Tag Archives: bug

Copying Cyrillic URLs in Google Chrome and Firefox

Using Google Chrome, I encountered strange bug affecting the copying and pasting of cyrillic urls.

When pasting, the non ASCII characters in the Url are converted to Punycode.

Performing some tests revealed that the same behaviour is present also in Firefox.

Punycode produced by Google Chrome and Firefox

Punycode produced by Google Chrome and Firefox

Doing some research led me to Issue 68718, unfortunately marked as WontFix stating:

Links on Wikipedia itself are a red herring, as comment 50 notes -- they're escaped in the page source.  The actual issue here is demonstrated by the link in comment 0.  We escape URLs when copying them.  This behavior matches Firefox 4 (by default) and Safari 5, though not IE9.

We added this behavior on  issue 2820  to fix a variety of problems in languages like Japanese.  Because those problems resulted in users unable to navigate to the pasted links, whereas this issue seems to be solely about cosmetics (in that escaped URLs are ugly and hard to read), preserving that behavior change seems like the more important thing to do.

Workarounds

Few things can be done if this issue is affecting your day to day usage of Google Chrome…

  • Before copying the URL add any character at the end of it, then erase it. After this operation the copied URL will preserve its structure not producing punycode when pasted.
  • Use the COPY URL extension.
  • Use a different browser. Microsoft Edge on Windows and Safari on OSX are producing the expected results.

Featured Image: https://wallpapercave.com/w/A7ZAUTz

Settings.canDrawOverlays() allays returns ‘false’ on Android O

I was updating one of my clients app, and testing it how it behaves on Android O (API 26). The app requires permissions to draw over system windows (android.permission.SYSTEM_ALERT_WINDOW). On Android 6 (API 23) and up, you are obligated to request ‘special’ permissions while the app is running.

The ‘SYSTEM_ALERT_WINDOW’ permission is a special permission that breaks the rules set by the new permission model available on Android 6 (API 23) and up. It’s request involves calling Settings.canDrawOverlays() and if it returns ‘false‘ starting ‘Settings‘ where the user can choose to grant your app the ability to draw overlays or not.

if(Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= Build.VERSION_CODES.M)
{
   // On API 23 and later ask the user to grant us permission to draw system overlay
   // windows.
   if (!Settings.canDrawOverlays(this))
   {
      Intent intent = new Intent(
             Settings.ACTION_MANAGE_OVERLAY_PERMISSION,
             Uri.parse("package:" + getPackageName()));
 
      startActivityForResult(intent, REQUEST_PERMISSION_SYSTEM_OVERLAY_RESULT);
   }
}

There is a bug with Settings.canDrawOverlays() (only) on API 26 where it will always return ‘false’ disregarding the actual user decision. The workaround provided here is a bit ugly, but does not involves restarting the app (which will be quite annoying for the user) after the permission is granted.

The code below first checks the result of System.canDrawOverlays() if it returns ‘true’ it continues with the rest of the application flow. If it returns ‘false’ a check if we are running on Android O (API 26) is performed. If that’s the case, we are calling our ‘workaround’ method.

The ‘workaround’ method tries to add an invisible overlay window on the screen, and if that’s OK we assume that we have a permission to draw overlays, else an exception is thrown.

@Override
    protected void onActivityResult(int requestCode, int resultCode, Intent data)
    {
        super.onActivityResult(requestCode, resultCode, data);
 
        if(Build.VERSION.SDK_INT < Build.VERSION_CODES.M) return; if(requestCode == REQUEST_PERMISSION_SYSTEM_OVERLAY_RESULT) { if(Settings.canDrawOverlays(this)) { m_permissionSystemOverlayWindowGranted = true; if(m_permissionReadPhoneStateGranted && m_permissionProcessOutgoingCallsGranted) { startService(new Intent(this, EstatePlusService.class)); m_layoutNoPermissions.setVisibility(View.INVISIBLE); m_progressBar.setVisibility(View.INVISIBLE); m_layoutLogin.setVisibility(View.VISIBLE); } } else if(Build.VERSION.SDK_INT == Build.VERSION_CODES.O) { // NOTE: This is a workaround to fix the bug in Android O where the // Settings.canDrawOverlays() will always return 'false' if(canDrawOverlays(this)) { m_permissionSystemOverlayWindowGranted = true; if(m_permissionReadPhoneStateGranted && m_permissionProcessOutgoingCallsGranted) { startService(new Intent(this, EstatePlusService.class)); m_layoutNoPermissions.setVisibility(View.INVISIBLE); m_progressBar.setVisibility(View.INVISIBLE); m_layoutLogin.setVisibility(View.VISIBLE); } } } } } /** * Workaround for Android O */ public static boolean canDrawOverlays(Context context) { try { WindowManager windowManager = (WindowManager) context.getSystemService(Context.WINDOW_SERVICE); if (windowManager == null) { return false; } final View viewToAdd = new View(context); WindowManager.LayoutParams params = new WindowManager.LayoutParams( 0, 0, android.os.Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= android.os.Build.VERSION_CODES.O ?
                                    WindowManager.LayoutParams.TYPE_APPLICATION_OVERLAY : WindowManager.LayoutParams.TYPE_SYSTEM_ALERT,
                            WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_NOT_TOUCHABLE | WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_NOT_FOCUSABLE, PixelFormat.TRANSPARENT);
            viewToAdd.setLayoutParams(params);
            windowManager.addView(viewToAdd, params);
            windowManager.removeView(viewToAdd);
            return true;
        }
        catch (Exception e)
        {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
 
        return false;
    }
Eclipse, IDE, Java

Eclipse Hotkeys Fix

Eclipse on GNU/Linux has an annoying bug with hotkeys for users with multiply keyboard layouts.

For example when the user is working with the English keyboard layout, hotkeys such as “Ctrl-C”, “Ctrl-V” will work as expected, but when switched to different layout (ex: Bulgarian) the keys will no longer work.

After a bit of searching I found a fix for this inconvenience at GitHub.

Thank you “amozzhuhin“!