Handle username changes

[tedr56]

I wonder if NodeBB have a hook in case of username modification.

In that case, it would be usefull to change all post mentions to the new username.

[julianlam]

We could add it, but the mentions plugin is just a transparent layer. It does not record the pids containing mentions, so this would add significant complexity to the plugin if we wanted to handle username changes...

[barisusakli]

How about we store user IDs in the raw post content for mentions? IE post content has @123 stored and when its rendered it gets replaced by the username of uid 123.

Obviously its a breaking change.

[julianlam]

That might work, although we'd want to use a syntax that wouldn't normally be a regular username 😄

@~12345

[psychobunny]

Probably want to avoid syntax that markdown understands as well, I can already sense the potential explosions :D

[barisusakli]

For this to work we need to change what we insert into the composer
Instead of @psychobunny we should put in [@mention ](/uid/3) then even if the user changes their username we can replace mention with their current userslug using the uid.

[julianlam]

Bumping.

The crux of the problem here is I have a strong stance against parsing on the way in. Right now, for UX purposes, the end user sees something like @username in the composer, and I wouldn't want to change the syntax into a more unfriendly one like [@mention ](/uid/3).

The solution would probably have to be some sort of one-time exception to this informal rule...

The syntax would be something like @123|mention, where if the user puts @mention, then it is changed to @123|mention prior to saving. The canonical syntax would be @123, which we'd replace the uid with the username.

For history purposes, we wouldn't want to replace the mention text in old posts (unless it was just the @{uid} variant, which would be handled automatically).

The other complicating factor is that this plugin is super old and has a lot of built-up logic over the years that needs unwinding 😑

[chezfo]

The syntax would be something like @123|mention, where if the user puts @mention, then it is changed to @123|mention prior to saving. The canonical syntax would be @123, which we'd replace the uid with the username

While this solution does solve the problem,
But before saving, the text will not be set as a link, so it will not be possible to see in the preview window that it is indeed mentioned as a link.

But can be resolved that at the end of the mention @yusernam Will be replaced by @yusernam|123

I did not understand why history has value, when the mention does not direct you anywhere ...

[pitaj]

Huh? Mentions link you to their user page.