URL corruption in HTML Export in MindManager 24
An example of the URL attached to the topic in the original MindManger 24 map is https://worldweather.wmo.int/en/country.html?countryCode=DZA. (theres one for every country of the world in the map, so 249 of them that only differ in the last 3 letters).
However in the HTML Export / Published file that same URL has been transformed into https://worldweather.wmo.int/en/country.html?countryCode=DZA%20Meteorological%20Organization%20(WMO)%20-.int/en/country.html?countryCode=122, which is not a valid URL so it gives a 'page not found' error.
What can I do to stop this happening? Obviously I can't alter the HTML file once it's created.
The Published map is at https://share.mindmanager.com/#publish/0JM78pFZFvsfCT-HHwvuFm7UNx6QIAAwJmSQ11MH (original MM file can be downloaded from there)
Wow Angus, I bet you are good to have on a quiz team :)
This looks like a bug in the HTML export. The corrupted country code might be a clue. Did you manually change the link titles from the text returned when the link was verified? I wonder if this is triggering an issue. I would love to turn off that feature.
Wow Angus, I bet you are good to have on a quiz team :)
This looks like a bug in the HTML export. The corrupted country code might be a clue. Did you manually change the link titles from the text returned when the link was verified? I wonder if this is triggering an issue. I would love to turn off that feature.
Hi Nick
Thanks for responding as ever. Yes indeed I manually changed the link title field after it was created. I like to think I was one of the beta tester inputs that helped shape this feature way back when it was first introduced - the ability to over-write the Link Title text that is automatically supplied by the website when the link is first added (in the same way the favicon - the wee icon displayed beside the link on the branch - is supplied by the website). I knew it was a required feature for 2 reasons....
1. On just a practical front I knew after years of building my knowledge maps that there was no universal format that the title text was supplied in, it varied from site to site. It varied from completely structured, often mirroring the menu naviagtion levels to get to the page 'eg. page name - sub category - main category - site name', to unstructured eg 'just the page name', to complete gobledeegook, to just mirroring the URL itself (which could also just be lots of gobbledeegook depending on the site's URL architecture), to just being blank (ie. nothing supplied). In addition even if it was nicely structured, there could be random charcters in there, usually due to separator characters in the supplied text being turned into ASCII character strings in the text that MM finally rendered in the box (ie. they would need to be altered anyway).
2. Perhaps selfishly I knew I wanted to be able to make all the title text of the branch hyperlinks all have the same 'house style' structure no matter how they were supplied, which is 'Site name - Resource (Page) Name' perhaps with one or more 'Main category - Sub-category' levels in between as required. That way....
- I could easily organise them alphabetically by origin.
- Users could then find the ones from a specific source they were looking for more easily in a long list (my maps can have ~30+ links on a branch) eg. Wikipedia URLs are always going to be near last.
- I could more easily manufacture 249 branches with links for all countries just by manually overwriting the relevant characters within the URL and the title text.
Originally this map was built in MindManager 20, where this manual over-write feature worked well. When the linking branch is first created by dragging a link from a website navigation say, there was a few seconds delay for the Link Title text text field to be finalised (during which any edits you made would just disappear on finalisation so you would have to do them again), but you could then edit.
Crucially for me as I said I could copy the branch and then edit the URL and the Link Title text to manufacture a different link. In other words the Link Title text field remained as I had altered it until I maually changed it again.
Unfortunately the background process changed somewhere between MM20 and MM24, which was the next version I upgraded to, and if the URL field is altered in any way, MM immediately runs off to the website and asks it to repopulate the Link Title text field and whateveris there gets over-written. Doh! Doh! and Triple Doh! All my lovely sub-editing work gone in the blink of an eye......
That means currently I still build my map resource links in MM20, then do final publication in MM24 or later. Unfortunately there is a bug in the MM20 HTML export function that incorrectly renders branches (the branch text gets placed below the branch line), so I have to use MM24 to publish the HTML version. Which brings me back to the point of my question....
I too would realy like to turn off this feature as it does negate the point of being able to edit the Title Text field if the changes won't 'stick'. I'm sure it also causes problems for plugins that might build branches with links automatically, or subdivide single branches that currently have a link attached.
I never thought they were related but perhaps this corrupted link issue is related. It seems that for this particular website (other links in the map were built in a similar way and the URLs are fine in the HTML export), MM is deciding to rebuild the URL completely, but rather than over-writing the field it's tacking another URL string at the end of what's there. However it hasn't overwritten the Link Title text field though (maybe because the URL is not valid there is no new text supplied to over-write it with?).
I guess it depends on the intended lifetime of the map as to whether this issue important to you. But for my maps (https://knowledgemappers.com/map-store/geography-based-atlas-maps/) it is crucial.... (but irregardless if that, it's not very good that the export function is not reproducing exactly what's there).
Hi Nick
Thanks for responding as ever. Yes indeed I manually changed the link title field after it was created. I like to think I was one of the beta tester inputs that helped shape this feature way back when it was first introduced - the ability to over-write the Link Title text that is automatically supplied by the website when the link is first added (in the same way the favicon - the wee icon displayed beside the link on the branch - is supplied by the website). I knew it was a required feature for 2 reasons....
1. On just a practical front I knew after years of building my knowledge maps that there was no universal format that the title text was supplied in, it varied from site to site. It varied from completely structured, often mirroring the menu naviagtion levels to get to the page 'eg. page name - sub category - main category - site name', to unstructured eg 'just the page name', to complete gobledeegook, to just mirroring the URL itself (which could also just be lots of gobbledeegook depending on the site's URL architecture), to just being blank (ie. nothing supplied). In addition even if it was nicely structured, there could be random charcters in there, usually due to separator characters in the supplied text being turned into ASCII character strings in the text that MM finally rendered in the box (ie. they would need to be altered anyway).
2. Perhaps selfishly I knew I wanted to be able to make all the title text of the branch hyperlinks all have the same 'house style' structure no matter how they were supplied, which is 'Site name - Resource (Page) Name' perhaps with one or more 'Main category - Sub-category' levels in between as required. That way....
- I could easily organise them alphabetically by origin.
- Users could then find the ones from a specific source they were looking for more easily in a long list (my maps can have ~30+ links on a branch) eg. Wikipedia URLs are always going to be near last.
- I could more easily manufacture 249 branches with links for all countries just by manually overwriting the relevant characters within the URL and the title text.
Originally this map was built in MindManager 20, where this manual over-write feature worked well. When the linking branch is first created by dragging a link from a website navigation say, there was a few seconds delay for the Link Title text text field to be finalised (during which any edits you made would just disappear on finalisation so you would have to do them again), but you could then edit.
Crucially for me as I said I could copy the branch and then edit the URL and the Link Title text to manufacture a different link. In other words the Link Title text field remained as I had altered it until I maually changed it again.
Unfortunately the background process changed somewhere between MM20 and MM24, which was the next version I upgraded to, and if the URL field is altered in any way, MM immediately runs off to the website and asks it to repopulate the Link Title text field and whateveris there gets over-written. Doh! Doh! and Triple Doh! All my lovely sub-editing work gone in the blink of an eye......
That means currently I still build my map resource links in MM20, then do final publication in MM24 or later. Unfortunately there is a bug in the MM20 HTML export function that incorrectly renders branches (the branch text gets placed below the branch line), so I have to use MM24 to publish the HTML version. Which brings me back to the point of my question....
I too would realy like to turn off this feature as it does negate the point of being able to edit the Title Text field if the changes won't 'stick'. I'm sure it also causes problems for plugins that might build branches with links automatically, or subdivide single branches that currently have a link attached.
I never thought they were related but perhaps this corrupted link issue is related. It seems that for this particular website (other links in the map were built in a similar way and the URLs are fine in the HTML export), MM is deciding to rebuild the URL completely, but rather than over-writing the field it's tacking another URL string at the end of what's there. However it hasn't overwritten the Link Title text field though (maybe because the URL is not valid there is no new text supplied to over-write it with?).
I guess it depends on the intended lifetime of the map as to whether this issue important to you. But for my maps (https://knowledgemappers.com/map-store/geography-based-atlas-maps/) it is crucial.... (but irregardless if that, it's not very good that the export function is not reproducing exactly what's there).
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