Contrib.social

Allow the settings form to accept longer Description and Error text to avoid data loss

Open on Drupal.org →
Created on 30 April 2025, 3 months ago

Problem/Motivation

The captcha.settings description has no limit as a text string in configuration, but the CAPTCHA settings form prevents input greater than 256 characters. It is then possible to import a longer description, but then lose that description if a user saves the form.

We should avoid data loss. Either the settings should also be constricted to 256 characters or a different form element is used to allow for longer text strings. I think that there is not a reason to limit the number of characters in the description.

This is probably a holdover from Drupal 7 variables.

Steps to reproduce

  1. Log in as an administrative user on a site with config module enabled.
  2. Import the below YAML Basic configuration into the site
  3. Visit a form with a captcha. The description is displayed in full.
  4. Visit the Captcha settings form. The description is cut off in the input to 256 characters (by design)
  5. Save the form
  6. Visit a form with a captcha. The description that was imported is lost.

sample captcha.settings.yml

enable_globally: 1
enable_globally_on_admin_routes: FALSE
default_challenge: 'captcha/Math'
description: 'Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Praesent iaculis euismod metus eu tempor. Maecenas tincidunt turpis enim, et blandit nisi pulvinar ac. Sed in nibh libero. Fusce a ante eget metus dapibus tincidunt. Donec fringilla sed ante ac venenatis. Vivamus tincidunt diam eget sapien at. '
title: 'CAPTCHA'
administration_mode: FALSE
administration_mode_on_admin_routes: FALSE
whitelist_ips: ''
wrong_captcha_response_message: 'The answer you entered for the CAPTCHA was not correct.'
default_validation: 1
persistence: 1
enable_stats: FALSE
log_wrong_responses: FALSE
langcode: en

Proposed resolution

Change the "Description" field from a text field to a text area so that it is easier to write text that may exceed the input box (even 256 characters makes it difficult to write). Potentially also change the "Wrong CAPTCHA response error message" field to a text area as well. Remove the max length property on both fields.

Remaining tasks

- Merge request and any test fixes.

User interface changes

The Captcha settings form Description and Wrong CAPTCHA response error message fields are changed to text areas and allow longer input.

API changes

No.

Data model changes

No. CAPTCHA already supports longer description and error strings.

🐛 Bug report
Status

Active

Version

2.0

Component

User interface

Created by

🇺🇸United States mradcliffe USA

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Comments & Activities

  • Issue created by @mradcliffe
  • Comment 3 months ago →
    🇺🇸United States mradcliffe USA

    mradcliffe → changed the visibility of the branch 3521988-longer-description to hidden.

  • Comment 3 months ago →
    🇺🇸United States mradcliffe USA

    mradcliffe → changed the visibility of the branch 3521988-longer-description to active.

  • @mradcliffe opened merge request.
  • Comment 3 months ago →
    🇺🇸United States mradcliffe USA

    I went ahead with a merge request that changes both to text areas.

  • Status changed to Needs review 21 days ago
  • First commit to issue fork.
  • Comment 21 days ago →
    🇩🇪Germany Anybody Porta Westfalica

    A limited description field isn't a bug, it's a decision made by former maintainers, and I think it's not "wrong". It's more a specific need, I'd say. I'm not against it, but didn't see much community need for that in the past. Maybe you could just solve it custom using an alter hook?

  • Comment 20 days ago →
    🇺🇸United States mradcliffe USA

    The description field is not limited as it does not have any schema preventing it from being more than 255 characters.

    The description form field causes data loss of the description field, which was probably a Drupal 7 decision based on architectural limitations of the variables system, which is no longer a problem in Drupal 8+.

    I guess I could create a small glue contrib module to fix captcha, but ideally it would be nice to have the fix in this module to reduce cost of ownership / maintainership.

  • Comment 20 days ago →
    🇩🇪Germany Anybody Porta Westfalica

    @mradcliffe thanks, yes I'm not against it in general, but I think you also understand that I'm struggling with changing the textfield to a textarea, as it's not "my" module, I just helped with maintainership... maybe we should wait for further maintainer feedback and until then you use the patch?

    Mhmmmm

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