Support of URLs on Info page

1 Initial Problem

Especially for sessions there is a need to communicate information about related web pages, e.g. a journey description or a location description. But entered URLs are only displayed as plain text and need to be copied from the info page of the session and then added to the browser's address bar manually. Even the input field for the e-mail of the presenter is not supporting clickable URLs, see screenshot.

2 Conceptual Summary

It would be very user-friendly if entered URLs would be identified by the Info form and displayed as clickable links (as we know it already from URLs entered to the page content controlled by the IPE). Same should happen to e-mail addresses. But no HTML input should be accepted for security reasons.

Accepted URLs and addresses should be:

• https://...
• http://...
• www.
• something@anything.xy

All text inputs of the form should support URLs.

• URLs entered in the Description are presented as links on the Info page but not in the byline under the Session title and not in the ListGUI.
• Input entered in the field "E-Mail" should be checked if an e-mail address has been entered. If not, an error message should appear when saving the form (again).

To be discussed

Kunkel, Matthias [mkunkel]: Do we need a general setting in the „Security Settings at  „Administration » Privacy and Security” that disables this interpretation of URLs for an ILIAS installation in general?

3 User Interface Modifications

3.1 List of Affected Views

• Info page

3.2 User Interface Details

• Only visual change is the change of colour of URLs and mail addresses in the text of an Info Page. Instead of black (like above) these URLs and mail addresses will be displayed in the link colour.

3.3 New User Interface Concepts

None

4 Technical Information

{The maintainer has to provide necessary technical information, e.g. dependencies on other ILIAS components, necessary modifications in general services/architecture, potential security or performance issues.}

5 Contact

• Author of the Request: Kunkel, Matthias [mkunkel]
• Maintainer: Killing, Alexander [alex]
• Implementation of the feature is done by: {The maintainer must add the name of the implementing developer.}

6 Funding

If you are interest in funding this feature, please add your name and institution to this list.

• ILIAS-Verein

7 Discussion

Kunkel, Matthias [mkunkel], 01 APR 2019 : The  major requirement for this request comes from the session object. But I think making URLs clickable is highly appreciated on Info pages of all object types. Therefore, I would not like to restrict this feature to sessions only but implement a general behaviour for all Info pages.

Killing, Alexander [alex], 4 Apr 2019: Related to the security question. Yes, indeed, this needs a secure output filter/transformation/escaping concept now or in the near future. I would also suggest to move this info page to the KS and to integrate a secure output filter/transformation/escaping mechanism there.

Kiegel, Colin [kiegel] 2019-04-11 It is common to also detect URLs if they end in ".com" etc. Usually this happens only for the most common domains and not for arbitrary characters.

It would be nice to detect URLs like "feature.ilias.de" or just "ilias.de" without http(s) or www in front

This is a list of the 20 most popular top level domains with the most page results in Google:

1. .com (Commercial) 4,860,000,000
2. .org (Noncommercial) 1,950,000,000
3. .edu (US accredited postsecondary institutions) 1,550,000,000
4. .gov (United States Government) 1,060,000,000
5. .uk (United Kingdom) 473,000,000
6. .net (Network services) 206,000,000
7. .ca (Canada) 165,000,000
8. .de (Germany) 145,000,000
9. .jp (Japan) 139,000,000
10. .fr (France) 96,700,000
11. .au (Australia) 91,000,000
12. .us (United States) 68,300,000
13. .ru (Russian Federation) 67,900,000
14. .ch (Switzerland) 62,100,000
15. .it (Italy) 55,200,000
16. .nl (Netherlands) 45,700,000
17. .se (Sweden) 39,000,000
18. .no (Norway) 32,300,000
19. .es (Spain) 31,000,000
20. .mil (United States Military) 28,400,000

Kunkel, Matthias [mkunkel], 11 APR 2019: @ Colin: interesting suggestion. But I guess this is an own feature request. In my request I would simply like to re-use the existing behaviour known from content added by the ILIAS Page Editor where text in URL format is transformed to a clickable URL. Your "URL detection" should be something that works not only on the Info page but in all places where URLs are entered. I think we should not mix it with this request. But your suggestion makes sense for me.

Kunkel, Matthias [mkunkel], 24 APR 2019 : Feature request postponed until we have a global solution for entering URLs in ILIAS.

Kunkel, Matthias [mkunkel], 16 JUL 2019 : Underlying problem has been solved in the meantime through a bugfix. No more need to push this request.

URLs entered in text inputs like "Location" or "Details" are shown as links and clickable, while the description text (which is also showed under the object title and in the container list UIs do not interprete URLs and present them just as simple text.