[Bug]: forms.toast() does not support Unicode characters. (Enhancement)

[Denver-22]

✈ Pre-Flight checks

• I don't have SentinelOne antivirus installed (see above for the solution)
• I have searched in the issues (open and closed) but couldn't find a similar issue
• I have searched in the pyRevit Forum for similar issues
• I already followed the installation troubleshooting guide thoroughly
• I am using the latest pyRevit Version

🐞 Describe the bug

All text fields of function forms.toast() do not support Unicode characters.
Please add support.

⌨ Error/Debug Message

No errors.
Just scribbles.

♻️ To Reproduce

No response

⏲️ Expected behavior

No response

🖥️ Hardware and Software Setup (please complete the following information)

Win10.
Revit 2023.1.6
5.0.0.24325+1012-wip:2712:2023.1.60

Additional context

No response

[sanzoghenzo]

this is a bug of the go-toast app that pyrevit uses to show the toasts.
Unfortunately the project seems abandoned, and the fork that solved the issue doesn't have a compiled executable because it was turn into a go library (no more cli that we need).

The core of the project is a single go module that calls powershell, so it could be turn into a python script more or less easily.

We're open to contributions!

[sanzoghenzo]

A few GPT-4o prompts later

import subprocess
import time
from xml.etree.ElementTree import Element, SubElement, tostring

# Global script template
SCRIPT_TEMPLATE = """
[Windows.UI.Notifications.ToastNotificationManager, Windows.UI.Notifications, ContentType = WindowsRuntime] | Out-Null
[Windows.UI.Notifications.ToastNotification, Windows.UI.Notifications, ContentType = WindowsRuntime] | Out-Null
[Windows.Data.Xml.Dom.XmlDocument, Windows.Data.Xml.Dom.XmlDocument, ContentType = WindowsRuntime] | Out-Null

$APP_ID = "{app_id}"

$xml = New-Object Windows.Data.Xml.Dom.XmlDocument
$xml.LoadXml([xml]@"
{xml_content}
@")

$toast = New-Object Windows.UI.Notifications.ToastNotification $xml
[Windows.UI.Notifications.ToastNotificationManager]::CreateToastNotifier($APP_ID).Show($toast)
"""

# Mapping for audio friendly names to ms-winsoundevent strings
AUDIO_MAPPING = {
    "default": "ms-winsoundevent:Notification.Default",
    "im": "ms-winsoundevent:Notification.IM",
    "mail": "ms-winsoundevent:Notification.Mail",
    "reminder": "ms-winsoundevent:Notification.Reminder",
    "sms": "ms-winsoundevent:Notification.SMS",
    "silent": "silent",
    "looping_alarm": "ms-winsoundevent:Notification.Looping.Alarm",
    "looping_call": "ms-winsoundevent:Notification.Looping.Call"
}

def build_toast_xml(title, message, icon=None, activation_type="protocol", 
                     activation_arguments=None, actions=None, audio="default", 
                     loop=False, duration="short"):
    if duration not in {"short", "long"}:
        raise ValueError("Invalid duration: must be 'short' or 'long'")
    audio = AUDIO_MAPPING.get(audio.lower(), AUDIO_MAPPING["default"])
    toast = Element("toast", {
        "activationType": activation_type,
        "launch": activation_arguments or "",
        "duration": duration
    })
    visual = SubElement(toast, "visual")
    binding = SubElement(visual, "binding", {"template": "ToastGeneric"})
    if icon:
        SubElement(binding, "image", {"placement": "appLogoOverride", "src": icon})
    if title:
        SubElement(binding, "text").text = "<![CDATA[{}]]>".format(title)
    if message:
        SubElement(binding, "text").text = "<![CDATA[{}]]>".format(message)
    if audio == "silent":
        SubElement(toast, "audio", {"silent": "true"})
    else:
        audio_element = SubElement(
          toast, "audio", {"src": audio, "loop": "true" if loop else "false"}
        )
    if actions:
        actions_element = SubElement(toast, "actions")
        for action in actions:
            SubElement(actions_element, "action", {
                "activationType": action.get("type", ""),
                "content": action.get("label", ""),
                "arguments": action.get("arguments", "")
            })
    return tostring(toast, encoding="unicode")

def send_notification(app_id, title, message, icon=None, activation_type="protocol",
                      activation_arguments=None, actions=None, audio="default",
                      loop=False, duration="short"):
    app_id = app_id or "Windows App"

    # Generate the XML content
    xml_content = build_toast_xml(title, message, icon, activation_type, 
                                  activation_arguments, actions, audio, loop, duration)

    # Format PowerShell script using the global template
    script = SCRIPT_TEMPLATE.format(app_id=app_id, xml_content=xml_content)

    try:
        subprocess.Popen(["powershell", "-NoProfile", "-NonInteractive", "-Command", script],
                         stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.PIPE)
    except subprocess.CalledProcessError as e:
        print("Error sending notification: {0}".format(str(e)))
    except subprocess.TimeoutExpired:
        print("Notification script timed out.")

# Example Usage
if __name__ == "__main__":
    send_notification(
        app_id="Example App",
        title="My notification",
        message="Some message about how important something is...",
        icon="path/to/icon.png",
        actions=[
            {"type": "protocol", "label": "Open Maps", "arguments": "bingmaps:?q=sushi"},
            {"type": "protocol", "label": "Another Action", "arguments": ""}
        ],
        audio="mail",
        loop=False,
        duration="short"
    )

This is completely untested, feel free to try it, fix it and return back with a better version 😉

I've hit the limit for the free gpt-4o prompts, I asked how to further improve the code, here's the answer:

1. Error Handling Improvements:

   • Add specific error messages for cases where actions contains invalid data (e.g., missing type or label).
   • Ensure icon is a valid path (if provided) before including it in the XML.

2. Validation:

   • Validate audio against AUDIO_MAPPING.keys() and raise an exception if an invalid key is passed.
   • Check if activation_arguments are meaningful URLs or paths based on activation_type.

3. Logging:

   • Add logging for debugging purposes to capture errors and script execution status.

4. Script Output Handling:

   • Capture and log PowerShell script output (stdout and stderr) for better debugging.

5. Default Parameters:

   • Move app_id defaulting to "Windows App" directly inside send_notification instead of the call site.

6. Script Timeout:

   • Add a timeout option to send_notification and pass it to subprocess.Popen.

7. Cross-Platform Considerations:

   • Add checks or warnings if the script is executed on a non-Windows system, as PowerShell is Windows-specific.

8. XML Escaping:

   • Ensure proper escaping of special characters in title and message for XML safety.

9. Test Cases:

   • Create unit tests for build_toast_xml to verify it generates valid XML for a variety of inputs.

10. Documentation:

    • Add detailed docstrings for functions explaining parameters, types, and valid values (e.g., list valid audio keys, activation_type options).

[sanzoghenzo]

As I mentioned in #2493 this is no easy fix on the python side because subprocess doesn't handle unicode properly.

We should implement this on the .net/C# side, but I have no incentives to work on that.

[Denver-22]

@sanzoghenzo, thank you for the detailed answers.