SetText on AceGUI multi line edit box results in no text after AFK

Garmsen · 07-11-23, 07:58 PM

Edit: Sorry if this is in the wrong section, just noticed there's a Lua/XML Help section.

Hi.

I'm a few months into learning Lua and addon development.

My first addon allows players to customize each chat frame.

One of the features allows players to copy messages from a chat frame by duplicating them to an AceGUI multi line edit box when you hold control and left click on a chat tab.

I noticed that if I AFK for about 10 minutes and come back, sometimes no messages show up when I try to open the frame.

Lua Code:

local AceGUI = LibStub("AceGUI-3.0")
 
--- @class Private
local Private = select(2, ...)
 
--- @class CopyModule: AceModule
local CopyModule = Private.Addon:NewModule("Copy")
 
--- @class CopyConstants
local CopyConstants = Private.CopyConstants
 
--- @class ChatFrameUtils
local ChatFrameUtils = Private.ChatFrameUtils
 
--- @class DatabaseUtils
local DatabaseUtils = Private.DatabaseUtils
 
--- @class CopyState
--- @field copyFrame table?
--- @field multiLineEditBox table?
--- @field text string?
local state = {
    copyFrame = nil,
    multiLineEditBox = nil,
    text = "",
}
 
--- Configures the copy frame.
local function configureCopyFrame(copyFrame)
    copyFrame:SetTitle(CopyConstants.FRAME_TITLE)
    copyFrame:SetWidth(CopyConstants.FRAME_WIDTH)
    copyFrame:SetHeight(CopyConstants.FRAME_HEIGHT)
    copyFrame:SetLayout(CopyConstants.FRAME_LAYOUT)
    copyFrame.frame:EnableKeyboard(true)
    copyFrame.frame:SetClampedToScreen(true)
    copyFrame.frame:SetFrameStrata(CopyConstants.FRAME_STRATA)
    copyFrame.frame:SetPropagateKeyboardInput(true)
end
 
--- Creates the copy frame.
local function createCopyFrame()
    local copyFrame = AceGUI:Create("Frame")
 
    configureCopyFrame(copyFrame)
 
    return copyFrame
end
 
--- Handles the text changing in the multi line edit box.
local function onTextChangedCallback(widget)
    local currentText = state.text
    local cursorPosition = widget:GetCursorPosition()
 
    widget:SetText(currentText)
    widget:SetCursorPosition(cursorPosition)
end
 
--- Configures the multi line edit box.
local function configureMultiLineEditBox(multiLineEditBox)
    multiLineEditBox:DisableButton(true)
    multiLineEditBox:SetLabel("")
    multiLineEditBox:SetCallback("OnTextChanged", onTextChangedCallback)
end
 
--- Creates the multi line edit box.
local function createMultiLineEditBox()
    local multiLineEditBox = AceGUI:Create("MultiLineEditBox")
 
    configureMultiLineEditBox(multiLineEditBox)
 
    return multiLineEditBox
end
 
--- Updates the copy frame with the chat frame messages.
--- @param chatFrame table
local function updateCopyFrame(chatFrame)
    state.text = table.concat(ChatFrameUtils:GetChatFrameMessages(chatFrame), "\n")
    state.multiLineEditBox:SetText(state.text)
 
    -- To scroll to the bottom of the multi line edit box, we need to wait.
    C_Timer.After(0, function()
        state.multiLineEditBox:SetCursorPosition(#state.text)
    end)
end
 
--- Closes the copy frame.
local function closeCopyFrame()
    state.copyFrame:Hide()
 
    AceGUI:Release(state.copyFrame)
 
    state.copyFrame = nil
end
 
--- Sets the escape key handler for a frame.
local function setEscapeKeyHandler(frame, editBox)
    frame:SetScript("OnKeyDown", function(self, key)
        if key ~= "ESCAPE" then
            self:SetPropagateKeyboardInput(true)
 
            return
        end
 
        closeCopyFrame()
 
        self:SetPropagateKeyboardInput(false)
    end)
end
 
--- Initializes the copy frame.
local function initializeCopyFrame()
    local copyFrame = createCopyFrame()
    local multiLineEditBox = createMultiLineEditBox()
 
    copyFrame:AddChild(multiLineEditBox)
 
    setEscapeKeyHandler(copyFrame.frame, multiLineEditBox.editBox)
 
    state.copyFrame = copyFrame
    state.multiLineEditBox = multiLineEditBox
    state.text = ""
end
 
--- Shows the copy frame.
--- @param chatFrame table
function CopyModule:ShowCopyFrame(chatFrame)
    if not state.copyFrame then
        initializeCopyFrame()
    end
 
    updateCopyFrame(chatFrame)
 
    state.copyFrame:Show()
    state.copyFrame.frame:SetPropagateKeyboardInput(true)
end

I have tried to debug the problem as shown below. I was able to reproduce the issue of the messages not showing up in the multi line edit box, but they would appear in ChatFrame4 and ChatFrame5.

Lua Code:

--- Updates the copy frame with the chat frame messages.
--- @param chatFrame table
local function updateCopyFrame(chatFrame)
    state.text = table.concat(ChatFrameUtils:GetChatFrameMessages(chatFrame), "\n")
    ChatFrame5:AddMessage(state.text)
    state.multiLineEditBox:SetText(state.text)
 
    for _, msg in ipairs(ChatFrameUtils:GetChatFrameMessages(chatFrame)) do
        ChatFrame4:AddMessage(msg)
    end
 
    C_Timer.After(2, function()
        state.multiLineEditBox:SetText(state.text)
    end)
 
    -- To scroll to the bottom of the multi line edit box, we need to wait.
    C_Timer.After(4, function()
        state.multiLineEditBox:SetCursorPosition(#state.text)
    end)
end

My code is on GitHub as well so it might be easier to look at here: https://github.com/drzewieckinichola...dules/Copy.lua

The files we're probably interested in are Modules/Copy.lua, Hooks/ChatFrame.lua, and I guess Utils/ChatFrame.lua, but I'm assuming the problem is in Modules/Copy.lua.

Does anybody have any idea what I'm doing wrong?

Here are some images as well: https://imgur.com/a/M46PsRp

Thanks in advance!

Garmsen · 08-16-23, 01:08 PM

I'm providing an update for anyone that runs across this issue in the future.

The issue ended up being due to trying to copy over messages with protected strings (info towards bottom of this page): https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/UI_escape_sequences

An example of a protected string is that message in chat that occurs when a Battle.net friend logs on or off (if you have that option enabled). It was causing all of my copy frame messages to disappear because I am using a single string with line breaks.

Solution:

I couldn't find anybody that was able to figure out what the issue was so I started looking through GitHub repos to see if others were doing something special when copying over chat messages to a frame. Credit to https://github.com/tukui-org/ElvUI as that was the repo I referenced, but there are plenty of other repos with similar functions.