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Thursday, June 09, 2005
[IPB 2.1] Friendly Forms, Again
I figured I'd take a quick movie of the "new" registration form which takes advantage of Ajax to check the usernames and email address haven't already been used in a registration (and are not banned by the admin).
I think it's a nice way of letting the user know about any errors and should save them a whole bunch of submit.. edit...submit...edit...submit cycles which quickly get frustrating.
One day, all web forms will be like this.
Reg-Form.mov (Quicktime .mov 1.1mb)
June 9, 2005 | Permalink
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Comments
There's now a display name and login name? Why?
Posted by: Logan | Jun 9, 2005 11:18:46 AM
To enable thirdy party log in and member management systems.
For example, Microsoft's "PassPort" system uses an email address as the "log in name". However, having that as your "display name" isn't desirable, so IPB allows you to chose another.
Naturally, the display name option can be switched off.
Posted by: Matt | Jun 9, 2005 11:23:32 AM
@Logan > because as on phpBB, you can edit your Display name as you still Log in with your ... login name ^^
Posted by: The Jedi | Jun 9, 2005 11:24:00 AM
However i don't think showing both login & display names on the register form is the easier way to make people registering. For a basic user, login = Display name.
Posted by: The Jedi | Jun 9, 2005 11:26:27 AM
Greetings,
this is great and very top priority feature...
a lot of users on the forums I am admin/mod on were asking for this.
for me it is pretty clear:
1. login - unique name or email
2. Display name - name I want to be visible to other members... I will finally be able to be vee on most of the forums and not _vee or vee_ or xvee... :D
Thanks Matt.
Regards,
vee
Posted by: vee | Jun 9, 2005 12:56:06 PM
This looks great. Can we have it soon please?
Posted by: Myr | Jun 9, 2005 12:59:38 PM
I also think this is a good idea, they also use it on dvdprofiler.com
Posted by: Nuke | Jun 9, 2005 1:12:57 PM
Nice. Could it also check if the emailaddress/host can receive mail? (ie. using the getmxrr() function in PHP)
Posted by: Franklin | Jun 9, 2005 1:19:13 PM
Doesn't the validation email do that, Franklin?
Posted by: Phil | Jun 9, 2005 1:46:08 PM
w00t Matt! This is so awesome. Now hurry up and get IPB 2.1 out. ;) :P
Posted by: someotherguy | Jun 9, 2005 2:03:50 PM
Phil, I think Franklin has a point - providing it won't take too long for the server to do of course (DNS lookups can be pretty slow!).
Validation emails check whether the email address is correct for the person registering, but performing a basic check to see whether there is an MX record for the given domain would, in theory, offer a middle ground between just checking for a valid email address format, and checking for a fully functional email address belonging to the correct member.
The problem is that it is very easy to enter [email protected] or [email protected] or [email protected] etc. and you've passed the simple tests anyway.
So, I'll complete my circle and agree that validation emails are probably the best way to check an email address if you wish to do so - anything else isn't worth bothering with because it will be fruitless in stopping people using fake addresses.
Posted by: Damien | Jun 9, 2005 2:21:22 PM
Another thing would be make the security code input a "Friendly Form" -- if the user inpuit's an incorrect code, it'll give them a message. If not, it'll put that nice little check on the left. :D
Posted by: Raymond Nuñez | Jun 9, 2005 4:25:52 PM
*drools*
As far as the email/username goes, it could also be useful for integration with systems such as client systems - if members are made to login with their email address, it may be less confusing for them. Nice feature, anyway.
Posted by: James | Jun 9, 2005 5:38:33 PM
You can also add Friendly Forms to the Login and Search. When using the login, the user enter'a username, IPB check's if it exist's or not, if it does, okay, now, the user enteres a password -- see's if that password goes along with that username. If not, blah. Also, when using the Search, if Full Text is enabled, see if the search query is less than 4 charectars.
Posted by: Raymond Nuñez | Jun 9, 2005 5:56:00 PM
"Another thing would be make the security code input a "Friendly Form" -- if the user inpuit's an incorrect code, it'll give them a message. If not, it'll put that nice little check on the left."
That'll defeat the purpose of the security image. Bots will be able to fire off a random set of numbers and keep going until the HTML of the page changes confirming they've hit the right combination.
Posted by: Matt | Jun 9, 2005 7:12:54 PM
Blah, alright.
Posted by: Raymond Nuñez | Jun 9, 2005 7:47:26 PM
Doesn't that make any incompatibility issue when upgrading? Or does the display name take - by default - the username when upgrading?
BTW: please ensure that a display name must not match someone else's USER Name.. So that if user "Test" changed his display name - for a short time - to "Testy", then a user called "Testing_" would change his name to "Test".. this way, people whould think that "Testing_" is "Test"..
Posted by: ESHCorp | Jun 9, 2005 9:29:43 PM
I was wondering the same about compatiability or how that is going to work when we upgrade?
Posted by: Logan | Jun 9, 2005 9:39:46 PM
Matt keeps upgrading his test board and the company forums (slight delay) and all works OK(ish) so Ill guess he has it covered :)
Posted by: Michael | Jun 9, 2005 10:35:09 PM
update ibf_members set members_display_name=name;
Posted by: Matt | Jun 9, 2005 10:54:54 PM
Matt,
Do you think IPB 2.1 final will be released before summer is over?
Posted by: Logan | Jun 9, 2005 11:08:44 PM
Phil, yes, they would in the end have the same result. If you don't click the validation link your account will, depending on the ACP settings, stay in the 'validating' group or be deleted after a while.
Maybe the form could first check the MX records and if it found any and the user submits the form a validation mail will be send to check if the owner of the address really wants to become a member of the board. You won't receive any 'mail delivery failed' messages in your inbox (besides those 'user doesn't exists' and 'quota exceeded' mails) and you still do the 'real person behind this address' -check
Juts my 2ct.
Posted by: Franklin | Jun 10, 2005 3:51:10 AM
@ Logan, I still think it will be released on August 12 this year, I have this feeling since Matt mentioned 2.1 for the first time.
Posted by: Franklin | Jun 10, 2005 4:05:04 AM
I still believe it's harmful to be shifting page elements around for onblur events and I know I've read research on this that agrees with that. I don't believe it harmful to give immediate feedback, it's the movement of page elements that I object to for onblur events.
I would suggest that the X and checkbox stay updated onblur but the error message is not shown until either A. the X is clicked on, or B. The form is submitted. Either that or trim the error message down in size and display it to the right of the fields so page elements do not shift around.
Posted by: Chris Griego | Jun 10, 2005 5:04:49 AM
IMO this looks pretty beautifull and helpfull right now !! But I can imagine that putting it on the right side to avoid vertically shifts could have some advantages for a mass application.
Good work !
Posted by: mikee aka Nicoo | Jun 10, 2005 12:56:00 PM
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