443977 - Enforce character limit for short description/summary field

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(addons.mozilla.org Graveyard :: Public Pages, defect)

Description

[Dave Garrett]

See bug 442683.

The character limit for the short description (summary) field is too long.  Excessively long descriptions make the add-on list pages on AMO look bad and they don't fit correctly in the Get Add-ons window in Firefox 3.  Even slightly too long descriptions don't fit inside the tiny space given when listed on a category landing page.

Lowering the character limit for this supposedly short field sounds like an obvious solution to this issue.  As an opening guess, I'd suggest a limit of 400 characters.  Sound reasonable?

Comment 1

[Les Orchard [:lorchard]]

Attachment: bandaid to make web UI layout more sane on AMO

This isn't an overall fix, but it might help to make the visual layout in the web UI more sane for extra long addon descriptions.  It limits the summaries to 400 characters, using an ellipsis linked to the detail page when necessary

Comment 2

[Dave Garrett]

An overall and simpler fix would be to just change the field length in the DB. One SQL command would probably do it. All entries over the limit would be truncated. (thus correcting the length everywhere, including results shown in the Get Add-ons window) The only other thing we'd need would be a patch to limit the entry field, so as to not try to add beyond the limit in the future.

If you wanted to get fancy, you could also print a list of those with currently long fields so as to email them all so they can be updated with a non-truncated version.

Comment 3

[Dave Garrett]

I'll bump up the severity, as this really screws with the new slider feature.

Comment 4

[Justin Scott [:fligtar]]

We can't make db field length changes like that because all translated fields are stored in the same translations table as type TEXT.

The character limit on summary fields has always been 250 characters, but because of the way the translation box system was setup we couldn't enforce it consistently in all places it could be changed. With the new Developer Tools in 3.5 it will be enforced everywhere, so eventually the bad add-ons will have to shorten their summaries to make any changes.

Comment 5

[Dave Garrett]

(In reply to comment #4)
> We can't make db field length changes like that because all translated fields
> are stored in the same translations table as type TEXT.

Did not know that. Definitely complicates things.

> The character limit on summary fields has always been 250 characters, but
> because of the way the translation box system was setup we couldn't enforce it
> consistently in all places it could be changed. With the new Developer Tools in
> 3.5 it will be enforced everywhere, so eventually the bad add-ons will have to
> shorten their summaries to make any changes.

Is there some other way we can truncate all overly long summaries in this system? If not, then the I guess best route would be to just go with a version of the band-aid modified to 250 characters and manually fix any other severe issues like bug 442683.

Comment 6

[Les Orchard [:lorchard]]

Comment on attachment 330646 [details] [diff] [review]
bandaid to make web UI layout more sane on AMO

Never mind, this patch belongs to bug 444817 - a solution addressing the data itself is a different can 'o worms.

Comment 7

[Fred Wenzel [:wenzel]]

(In reply to comment #6)
> Never mind, this patch belongs to bug 444817 - a solution addressing the data
> itself is a different can 'o worms.

The easiest solution is probably restricting the field length in the respective model. It will then reject any try to save anything longer than that.

Comment 8

[Michael Morgan [:morgamic]]

Fred, please add this restriction.

Comment 9

[Les Orchard [:lorchard]]

Wish I could reclaim my ancient [e-mail] bugzilla account :)

Comment 10

[Reed Loden [:reed]]

(In reply to comment #9)
> Wish I could reclaim my ancient [e-mail] bugzilla account :)

File a bug?

Comment 11

[Les Orchard [:lorchard]]

Hmm.  Looking in the developer tools, it already appears that a limit of 250 is imposed on summaries.  Does that mean this bug is now invalid?

Comment 12

[Fred Wenzel [:wenzel]]

If you confirmed that it works, it's fixed, rather.

Comment 13

[Stephen Donner [:stephend] Not actively reading bugmail]

(In reply to comment #11)
> Hmm.  Looking in the developer tools, it already appears that a limit of 250 is
> imposed on summaries.  Does that mean this bug is now invalid?

Comment 4 indicates that, yeah, and I've just tested (again) that it's true for the "Add-on Summary" field on https://preview.addons.mozilla.org/en-US/developers/addon/edit/7526/descriptions.

If you mark it, I'll gladly verify is as fixed.

Comment 14

[Dave Garrett]

Well, it won't be fully done until the new dev tools are mandatory and no one can use the old ones.

Comment 15

[Michael Morgan [:morgamic]]

We're going to deprecate the old tools, so that will fix the glitch.