sorry for not being clearer. Yes, I referred to the first case, but I just tested this again and the problem is actually a little weirder. Let’s say my test text is oh <hi> <<there>>!, this is what happens in different scenarios (tested on desktop Chrome on Windows 10; I haven’t tested on mobile):

Ctrl+C from anywhere > Ctrl+V to elsewhere*: ok
Ctrl+C from elsewhere* > Ctrl+V to anywhere: ok
Ctrl+C from title or note > Ctrl+V to title: buggy; result: oh <>!
Ctrl+X from anywhere > Ctrl+V to anywhere: ok

*Elsewhere means anywhere (inside or outside Dynalist) except titles and notes.

Maybe this came out a little confusing @_@
In other words, cut-paste is ok and copy-paste is only buggy when copying from Dynalist items, but works when copying from anywhere else (e.g. Dynalist’s search box or another website).

I hope I could help!

JP1 · November 2, 2016, 5:08am

I did what @EdJr did, and basically he’s adding onto whatever we already know, by including that this only affect the bullet points, but not the notes (that can be added if not present, obviously) of those bullet points, where it works as expected.

Erica · November 2, 2016, 5:50am

@EdJr @JP1, thanks for the help guys! @Shida will take a look at this soon.

We recently made some changes to copy and paste to fix some bugs (e.g. copying things used to copy over extra empty lines). Maybe the minor refactor caused this. I can imagine that happening, since we could be stripping away some HTML tags (which contains < and >). That’s the only connection I could make.

Again that’s just a guess. @Shida will update here once he starts investigating this issues.

Thanks again guys!

Shida · November 2, 2016, 6:44pm

So after some debugging it seems that we are not escaping HTML correctly when generating the content to be put into the clipboard, so when you paste back, it couldn’t recognize the misformatted content that was inside the clipboard.

I have a fix in place, and it will be deployed sometimes today!

Shida · November 2, 2016, 7:07pm

It’s deployed! The fix should be in effect once you refresh the browser.