From 86a0ac7beb0bf983ede2631ebfebd5b2f075597d Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Jack Kingsman <jack.kingsman@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2026 19:13:29 -0700
Subject: [PATCH] Don't strip outgoing colons on DMs or room servers. Closes
 #198.

---
 frontend/src/components/MessageList.tsx | 12 +++++++-----
 frontend/src/test/messageList.test.tsx  | 18 ++++++++++++++++++
 2 files changed, 25 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)

diff --git a/frontend/src/components/MessageList.tsx b/frontend/src/components/MessageList.tsx
index bc8f811..479d083 100644
--- a/frontend/src/components/MessageList.tsx
+++ b/frontend/src/components/MessageList.tsx
@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ import {
   type ReactNode,
 } from 'react';
 import type { Channel, Contact, Message, MessagePath, RadioConfig, RawPacket } from '../types';
-import { CONTACT_TYPE_REPEATER, CONTACT_TYPE_ROOM } from '../types';
+import { CONTACT_TYPE_ROOM } from '../types';
 import { api } from '../api';
 import {
   findLinkedChannelReferences,
@@ -808,12 +808,13 @@ export function MessageList({
         {sortedMessages.map((msg, index) => {
           // For DMs, look up contact; for channel messages, use parsed sender
           const contact = msg.type === 'PRIV' ? getContact(msg.conversation_key) : null;
-          const isRepeater = contact?.type === CONTACT_TYPE_REPEATER;
           const isRoomServer = contact?.type === CONTACT_TYPE_ROOM;
 
-          // Skip sender parsing for repeater messages (CLI responses often have colons)
+          // Only parse "sender: text" prefix for channel messages — DMs never carry
+          // an in-text sender prefix, so parsing them would incorrectly strip
+          // user text that happens to contain a colon (e.g. "TEST1: TEST2").
           const { sender, content } =
-            isRepeater || (isRoomServer && msg.type === 'PRIV')
+            msg.type === 'PRIV'
               ? { sender: null, content: msg.text }
               : parseSenderFromText(msg.text);
           const directSenderName =
@@ -845,7 +846,8 @@ export function MessageList({
             isCorruptChannelMessage
           );
           const prevMsg = sortedMessages[index - 1];
-          const prevParsedSender = prevMsg ? parseSenderFromText(prevMsg.text).sender : null;
+          const prevParsedSender =
+            prevMsg && prevMsg.type === 'CHAN' ? parseSenderFromText(prevMsg.text).sender : null;
           const prevSenderKey = prevMsg
             ? getSenderKey(
                 prevMsg,
diff --git a/frontend/src/test/messageList.test.tsx b/frontend/src/test/messageList.test.tsx
index dc3e266..d469d27 100644
--- a/frontend/src/test/messageList.test.tsx
+++ b/frontend/src/test/messageList.test.tsx
@@ -220,6 +220,24 @@ describe('MessageList channel sender rendering', () => {
     expect(onChannelReferenceClick).toHaveBeenCalledWith('#ops-room');
   });
 
+  it('does not strip colon-prefixed text in direct messages (issue #198)', () => {
+    render(
+      <MessageList
+        messages={[
+          createMessage({
+            type: 'PRIV',
+            conversation_key: 'ab'.repeat(32),
+            text: 'TEST1: TEST2',
+          }),
+        ]}
+        contacts={[]}
+        loading={false}
+      />
+    );
+
+    expect(screen.getByText('TEST1: TEST2')).toBeInTheDocument();
+  });
+
   it('renders and dismisses an unread marker at the first unread message boundary', async () => {
     const user = userEvent.setup();
     const messages = [