On Wed, 08 Jan 2014 14:31:16 +0100, max <max(a)koehler-kn.de> wrote:
Imho, we should instead show a little tooltip or
something next to the input field that tells the user if certain characters are invalid.
(This is a quite common pattern that most users should be familiar with). As you rightly
pointed out though, an 'error' step should be avoided. Therefore, i suggest making
the submit button unclickable until any invalid characters in the input field are replaced
by the user.
I've made a little demo to make my concept a little clearer:
http://cdpn.io/urwJf
(Try entering an underscore in the 'username field')
I largely agree, but two points are to be made:
1. Obviously, some solution is still necessary for people with JavaScript disabled, and
the currently proposed one is probably as good as any other in that case; personally I
would very much welcome some JavaScript-based client-side enhancements to our forms;
2. Actual validation of a MediaWiki username is easier said than done; apart from just
reimplementing the core checking and normalisation logic (which by itself probably takes a
few hundred lines of code; some related work was done as the mediawiki.Title module,
luckily) we also need to check with the server about which names are already used, about
anti-spoofing, etc.
If anybody wants to implement this, by all means go ahead and I will be happy to help and
review, but please don't block good solutions because better ones are possible.
--
Matma Rex