Fix/preserve link style during selection #6672

[Jyotish08]

closes #6672

When text drag-selection was initiated on a screen, link text rendered as plain unstyled text (losing custom link-color and link-style such as cyan color and underline) even though clickability survived.

Root Cause
In
src/textual/visual.py
, Visual.to_strips checked and not widget.screen._selecting before applying link styles:

python

if (
widget.auto_links
and not widget.is_container
and not widget.screen._selecting
):
link_style = widget.link_style
strips = [strip._apply_link_style(link_style) for strip in strips]
While text selection was in progress, widget.screen._selecting evaluated to True. Any widget re-rendered during drag-selection had _apply_link_style(link_style) skipped, stripping away the link styling.

Solution
Removed the selection check in Visual.to_strips: Updated
src/textual/visual.py
so link styles are applied consistently regardless of whether screen selection is active:
python

if widget.auto_links and not widget.is_container:
link_style = widget.link_style
strips = [strip._apply_link_style(link_style) for strip in strips]
Added Unit Test: Added test_link_style_preserved_during_selection to
tests/test_selection.py
to ensure link styles are preserved across mouse-down, drag, and mouse-up selection states.

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

This PR addresses a rendering regression where link styling (e.g., link color + underline) disappears while text drag-selection is active, by ensuring link styles are applied even when Screen._selecting is True. It also includes additional changes and tests around anchored scrolling behavior.

Changes:

• Apply link styling in Visual.to_strips regardless of whether screen selection is active.
• Add a regression test to ensure link styling remains visible throughout mouse drag-selection.
• Add/adjust anchoring logic (and a new test) to better preserve/re-engage “anchored to bottom” scrolling during streaming content updates.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 5 out of 5 changed files in this pull request and generated 3 comments.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
src/textual/visual.py	Removes the selection-state guard so link styles are consistently applied.
tests/test_selection.py	Adds a regression test for link style preservation during selection (with some brittleness to address).
src/textual/widget.py	Updates anchor/scroll behavior to avoid releasing/re-enable anchoring when scrolling to bottom.
src/textual/_compositor.py	Calls _check_anchor() during composition to help re-engage anchoring appropriately.
tests/test_anchor.py	Adds a test covering anchored scrolling behavior during streaming/mount updates.

Suppressed comments (2)

tests/test_selection.py:259

• Same brittleness during the selecting-state check: matching by "docs" text and asserting color.name == "#00ffff" can break if segment boundaries or color naming differ. Use the "@click" meta to identify link segments and compare to static_widget.link_style.

        strip_selecting = static_widget.render_line(0)
        docs_seg_selecting = [seg for seg in strip_selecting if "docs" in seg.text][0]
        assert docs_seg_selecting.style.underline is True
        assert docs_seg_selecting.style.color.name == "#00ffff"

tests/test_selection.py:270

• After mouse-up, the current filter can accidentally match non-link segments (it matches any segment containing any of the letters d/o/c/s) and still asserts an exact hex string. Filtering by "@click" meta makes the test unambiguous and resilient to selection splitting.

        strip_after = static_widget.render_line(0)
        docs_segs = [seg for seg in strip_after if any(char in seg.text for char in "docs") and seg.text not in ("See the ", " link.")]
        assert len(docs_segs) > 0
        for seg in docs_segs:
            assert seg.style.underline is True
            assert seg.style.color.name == "#00ffff"

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