First of all, let me thank everyone who works on this project. I really appreciate your dedication and support. I can't be more happier using this app. Great job guys!
Now, about the issue. Today it's been just 2 months since I last updated the desktop app and I see at least one annoying change introduced. It's how the hyperlinks are created automatically. I create a lot of notes and always add site names like Medium.com and was used to getting it auto-hyperlinked before. Now, I have to struggle to do it manually each time I add these links.
Previous behavior: example.com (in text editor) => example.com (in viewer)
Current behavior: example.com (in text editor) => example.com (in viewer)
Can you guys somehow add a setting where I can turn this off and on? I mean exactly this behavior.
After I discovered this issue, I glanced over the history of requests for this change (and the change itself Desktop: Restrict auto-detection of links and add option to toggle linkify by laurent22 · Pull Request #4205 · laurent22/joplin · GitHub), and I can understand that previous behavior annoyed some people, but let's not forget there are a lot more users who get used to certain behaviors and continue using this app year after year, and it disappoints when changes like this happen this way, and we rarely come to this forum, being busy with using the app as it is. I hope you guys understand our frustration too.
This is the "add option to toggle linkify" bit of the GitHub entry. It was added at the same time so that those who preferred the previous way of working still could.
Unfortunately, this checkbox does not do anything to fix the specific issue I described above. And, it's CHECKED by default. Please see the link I shared above. They disabled auto-detection of links for text like "example.com" or "medium.com". Surprisingly, these get auto-hyperlinked here in the forum. This is how it should be, at least to majority of us who got used to the behavior, not only in Joplin, but many other apps, including websites.
My bad. I forgot that some logic was added to linkify as well so as to minimise the false positives. I am not a dev but I was involved in the discussion about this.
Just type https://medium.com rather than medium.com and the link should work. I believe that the protocol identifier now triggers the linking so that there are no false positives for text that is not actually a URI. This was especially true for the filenames of python and perl scripts such as file.py and file.pl.
Personally I feel that Joplin turning anything that looks like a hyperlink into a hyperlink would be a retrograde step. Then again, it would not affect me as I have linkify switched off and use standard Markdown to create hyperlinks only when I need them.
The problem is that I want to keep the text clean from unnecessary and ugly things like 'https://' as much as possible. I think the purpose of markdown text is to display it in a nicer way in the editor as well as in the viewer. Also, it's an extra stuff to type when you add lots of links to your notes.
Like I said earlier, I agree that some people prefer to turn link auto-detection off. But, this change did more than that. It disabled link auto-detection for website names and emails completely when Linkify is on. They could leave it as an option for people to choose how they want to use it. It already worked like that before, so it should have been easy to implement.
To be honest, I rarely upgrade because of drastic changes, which I have neither will or time to get accustomed to. This time I forgot about it. Will try to keep in mind, or will get another facepalm. I uninstalled the new version and re-installed 1.14.19 for now. Hopefully, nothing will affect this version in the future.
Actually rendered Markdown should only create a hyperlink if the code is there to tell it to, such as [example.com](https://example.com) or <https://example.com>. Also, whilst the earlier way linkify worked suited your use case, for others it was a bind. If they wanted to refer to a python script in a note it had to be typed something like filename<span>.p</span>y in order to break a hyperlink for something that should not have been hyperlinked in the first place. This is one of those situations where Joplin wants to be helpful but it is difficult to keep everyone happy because although we all are all using the same app, we are using it to record different things.
You should be OK but be aware of your sync and profile version. If a later release of Joplin updates either and you install that newer version, you will likely not be able to go back without a completely setting up Joplin and / or your sync target again.
My understanding is that markdown is the first step to make text look nicer and more readable. Joplin-like apps exist by taking it to another level, all in different ways. Otherwise, there would be only one editor with default viewer.
I absolutely agree that it is a pain to add filenames like that. I'm surprised why this wasn't resolved long time ago if there were so many users wanting it. But, I would prefer it to be fixed in the way that would not break existing awesome features.
I stated the same already and expressed my appreciation of the work being done. Just want to clarify, I wanted the old feature as an option to be added in the future if possible, without harming any other single user like me.
Thanks for the heads up! I don't quite understand what you mean, but I think I should start backing up my data every now and then in case it stops working properly for me.
