Create a rox signup (instead of old bw/signup.php)

The rox signup is available at http://test.bewelcome.org/signup/register.

It needs still a lot of improvements:

• define the location selector interface #315
• handling of invalid user input and description of fiels (i like it the way the do it on digg.com : http://digg.com/register/ )

In fact I had already (think it was yesterday) started a class SignupPage based on RoxPageView. I mostly copied the stuff done by Felix, and used the RoxPageView mechanics to get a teaser, footer and other decorations. So, nothing really innovative, just a structural frame for further work.

I stopped the work, wondering if I could improve the PostHandling? mechanism, so we would not have to touch the post handler singleton from within our applications.

I hope we can soon make a decision if we want to keep using the RoxPageView stuff. (which would better be called RoxDefaultPage?).

[4593] - conversion to new framework scheme.

I think we should have all the fields in one column, not two. Filling a form is a linear process, so multi-column would only add confusion.

Milestone Applications using Rox Framework deleted

This really needs our attention! There are people having problems to sign up using the old page. Especially, the location selection sucks.

Philipp and me finally got our hands on this. We changed the latest signup by lemon-head to the new simple-style layout and made a 4-step process. We still have some errors to fix but basically it works. See r5659

also related: r5660 / #315

more commits: r5661 and r5662

and last one for tonight: r5663

collecting feedback from other signup related tickets and closing them:

#518

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04/09/08 11:43:18 changed by midsch ¶

this is a bit opposite to: http://www.bevolunteer.org/trac/ticket/505 (reduces the usage of scripts) 04/09/08 12:25:13 changed by lemon-head ¶

The solution is to do both php and javascript checks. This way, we don't depend on the javascript, but still make it more comfortable for people with js switched on.

I think the signup page does already have some very basic js checks (which fields are empty), but of course it can be improved. 04/09/08 20:31:00 changed by fake51 ¶

If the actual password check is to take place in javascript then I would say no. It is pure madness to send password-details through to the browser. Perhaps the idea is to send the login-details through ajax to avoid a page-reload - but honestly, that is way too much work for too little gain. 04/09/08 23:13:57 changed by lemon-head ¶

There are some things which can be checked quite well with javascript.

• Is some information still missing, fields left empty? These fields can get a special highlight.
• Does the date of birth have a valid format?
• etc.

It is not an exotic idea to check these things with javascript, to make it a bit more comfortable for people.

Some websites even check the security level of the chosen password.. but I don't think we need this.

#105

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(this can be started when other problems on the signup page are fixed!)

Currently the SignupPage on test.bewelcome.org can be quite frustrating.

Problem:

• How to handle invalid user input?

Solutions:

• Where possible, detect invalid input when typing, and display a live error indication next to the input textfield.
• If the user sends a form with invalid input, then present the form again, but
  • with all the input fields unmodified
  • one message on top
  • a colored indication and message next to each input field where information is missing.
• When the user sends a form with no invalid input, show a *confirm page*. With one button to confirm, another to go back and correct. The important fields are highlighted on the confirm page.
• Get rid of unpleasant javascript alerts, whereever possible!

some more work on the location selector ( http://test.bewelcome.org/signup/3 )for the signup (and in future other) applications

• no shows the region in the suggested Places
• returns the names in the language of the BW page (not working for all languages), english when translation does not exist in bw

• further cleanup and fine tuning needed
• please check if it is too slow (it makes up to 11 queries to geonames)

Even with the new signup as it is in test right now we will have the problem that people fail to signup because:

• their city is not in Geonames Database
• they don't have a Street

Both are still mandatory and it has been decided to keep them mandatory

To allow completion of signup I suggest to add tickboxes above the feedback form:

• I could not find my city
• At my place we don't use the concept of street names

In case you tick on or both you should enter additional information into the feedback form. At the same time the checking those options would allow to leave the Street field empty and would set your lokation to Unknown (a special GeonameId? that does only exist in our database).

The signup/geo volunteers will then accept this member and try (after accepting him) to set the the right city (probably by adding it to geonames) or getting back to the member and deciging for some near by location.

Yeah, yeah, yeah! I just saw your work on the location selector. That's great! A vast improvement[[BR]]
Your proposal for non-found locations makes sense to me. However I would prefer to add the first tickbox only in the message that appears upon searching for a location. Otherwise it gets crowded again. About the street names: Is it really needed? Feedback like this could go into the feedback form..

about selecting the location.

we display up to ten hits but often there are many more matches.

How about adding a link "there are 26 more Places, check them" that would execute a new query to geonames and display the result in a dropdown selection field (thereby not messing up the layout)

thumbs up! That's a good idea philipp. I will work on this.

Wow, wow wow, great!

some minor comments:

• change the position of the green tick (probably right after the text or in front of the number, probably even put a different background for the selected location)
• Remove the text "more locations, show them" when they are displayed
• make the location field yellow (as it is a required field)
• we should rename the username and password fields (in the form) to avoid taking / changing your browser stored password

a reminder from the forum, we need to make sure that your data is stored at any time:

Quote when you send the first sign on confirmation e-mail, please mention that the new member should not (in any case!) fill in her/his profile before having got this second welcome mail below. because exactly this is what i did last night. i spent (no lie!) at least 2 hours, filled in my profile as detailed as possible and luckily pushed the "enter" button, but then did not believe my eyes... ok, in the mail there had been written that you do not have full access to all features, but, hey, who would expect that one can ENTER them in the form, but not CONFIRM? so, maybe, it would be a good idea to just add one sentence to the first mail explaining this.

Some questions to your comments:

* Why should the location field be yellow? I haven't seen that for any other field * A different background is already choosen for the selected location. It's just a light #f5f5f5 greyish color

I agree on renaming the username/password fields and the other stuff you proposed.

About the reminder: Didn't we solve that problem by using session-vars, at least for the signup itself? I'm not sure about the way for editing your profile though..

some things I encountered:

• characters like + should be allowed in e-mail
• for password / e-mail and their confirmation fields the first one should be marked as valid even when the second one has not yet been entered but if it by itself is valid (long enough, a mail)
• if you have a non valid mail or password and go on to the confirm page you first get only one field displayed to change, than you have to confirm and then change the confirmation field again, instead, both fields should be displayed at the same time
• there are still those mysterious yellow fields (for me in ff3 as well) - lets see if I can hunt them down
• form is finally submitted as soon as there is no error anymore (so I might not get the confirmation page, or might not be able to go back) - the final submit should only happen from regform4
• the mail sending stuff needs to be taken care of

it must be possible to select a location with javascript disabled

* I don't understand why characters like + should be allowed. Also never saw and email address with + * password/email fields have been fixed (are independent now)

From wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-mail_address

The local-part of the e-mail address may use any of these ASCII characters:

• Uppercase and lowercase letters
• Digits 0 through 9
• Characters ! # $ % * / ? | ^{{ } ` ~ & ' + - = _}
• Character . provided that it is not the first nor last character, nor may it appear two or more times consecutively.

The + is for example used by gmail to generate several aliases for the same account

a bit more feedback:

• is it really necessary, to enter the email address twice? It makes sense for fields where the user can not see what he is typing, like the passport, but for visible fields ??
• Should we add short explaining texts for the fields again? (i.e. username should have min. 4 characters ?) The introduction text should be also changed, as we don't have the question marks behind the fields anymore.
• The "back" link on page 2 looks not that nice, yet
• Maybe the "search location" button looks better if it's arranged to the right of the input field.
• It's a pity that we still require the complete address from every member, but this is a different discussion....
• The mousepointer changes to "text-mode" when you click on the suggested locations. Is this wanted?
• Maybe the red text for wrong entries on page 4 is a bit "squeezed" between the fields.