# New behavior when Copy/Pasting links

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/new-behavior-when-copy-pasting-links/210721
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [December 1, 2021, 5:11pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/new-behavior-when-copy-pasting-links/210721 "2021-12-01T17:11:55Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![Slowhand](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/slowhand/32/57436_2.png) [@Slowhand](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Slowhand)
#### Post date: [December 1, 2021, 5:11pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/new-behavior-when-copy-pasting-links/210721/1 "2021-12-01T17:11:55Z")

</div>

There are several sites we use in my forum that we use a link to make a one-box. Starting this morning, this behavior has changed. I usually do a copy and then a “paste as plain text” to only paste the link.

This morning when I try to paste as plain text, it’s making this:

![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/3X/a/f/afa68f889b4b0edce5d891d2ead725be28986893.png)

This does NOT make a one-box. I then have to remove all the brackets and parentheses in order for it to make the one-box.

Is this a new behavior for Discourse? Or does this have something to do with the sites I’m using?

**EDIT** : and I’m just now reading the new release notes. So does this mean I will ALWAYS have to remove brackets/parentheses in order to get the one-box back?

**EDIT 2** : Just tried to change links in a different post, and all I wanted was to replace the link, but again it defaulted to \< screenshot above \> and I was forced to delete all that extra.

Is this a permanent change?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![awesomerobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/awesomerobot/32/142900_2.png) [@awesomerobot](https://meta.discourse.org/u/awesomerobot)
#### Post date: [December 1, 2021, 5:28pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/new-behavior-when-copy-pasting-links/210721/2 "2021-12-01T17:28:24Z")

</div>

I was initially confused by this too… there’s a topic where the feature was developed here: [Idea: Paste links in the editor](https://meta.discourse.org/t/idea-paste-links-in-the-editor/47125/)

So the idea is that you highlight some text, and then pasting a URL turns the highlighted text into the label for the link.

I’m not sure if it would make sense to disable the functionality if the highlighted text is already a URL (would the inconsistency be confusing)? or maybe this is a useful feature as-is and we just need to get used to the change?

Interested to hear if this becomes a common point of confusion.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![Slowhand](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/slowhand/32/57436_2.png) [@Slowhand](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Slowhand)
#### Post date: [December 1, 2021, 5:40pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/new-behavior-when-copy-pasting-links/210721/3 "2021-12-01T17:40:30Z")

</div>

If anyone is taking a vote, I’m against this change. We use the one box a lot and this is counter-productive.

I also post several links everyday to anime deals and I copy/paste from the previous day and replace the links and this is really not working out.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![Jagster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/jagster/32/192154_2.png) [@Jagster](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Jagster)
#### Post date: [December 1, 2021, 5:44pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/new-behavior-when-copy-pasting-links/210721/4 "2021-12-01T17:44:25Z")

</div>

I don’t know how an url has planned work here when pasted, but it should become

- when pasted as an plain url without any choosed text it should act as earlier, as onebox or plain link
- when there is choosed some text and pasting a link ”over” it, it should create a normal link with brackets and everything

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![gwwar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/gwwar/32/116586_2.png) [@gwwar](https://meta.discourse.org/u/gwwar)
#### Post date: [December 1, 2021, 5:49pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/new-behavior-when-copy-pasting-links/210721/5 "2021-12-01T17:49:24Z")

</div>

It should be pretty straightforward to test if a selection has a url, and if so, default to normal pasting. I can add a follow up PR

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![gwwar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/gwwar/32/116586_2.png) [@gwwar](https://meta.discourse.org/u/gwwar)
#### Post date: [December 1, 2021, 6:36pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/new-behavior-when-copy-pasting-links/210721/6 "2021-12-01T18:36:17Z")

</div>

Updated in [UX: only apply link formats on paste to selections that do not contain links by gwwar · Pull Request #15159 · discourse/discourse · GitHub](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/pull/15159)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![david](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/david/32/157490_2.png) [@david](https://meta.discourse.org/u/david)
#### Post date: [December 4, 2021, 8:00am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/new-behavior-when-copy-pasting-links/210721/7 "2021-12-04T08:00:47Z")

</div>

This topic was automatically closed after 42 hours. New replies are no longer allowed.
