Custom Header Links refuses Matrix URL

Contribute Bug

AI-generated summary

The Custom Header Links theme component is refusing to update with a Matrix URL (https://matrix.to/#/#matrix-meta-chat:fedoraproject.org) due to validation errors. RGJ found a workaround by creating a permalink that redirects to the Matrix URL. However, Arkshine explained that the issue is caused by the double # in the URL, making it an invalid URI. Encoding the fragment (https://matrix.to/#/%23matrix-meta-chat:fedoraproject.org) resolves the issue. Arkshine suggests using the relaxed_parse function for theme object URL validation to make the component more flexible.

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When updating to 3.4 the Custom Header links theme component refused to update because of a Matrix link like https://matrix.to/#/#matrix-meta-chat:fedoraproject.org. Error: The property at JSON Pointer '/3/url' must be a valid URL.

Once this link was removed, the update went fine, but adding the link back was impossible.

(Workaround: create a permalink /matrix that redirects to https://matrix.to/#/#matrix-meta-chat:fedoraproject.org and then add /matrix as a custom header link)

Still, it might be good to make this a bit more flexible. Apparently the link format is fine for a permalink.

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Custom Header Links
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The double # makes the object setting validation fail in the core (not this TC per se).

bad URI(is not URI?): "https://matrix.to/#/#matrix-meta-chat:fedoraproject.org" (URI::InvalidURIError)

It’s not strictly a valid URI, so you’d need to encode the fragment.
Here; using https://matrix.to/#/%23matrix-meta-chat:fedoraproject.org will work.

Looking at the code:
https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/main/lib/theme_settings_object_validator.rb#L191-L193
is_valid_url is defined here:

You can see they already have another function to deal with this situation and is being used in other places:

I think it’s reasonable to use relaxed_parse for the theme object URL validation.
E.g.: if validations&.dig(:url) && !UrlHelper.relaxed_parse?(value)

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