Casper 9 Self Service Description Field Formatting Bug

[frank]

Hi everyone,

I'm in the final stages of testing our 8.73 production database in a Casper 9.3 dev server. There are a few gaps post migration like no custom MCX keys being migrated or a few settings getting reset which can all be resolved with some manual reconfiguration.

In testing I noticed the self service app has a key difference in version 9 from 8 in how it displays policy descriptions. I noticed V9 isn't able to display dot points with return character values. We have a quite a few descriptions setup up this way to highlight the features of the app the user is about to install or note any warnings before they run a policy.

To give an example of this, here is what Skype in our self service looks like in version 8

external image link

...and what it translates too after migrating too version 9

external image link

Now i've looked around JAMF Nation to see if any early adopters of Casper 9 reported similar issues last year but couldn't find anything. Being this is a user facing feature of Casper I thought it would of been resolved in the development stage of Casper 9, but I was wrong.

So I logged a support request with JAMF and was advised that this is a known defect with how text is not being parsed correctly in the JSS. It displays correctly in the JSS web console but not in the self service app when users see it. Currently there is no ETA on when this will be fixed by JAMF.

Seeing there is no ETA has anyone worked out a way around this bug in the JSS or have you had to trim down your descriptions until this is fixed?

[haircut]

Yeah, I opened a ticket about this when 9.x was first released. Still no change so it seems to be low priority. Shame too; makes for a sloppy appearance with limited formatting options. Even their support tickets strip out line breaks so it's difficult to paste in logs, etc.

[nateboggs · Accepted solution]

Have you tried using html line breaks? We started using basic html formatting to clean up Self Service policy descriptions after upgrading to 9.x.

[frank]

@nboggs Yep that fixed the formatting! Thank you.

Is any of this documented in the admin guide or did you just happen to work it out in testing?

Seeing that we can now use html code we can format the text further than 8 allows. An example is we can put in colour, bold and text size if required :)

external image link

external image link

If JAMF is able they could put a UI around this in the JSS to allow basic formatting functions if not I hope they don't remove the ability to put in HTML code to format text.

[tuinte]

You can even add images!

external image link

[mm2270]

Hmm, I wasn't aware this made it back into the product. Yes, I said "back", because back in version 7 and early versions of 8.x Casper Suite had the ability to use html coding for Self Service descriptions. It was later removed to prevent cross site scripting (XSS) attacks.
I'm surprised it made its way back in but very happy to see that. Since we're planning out our move to version 9 of Casper Suite, this will be a nice bonus!

I hope it doesn't get removed again.

[#7]

@mm2270 Agreed, i've asked our jamf support rep to let the developers know that if they plan to remove this to please make a note of it in the release notes as it will take a but of work to remove the code from all our descriptions. Along with having a impact on user expectations and documentation around what to expect to see when using self service.

@tuinte That is great to know, could you post your description so everyone has a template of the code required to get that to work? Thanks

[tuinte]

Fo sho:

It's basic HTML stuff with in-line CSS styling, you just need to host the images (HTTP) somewhere accessible to your users wherever they might be using Self Service.

Grabbed perfect app logos from the ICNS files. Created the "Time to install" ones myself.

Ugly HTML:

<div style="font-size:0.9em;">

<p style="font-size:1.3em;">
Version: <br />
<span style="font-size:1.6em;">14.3.9</span>
</p>

<p  style="font-size:1.3em; padding:8px 0;" >
Quit Before Continuing: <br />
<img src="http://imageserver.com/self_service_icons/word.png" style="height:50px; float:left; padding:10px 10px 0 0;" />
<img src="http://imageserver.com/self_service_icons/excel.png" style="height:50px; float:left; padding:10px 10px 0 0;" />
<img src="http://imageserver.com/self_service_icons/powerpoint.png" style="height:50px; float:left; padding:10px 10px 0 0;" />
<img src="http://imageserver.com/self_service_icons/outlook.png" style="height:50px; float:left; padding:10px 10px 0 0;" />
<img src="http://imageserver.com/self_service_icons/office_reminders.png" style="height:50px; float:left; padding:10px 10px 0 0;" />
<img src="http://imageserver.com/self_service_icons/safari.png" style="height:50px; float:left; padding:10px 10px 0 0;" />
<img src="http://imageserver.com/self_service_icons/chrome.png" style="height:50px; float:left; padding:10px 10px 0 0;" />
<img src="http://imageserver.com/self_service_icons/firefox.png" style="height:50px; float:left; padding:10px 10px 0 0;" />
</p>

<br />
<br />

<p  style="font-size:1.3em; clear:left; padding:15px 0;">
Estimated Time To Install: <br />
<img src="http://imageserver.com/self_service_icons/selfservice/4-5.png" style="height:65px; float:left; padding:10px 10px 25px 0;" />
</p>

<br />
<br />

</div>

[hcodfrie]

sadly this option is gone :(

[frank]

Gone how? Works fine in 9.32 for me.

[chriscollins]

@frank it doesn't work anymore in 9.4. Markdown is now supported instead.

[jhbush]

Anyone having issues with the markdown not displaying properly?

[frank]

I just tested 9.51 and see all the work into putting the html line breaks is lost, it's now displaying all the code / text in the descriptions. So back to 8.x JSS days it is....

Is there anywhere to keep the formatting with markdown or only simple text like it was in 8.x of the JSS? I didn't mind the html line breaks as it allowed for some kind of formatting.

[llitz123]

I too am having this issue in 9.61 and am only replying so I get notified if there are fix replies in this thread.
Thanks.

[sgoetz]

Has anyone figured out how to format Text in Self Service Descriptions yet? Im on version 9.65

Thanks

Shawn

[bpavlov]

You can only use Markdown: https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/article.html?id=385

Is there something specifically you're looking to do that you can't do?

[sgoetz]

Thank you @bpavlov This is the most frustration thing ever! lol. I simply want to make a list of applications that are going to be installed when the user clicks install for the bundle. So we have a bundle called:

DMP Bundle

It has the following applications in it.

Charles Proxy
DataStax DevCenter
IntelliJ IDEA
JDK 8 update 40 Slack

I simply want that in list format. I tried using the hypen and the astrik but all i get is something like this:

Charles Proxy DataStax DevCenter IntelliJ IDEA JDK 8 update 40 Slack

Something so simple yet so very hard!

Thanks,

Shawn

[bpavlov]

So you want something like this:

• Charles Proxy
• DataStax DevCenter
• IntelliJ IDEA
• JDK 8 update 40 Slack

Have you made sure that you are keeping a space between the asterisk (or hyphen) and the first letter? Also to create a break line all you need to do is just hit Return/Enter on your keyboard.

[mm2270]

I don't think the list function from Markdown works in Self Service unfortunately. See this KB: https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/article.html?id=385 It indicates that lists are only applicable right now in User Self Enrollment pages. My experience is they don't work in the Self Service descriptions yet, though it'd sure be nice if JAMF could make them work there. (hint, hint)

What I've done to "simulate" it is like follows:

1. Some text here (plus 2 spaces)
2. Some more text here (plus 2 spaces)

The extra spaces at the end of each line tells Markdown to use them as line breaks so at least they don't show up in one long run on line.
You can substitute the numbers for bullets (•) also

Edit: Looks like if there is a period after the number that it doesn't respect the line breaks. You can use a 1) 2) style format or bullets to get it to show up as a list though.

[sgoetz]

@mm2270

Thank you!!! The 2 spaces works!!! It completely ridiculous what has to be done to get simple formatting done lol. Is there a feature request for improvements on this I can up vote? lol

Thanks again guys,

Shawn