Illegal characters in document titles?

Desktop editors
1

I noted that when I saved a document with a title that included a forward slash (/) – as in, e.g., “Computer/Tech” – the forward slash was converted to a colon in the files directory (user main page).

Is the “/” an illegal character in a filename?

2

Hello @mk7z

Please specify version of Desktop Editors that is used and information about OS of the device where this behavior occurs. I’ve tested it with actual version 8.0.1 on MacOS 14.4 and didn’t manage to reproduce the issue.

If possible record a small video demonstration of exact steps to reproduce it.

3

Thanks, I’m using v.8.0 (Desktop Editors version, I think).
Mac OS 10.15.7 (Catalina)
Brave (browser) v. 1.67.90.

I have experimented with this several times. Each time the forward slash is replaced with a colon. Moreover, there appears to be no sync between document titles in OnlyOffice and in the Finder, because the Finder version doesn’t replace the forward slash. So I end up with two slightly different titles for the same document.

I’ll have to review how to do a video ‘screenshot’ later, I never do those because I can never see what’s going on in them anyway (both text and images are always too small).

4

So when saving file and giving it a name with a slash it is correctly saved in Finder but when opened in Desktop Editors slash is replaced with colon, is that correct?

You can provide a side by side comparison screenshot of file name display in Finder and Desktop Editors, i.e. capture Finder with file that is also opened in Desktop Editors. However, seeing whole process of naming a file and demonstrating the issue would be much more helpful to visually understand described behavior.

5

So when saving file and giving it a name with a slash it is correctly saved in Finder but when opened in Desktop Editors slash is replaced with colon, is that correct?

Yes. I’ll try to get to whatever is needed when I can but the only item of relevance here, which I can’t describe as a major one, is the non-recognition (or refusal) of a forward slash character [/] and substitution of a colon [:] instead.

If you’re not seeing the same occurring in the Docs app in Desktop Editors – i.e., when the forward slash character is used in the centered title at the top of the page – then this will remain mysterious (at least for the time being).

(I can’t really ask you to run OO v.8.0 in Catalina.)

6

I am looking forward for the demonstration video.

7

Just to be clear, you are asking for a video of what actions exactly?

All I meant to report was that if I include a ‘forward slash’ in a document name, the slash will be replaced with a colon. E.g., 7/4/25 will display (in the document name field at the top of the document and in the main document listing) as 7:4:25.

If you save a document on a Mac (in OS Catalina if possible) with “7/4/25” in the document title do you not find that the same happens?

Thanks.

8

After some research I was able to find out that this behavior occurs due to the difference in command line and GUI. The colon (:) is allowed in UNIX/BSD since the directory delimiter is slash (/). In the GUI, the delimiter is colon and slash is allowed as a character for a file.

MacOS interchanges those characters depending on where you view them:

  • if a file is viewed in command-line, it shows colon;
  • if it is viewed in the GUI (e.g. Finder or as a file name in Desktop Editor), it shows slash.

This also happening in several other apps I’ve checked.

9

Thanks. However, every filename in my OnlyOffice main directory listing that contains a date with ‘/’ separators displays ‘:’ instead of the slashes. As does the filename that displays at the top of those documents. Aren’t those all in the GUI?

10

Actually, I was a bit wrong. When you create a file name with slash characters in Finder, the operating system stores this information internally using a colon-separated format (e.g., “My File/with/slashes.docx”). However, when other apps display this file name, they might not always preserve these slashes. Instead, they may replace them with colons (:) to ensure that the file path is properly displayed and can be accessed.

So generally it as like:

  • if a file is viewed in command-line, it shows colon - doc:with:slash.docx;
  • if it is viewed in the GUI (e.g. Finder), it shows slash - doc/with/slash.docx;
  • if it is viewed in apps (Word, Desktop Editors), it may show the name both ways, but it is nothing unusual to see colons.

Technically, this is not an illegal character, just a different display of the name, it is still saved to the original file.

You can check it out by running Terminal and getting to the directory where such file is located, then using ls to list files. You’ll see that even file system displays it with colons.

11

Thanks. So is there no way to get the slashes to appear as typed (i.e., without being substituted by the colon) in Desktop Editors?

12

Correct. As it is normal behavior, there is no way to tweak it.