Component link in rich text field rendered as a component tcm in view

Question

I'm using DXA 2.0 (JAVA) with our web app. In SDL Web 8.5, I've got a Component with a rich text field. I add a hyperlink as a Component, using a standard External Link Component, created using a schema called "External Link". and this renders:

<a title="ExternalLink" href="tcm:309-314853">sample text</a>

I publish the Page and verified ,broker database has the published Page content including the markup shown above.

The model:

@Data
@SemanticEntity(
        entityName = "EmbeddedParagraphRTF",
        vocabulary = SDL_CORE,
        prefix = "m")
public class EmbeddedParaTextEntityModel extends AbstractEntityModel {

    @SemanticProperty("m:paraText")
    @ProcessComponentLinkURL
    private String paraText;

}

Is there a way to extract the link field from the external link component in the RTF and render as a URL instead of just the tcm id which makes no sense as this is an external link.

Update: The dxa properties are as below-

## Defaults settings

# Remove XMLNS attributes from Rich Text?
dxa.defaults.rich-text-xmlns-remove=true

# Resolve TCM URIs into links in Rich Text?
dxa.defaults.rich-text-resolve=false

# Remove extension .html from resolved link?
dxa.web.link-resolver.remove-extension=true

# Strip /index at the end of resolved links?
dxa.web.link-resolver.strip-index-path=true

# keep / when stripping index at the end of resolved links?
dxa.web.link-resolver.keep-trailing-slash=false

## Error handling configuration

# Whether so suppress errors related to keyword expansion in a model
dxa.errors.missing-keyword-suppress=true

# Whether so suppress errors related to entity expansion in a model
dxa.errors.missing-entity-suppress=true

# Whether so suppress errors related to include page expansion in a page model
dxa.errors.missing-include-page-suppress=true

## Caching
# Default cache configuration if cd_client_conf.xml configuration is not compatible
dxa.caching.configuration=ehcache.xml

# List of required caches that will be created automatically if they are missing in config, comma-separated
dxa.caching.required.caches=defaultCache, failures

# List of disabled caches that will be destroyed, comma-separated
dxa.caching.disabled.caches=no-caches-are-disabled-by-default


## Tridion configuration

# Taxonomies
dxa.tridion.navigation.taxonomy.marker=[Navigation]
dxa.tridion.navigation.taxonomy.type.structureGroup=StructureGroup
dxa.tridion.navigation.taxonomy.type.taxonomyNode=TaxonomyNode
dxa.tridion.navigation.taxonomy.type.page=Page

dxa.defaults.config-bootstrap-path=/system/config/_all.json
dxa.defaults.mappings-schemas=/system/mappings/schemas.json
dxa.defaults.config-dcp-uri-field=dataPresentationTemplateUri

Answer 1

The Component Link doesn’t get resolved (to a Page URL) because of setting dxa.defaults.rich-text-resolve=false.

If that setting is changed to true, the DXA Model Service will resolve Component Links to Page URL, assuming the linked Component is on a published Page. If not, hyperlinks in Rich Text are suppressed (i.e. the HTML a tag is removed).

However, in your case, you don’t want such standard link resolving to happen; you want to resolve the URL in your “External Link” Component.

I would recommend to create a custom CM-side Data Model Builder for that purpose. See https://docs.sdl.com/LiveContent/content/en-US/SDL%20DXA-v10/GUID-1C3C1401-D38A-4C23-8B6D-7735C068F9B0

Answer 2

You should use type com.sdl.webapp.common.api.model.RichText (instead of String) for the RTF fields.

This should resolve links correctly.