topic Re: Pro Hyperlink breaks with special characters in ArcGIS Pro Questions

Pro Hyperlink breaks with special characters

MatthewDriscoll — Wed, 27 Nov 2019 15:07:00 GMT

We have paths and file names with special characters: L:\Path\MATT'S ADDN BLK 1,2,&3.TIF. I know this is a terrible thing to do, but it was done long ago before my time here. My guess is it is due to the special characters.

The paths are stored in an attribute and I am using that as a hyperlink in a custom popup. The ones which do not have special characters of course open fine. But I get the following error below on the ones that do. Hitting Yes does nothing.

This is not a problem in using the ArcMap hyperlink (lighting bolt).

arcmap equivalency‌ arcmap equivalent

Re: Pro Hyperlink breaks with special characters

MarkBockenhauer — Wed, 27 Nov 2019 18:27:33 GMT

The single quote is causing the script error. I don't know of a way to work around this in ArcGIS Pro, other than removing the single quote from the file names.

Re: Pro Hyperlink breaks with special characters

DanPatterson_Retired — Sat, 11 Dec 2021 09:24:23 GMT

Depends on how the strings are quoted. How software interprets a path is another issue, but even microsoft recommends against space and punctuation. Unix is more forgiving

p = r'L:\Path\MATT'S ADDN BLK 1,2,&3.TIF'    # ---- single quote raw encoding
  File "<ipython-input-5-7dbd339e92b6>", line 1
    p = r'L:\Path\MATT'S ADDN BLK 1,2,&3.TIF'
                       ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax


p = r"L:\Path\MATT'S ADDN BLK 1,2,&3.TIF"     # ---- double quote raw encoding

q = p.replace("\\", "/")

q
"L:/Path/MATT'S ADDN BLK 1,2,&3.TIF"   # ---- safe anywhere‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

Re: Pro Hyperlink breaks with special characters

MatthewDriscoll — Mon, 02 Dec 2019 20:56:07 GMT

Thanks Dan! This fixes the problem.

Edit: Seemed like an expression would be the fix, I still get the same error.

Replace($feature.Plat_HL,"\\", "/")

Re: Pro Hyperlink breaks with special characters

DanPatterson_Retired — Tue, 03 Dec 2019 16:42:52 GMT

you are using arcade, path delimiter replace is for python, no clue how arcade handles paths and unsavory characters

maybe Xander Bakker‌ knows

Re: Pro Hyperlink breaks with special characters

MatthewDriscoll — Tue, 03 Dec 2019 16:51:32 GMT

Thanks Dan! Unfortunately Python is not an option in Pro popups.

Re: Pro Hyperlink breaks with special characters

MatthewDriscoll — Tue, 03 Dec 2019 17:28:56 GMT

Testing this more I found the path works fine within the popup. But still cannot figure out a way to hyperlink correctly.

Re: Pro Hyperlink breaks with special characters

MarkBockenhauer — Tue, 03 Dec 2019 17:31:46 GMT

Matthew,

I tried using Arcade to workaround the link issue, and I think internal Popup window code is interfering. I have raised this with the team that works on Popups.

For example when a file path is typed in, the popup changes the string

The popup link trips over the ' in the file name.

Mark

Re: Pro Hyperlink breaks with special characters

XanderBakker — Tue, 03 Dec 2019 17:33:22 GMT

Hi Matthew Driscoll and Dan Patterson ,

I just did a little test and although I have the same issue with the link, the image does show in the pop-up (using the original path without any encoding). However, when you click on the image or the link, it will produce the error. I tried to use the UrlEncode function in Arcade (as you can see at the wonderful text next to "CreateHyperlink", but this does not work either. I even include the "file:///" before the path and that did not work either.

Kory Kramer‌; do you know how to avoid the error message?

Here is the error message (in Spanish)

Re: Pro Hyperlink breaks with special characters

XanderBakker — Sat, 11 Dec 2021 09:24:26 GMT

Hi Matthew Driscoll ,

The image tag with the file link will work and display the image, but when using the same link in the href of an anchor it fails. So IMHO something that needs fixing in ArcGIS Pro. See code below:

var file = Replace($feature.Plat_HL, "'", "%27");
file = Replace(file, "&", "%26");
file = Replace(file, " ", "%20");
file = Replace(file, ",", "%2C");

return '<a href="file:///' + file + '"><img src="file:///' + file + '" width="250"></a>';‍‍‍‍‍‍

Which leads to showing the image in the pop-up...

.. but clicking on it will fail:

Re: Pro Hyperlink breaks with special characters

MatthewDriscoll — Thu, 05 Dec 2019 17:49:44 GMT

Customer support thinks it is because of Arcade, not the popup.

"...I was discussing this case with my manager, and we believe the differences seen in hyperlink behavior between ArcMap and ArcGIS Pro relate to how the two programs are coded. ArcMap does not have Arcade integrated into its background processes, while ArcGIS Pro does. This changes how the two programs function at a fundamental level..."

So this leads to why is Arcade the only option for customizing popup's other than getting into the SDK?

Re: Pro Hyperlink breaks with special characters

DanPatterson_Retired — Thu, 05 Dec 2019 18:50:17 GMT

Good question... was python used before? (I don't do popups ) or is it some web thing?

Re: Pro Hyperlink breaks with special characters

MatthewDriscoll — Thu, 05 Dec 2019 20:04:17 GMT

Yes VBScript, Python and JScript are all options available for Display Expressions in ArcMap.

Re: Pro Hyperlink breaks with special characters

XanderBakker — Fri, 06 Dec 2019 14:50:56 GMT

Hi Matthew Driscoll ,

I think I'm going to have to disagree with customer support. If in the same pop-up using the same Arcade expression an image is visualized correctly, but the link to open the same image is resulting in an error, this cannot be something caused by the Arcade expression, but is something that ArcGIS Pro is doing with the result of the expression.

CC Kory Kramer‌ what do you think?

Arcade is the expression language Esri has chosen to implement as the cross platform expression language for all the profiles below (and this list is growing).

Re: Pro Hyperlink breaks with special characters

KoryKramer — Fri, 06 Dec 2019 14:57:19 GMT

Hey Xander Bakker‌

I think Mark Bockenhauer‌ got at this above when he said "I tried using Arcade to workaround the link issue, and I think internal Popup window code is interfering. I have raised this with the team that works on Popups." That dev team has entered an internal issue to look into this.

Re: Pro Hyperlink breaks with special characters

XanderBakker — Fri, 06 Dec 2019 15:00:56 GMT

Thanks Kory Kramer and mbockenhauer-esristaff

Re: Pro Hyperlink breaks with special characters

MatthewDriscoll — Fri, 06 Dec 2019 15:15:20 GMT

Thanks Xander. I have just been getting started with using Arcade on different platforms. I have seen some amazing things others have done with Arcade expressions, I can't wait to dive in deeper.

Re: Pro Hyperlink breaks with special characters

MatthewDriscoll — Tue, 10 Dec 2019 15:42:45 GMT

BUG-000127258