Implemented Display post preview instead of thread preview when unfurling post URL

[Alpha1]

When a link to a post is posted, then it will display with the thread description.

For example this post starts with 'What on earth is URL unfurling?' but the text used is from the first post of the thread:

XF 2.1 - Unfurling URLs, Emoji enhancements and video uploads

Here we go! We're four HYS threads in already and you might be wondering just how many there are left. Well, I can't tell you 😉 But what I can tell you is - we're not even half way through yet! In case you've not yet seen the previous entries, you can check them out here. As ever, to ensure...

xenforo.com

This can lead to confusion, because the text may well be irrelevant to what the member is trying to point out. It would be much nicer and more accurate to display text from the actual post.

 

[arn]

fwiw, I had @ThemeHouse custom dev this for us, but it should be standard.

Link to thread:

Photo of the day November 2019

Welcome to Photo of the Day. The POTD thread was started by iGary in May, 2006 and converted to a monthly thread in November 2007 by Arn. POTD is one of the most popular picture groups on MacRumors, often exceeding 500 posts and 20,000 views per month. Photo of the Day is intended to be a...

forums.macrumors.com

Link to a post in same thread:

Photo of the day November 2019

Autumn at the gardens.

forums.macrumors.com

 

[Stuart Wright]

Yep, this is confusing behaviour. It should display the specific post it's linking to.

 

[Harpers Tate]

Agreed. This is unexpected behaviour. The URL used contains a direct reference to a specific post and it is that post which should form the preview; not any other.

 

[Kirby]

IMHO, this is technically not really possible - at least not for posts outside the board itself:
A post is part of a thread, as such it does not have its own (Open Graph) metaaata which is what is being processed for unfurl.

 

[Chris D]

We have some ideas on how to address this in the future but, indeed, for the reasons already mentioned in various places it’s not really possible as it stands.

Unfurling just isn’t that clever. It gets a URL, it goes to that URL, it gets stuff from the head tag of the URL, it returns some stuff and we format that stuff in an unfurl block.

There’s nothing more or less going on than that hence why it’s absolutely not a bug and behaving exactly as it is designed to.

Of course the technical nuance may make it seem unexpected but it’s just the way it works.

You may want to consider modifying the unfurl template and adjusting its output for unfurls for your host name.

For example, it might seem less unexpected at least if you exclude the description from unfurls from your own host so it’s just the title. You could even just change the template so it just returns a basic link.

 

[arn]

We have some ideas on how to address this in the future but, indeed, for the reasons already mentioned in various places it’s not really possible as it stands.

Unfurling just isn’t that clever. It gets a URL, it goes to that URL, it gets stuff from the head tag of the URL, it returns some stuff and we format that stuff in an unfurl block.

There’s nothing more or less going on than that hence why it’s absolutely not a bug and behaving exactly as it is designed to.

I think you are missing where the "bug" is. As you say, the bug isn't the Unfurling function -- that is working with what it's given. The "bug" (really a missing feature) is that the Xenforo post link doesn't present a better "description" metadata for post links.

As mentioned, we got this working, but it had to be done custom:

Link to Post #1:

New Facebook and Instagram Options Let US Users Turn Off Political Ads

Facebook is adding the option for users to turn off all political advertising in the Facebook and Instagram apps from today, the company has announced in a blog post. The option will pop up for users directly on any political ad that appears on the two Facebook-owned platforms. Users will also...

forums.macrumors.com

Link to Post #2:

New Facebook and Instagram Options Let US Users Turn Off Political Ads

Not sure if I like this. Sounds good. But it’s Facebook so is more than likely sketchy.

forums.macrumors.com

It'd just be better if it was built in.

And this doesn't just affect unfurl on Xenforo. It affects all social shares that show previews. Twitter, FB, Slack, iMessages

 

[Chris D]

No, I can assure you I'm not missing anything.

I understand and acknowledge what is being reported:

We have some ideas on how to address this in the future

I just stated the facts about how it works, and why it works like it does.

 

[Alpha1]

The above functionality on Macrumors is great. it would be nice to get that in xenforo.

 

[dougdirac]

You may want to consider modifying the unfurl template and adjusting its output for unfurls for your host name.

For example, it might seem less unexpected at least if you exclude the description from unfurls from your own host so it’s just the title.

This. People in my forum like to link to other posts a lot, the unfurl is really confusing. There at least should be an option to exclude certain URLs from unfurling.

 

[Xon]

You may want to consider modifying the unfurl template and adjusting its output for unfurls for your host name.

There is currently a bug where unfurl.php only reads the master style to when rendering the unfurl template

 

[Reflect]

Riffing on my post over here, I'd also love to see XF unfurl using the post text for internal links, rather than the page meta which comes from the OP.

 

[dougdirac]

Riffing on my post over here, I'd also love to see XF unfurl using the post text for internal links, rather than the page meta which comes from the OP.

Good idea, though, I suppose that's more like the existing quote feature.

 

[Reflect]

Closer to quoting the linked post than the meta of the first post in a thread containing n posts, for sure.

 

[Kintaro]

The MacRumors solution is using the excerpt of the internal linked post as meta description and og:description instead of the first post text.
Maybe is already possibile with a template modification?

 

[Lee]

Is there any chance this might get addressed in XenForo 2.3 @Chris D ?

 

[cdub]

When a link to a post is posted, then it will display with the thread description.

For example this post starts with 'What on earth is URL unfurling?' but the text used is from the first post of the thread:

XF 2.1 - Unfurling URLs, Emoji enhancements and video uploads

Here we go! We're four HYS threads in already and you might be wondering just how many there are left. Well, I can't tell you 😉 But what I can tell you is - we're not even half way through yet! In case you've not yet seen the previous entries, you can check them out here. As ever, to ensure...

xenforo.com

This can lead to confusion, because the text may well be irrelevant to what the member is trying to point out. It would be much nicer and more accurate to display text from the actual post.

Yes. This annoys me a ton. Maybe it can be resolved? Not sure how they code the unfurling.

 

[zappaDPJ]

Just adding a vote. Bug or not, it's unexpected behavior and very irritating.

 

[Paul B]

Implemented in 2.3.

XF 2.3 - Embed your content anywhere

This week, we're delighted to introduce a new feature in XenForo 2.3 that enhances the way you can share content on your forum. Plus, we'll show you how easy it is to share any content from your forum to other platforms using our new content embedding feature. Rich previews for content If...

xenforo.com