Insert zero-width space in Telegram usernames sent to IRC

[jwflory]

Inspired by 42wim/matterbridge#175.

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Summary

Insert zero-width space in Telegram usernames sent to IRC to prevent pinging IRC usernames with the same Telegram nick

Background

If someone is on both sides of a bridged Telegram group and IRC channel, and has the same username, they will get pinged on IRC whenever they send a message from Telegram. This can be annoying for IRC users when chatting from Telegram.

One solution is to insert a zero-width character into the Telegram username field sent to IRC. This prevents pinging IRC users when they chat from Telegram.

Details

I think the space needs to be inserted after the first character or before the last. Maybe the easiest solution is to insert it after the first character of the Telegram username.

This space should only be inserted in a username relayed from Telegram to IRC.

Outcome

Better user experience for people chatting on both sides of a bridge when their Telegram username and IRC nick are the same

[xforever1313]

We might want to add a way to disable this if a user doesn't want it. There is no globally accepted standard for the character encoding according to Wikipedia. Zero-width space appears to be unicode, but there may be IRC servers out there that only support ASCII.

I can't imagine there are many modern IRC servers out there that don't support Unicode (FreeNode appears to since it can send Emojis), but you never know I suppose...

[nic-hartley]

Using square brackets around usernames instead of angle brackets should fix this -- []{}|\ are all considered part of the nickname, so [some-nick] shouldn't ping someone nick'd some-nick.

[jwflory]

Discussed in 2019-02-02 RITlug developers' meeting. This issue is targeted for the v1.3 milestone, estimated to release on March 2nd, 2019.

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@Tjzabel volunteered to take this one on for the v1.3 development sprint. It may happen later in the sprint cycle (after #115?). We'll follow up at the next developers' meeting on Saturday, Feb. 9th.

[Tjzabel]

Update

I went ahead and implemented a ZWP in the middle of nicks. It looks like this:

from.username = from.username.substr(0,1) + "\u200B" + from.username.substr(1);

Further considerations

Adding a ZWP essentially breaks all our unit tests that include a username. This will take some time to look through. This raises further questions:

1. Do we want this toggleable?
2. Will the implementation of "\u200B" as the ZWP break any IRC servers/handlers?

[Tjzabel]

After further discussion, we are making the ZWSP a default behavior. We don't see much of a blocker or issue with having a ZWSP inside of a nick in every day communications.

With that being said, this has been implemented, and works as planned. The only issue at the moment is this breaks all our current Telegram unit tests, which have "expected usernames" without ZWSP inserted. In order to remedy this, I am going to see if I can make a default username a global var in these unit tests, and see if that can fix the issue.

[Tjzabel]

Update

This issue is essentially complete. A simple override to the ResolveUserName method was all that was necessary in order to fix all the Telegram unit tests.

Next step is to write additional tests to make sure the ZWP works as intended. Mileage may vary at this stage, since I overrode the method.... puts on thinking cap

[jwflory]

@Tjzabel Do you think this change will make the v1.3 window?

[Tjzabel]

@jwflory not by today's meeting, but possibly by the end of today.

[jwflory]

@Tjzabel got this in commit 1207f99 / PR #128. Closing as complete. 🎬

[tml1024]

I think this is a somewhat weird feature. It breaks grepping for nicknames in one's IRC logs, for instance. Why not instead add a marker at the end of the nick, like the Matrix bridge apparently does? It adds [m]. Teleirc could add [t].

[Tjzabel]

@tml1024 hello, we have a toggle to turn this feature off. If you wish to not make use of this feature, add IRC_SHOW_ZWSP=false to your .env file.

[tml1024]

Thanks. Will suggest that we do that.