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  4.  / Allow Spaces in Username Hack (easy!)
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21
DonXoop
Re: Allow Spaces in Username Hack (easy!)

Quote:

Yes, but in the real world, how often do you see someone write their name and last initial as "Dave_L"? In the real world, most people would write "Dave L", hopefully with a period after the "L".

This isn't the real world. People are smarter than computers, even the dumb people.

Quote:

There's no valid reason that XOOPS should differ from the real world in this case. Doing so adds complexity for the average user.


Except when I say No. (to my users)

I'll want to hear strong technical reasons why this can't possibly cause any problems or ugliness somewhere in the app or 3rd party app before I'd enable it. I'm still not convinced. I'd prefer printing the Full_Name (<- ) field and leave the login strict.

BTW, in many parts of the "real world" I see thousands listed as "1 000" instead of "1,000" which sometimes confuses me depending on what surrounds it. Guess I'm a dumb Anglophone (most of the time...)
22
DonXoop
Re: Allow Spaces in Username Hack (easy!)

Quote:

Dave_L wrote:
But the average visitor to your XOOPS site may be a "normal" person who prefers to use the same name he uses off the internet, without being forced into a naming convention for the convenience of a programmer or web administrator.


Not so much because I want it that way but because the computer is as dumb as it was in the 70's. But since I now have more than 3K of Ram and more than 1MHz of power I can mask the limitations that are still there. The "ease of use" craze has created users that never actually learn, they fuss over their vanity more than their content.

I'm just having fun with this. But I'll be interested to hear the outcome.

23
Brad
Re: Allow Spaces in Username Hack (easy!)

  • 2004/5/6 0:43

  • Brad

  • Not too shy to talk

  • Posts: 150

  • Since: 2003/12/4


Quote:
I'll want to hear strong technical reasons why this can't possibly cause any problems or ugliness somewhere in the app or 3rd party app before I'd enable it. I'm still not convinced.

Am I safe in assuming you're a programmer or was one in the past?

The user ID wouldn't cause problems (don't know about ugliness; the whole eye of the beholder thing) elsewhere in the system for the same reason that spaces in the subject of a message don't cause a problem; they are both DISPLAY ONLY. How could something that is displayed in it's entirety cause a problem?

How about instead of us giving you reasons why it wouldn't cause problems, why don't you give us any potential problems that you think it could cause. Anyone reading this, let us know why you think it could cause problems. I'll play like an old-west gun slinger and shoot each potential problem down. Then I'll blow the smoke away from the barrel of my guns, twirl them around my fingers, and then deftly slide them back into my holsters all the while having some kind of old-west soundtrack playing in the background.

Quote:
I'm just having fun with this. But I'll be interested to hear the outcome.

Me too. Matter of fact, I'm going to install this mod and then force all my users to have a space in their user ID.
24
Dave_L
Re: Allow Spaces in Username Hack (easy!)

  • 2004/5/6 0:47

  • Dave_L

  • XOOPS is my life!

  • Posts: 2277

  • Since: 2003/11/7


Only one space?

How about
B R A D
and
D O N X O O P
?
25
DonXoop
Re: Allow Spaces in Username Hack (easy!)

Quote:
Am I safe in assuming you're a programmer or was one in the past?

Not safe. I dabble and poke around but am not a programmer. I did write Basic apps when I had 3K + 1MHz, and will write things for my own needs but I'm not a pro. grammer

Quote:
How about instead of us giving you reasons why it wouldn't cause problems, why don't you give us any potential problems that you think it could cause.

I would try but I'm not likely to want spaces enough to think of the risks right now. Although it might be fun meeting at high noon with Colts loaded until only one of us is left standing...

I'll say this_these: The login name isn't exactly the same as all the other content that is display only. Almost but not quite. In fact it is the most critical piece of data until one gets past the login. I'm sure that (or can I say 'safe to say') that this hack takes care of that. I haven't even looked at the hack but that must be primarily what it deals with.

So by not being a pro coder and thus unqualified to speak from places other than my arse, I'm not ready to dismiss the risks just because it seems logical.

Or if my instincts are technicaly unfounded (yet to be proven) I'll change strategy and say this: I don't like the idea for some of the same reasons why I don't like My Documents, remote avatars, My Computer, vanity plates, mile long URLs, %20, reality shows, and war. If that didn't make much sense, that is the point....

The X is only concerned with the uid but the user is only concerned with the uname. That's the problem. Sooner or later a user will want to find data based on another user that isn't already displayed (as in display only). Big Site [tm.] has 500 Brad Lxxxx's, 300 Brad Mxxxx's, 10 B rad Lxxxx's, 1 B r A d L M n 's, and 1 DonXoop. I smell trouble.

BTW, do the big freebie email sites (for example) allow spaces in the login name? If not, why not? If they do, well, never mind.....

Now, that was kinda fun. It is really late and I'm oxygen starved right now so ignore me if you wish. [disclaimer]the previous content was for entertainment purposes only[/disclaimer] or was it?

chao pescaos
26
wtravel
Re: Allow Spaces in Username Hack (easy!)

I would think that maximum 1 space in the username should be allowed. That way you prevent usernames like 'D O N X O O P S' are created . I think that not using spaces can not prevent people from creating 500 Brad_xxxxx accounts but for me that is no problem, just a consequence of having a huge user base (which cannot be bad).

Regards,

Martijn
27
Brad
Re: Allow Spaces in Username Hack (easy!)

  • 2004/5/6 15:31

  • Brad

  • Not too shy to talk

  • Posts: 150

  • Since: 2003/12/4


I misspoke before... We're not dealing with a user "ID" as such but rather the actual user name.

Another rule that should govern allowing spaces in the user name: The user name, with spaces removed, can not be a duplicate of any other user name, with spaces removed. For example, if I register as "Brad Jones", someone can't subsequently register as "BradJones" or "Brad Jones " or any other variation where, when spaces are removed, is a duplicate of "Brad Jones" (i.e. "BradJones" with spaces removed). Hopefully I didn't just complicate that whole rule by trying to make it more clear. Anyone agree or disagree with this rule?

Along the same lines as that "rule", searches should disregard spaces when finding names. If one searches for "BradJones" and I've registered as "Brad Jones", my name should still come up.

Quote:
Dave_L wrote:
Only one space?

I disagree. It wouldn't allow me to do "Bradley P. Jones" or "Oscar de la Hoya" or "Billie Bob Thornton" or "Billie Jean King" or "Emma Jo Jones".

Quote:
DonXoop wrote:
I'll say this_these: The login name isn't exactly the same as all the other content that is display only. Almost but not quite. In fact it is the most critical piece of data until one gets past the login. I'm sure that (or can I say 'safe to say') that this hack takes care of that. I haven't even looked at the hack but that must be primarily what it deals with.

The funny thing is, I haven't looked at the hack either, I just agree with it in spirit.

Quote:
DonXoop wrote:
vanity plates

I have a vanity plate. It reads "SENOJ". Someone already stole "JONES". Maybe I should have tried "J ONES".
28
wtravel
Re: Allow Spaces in Username Hack (easy!)

Probably it is best to create several options regarding the webmaster's preferences on 'number of spaces allowed' so that he/she can choose between the different validation rules.
29
DonXoop
Re: Allow Spaces in Username Hack (easy!)

Quote:
The user name, with spaces removed, can not be a duplicate of any other user name, with spaces removed.

Quote:
Along the same lines as that "rule", searches should disregard spaces when finding names.

Hmm, we've found some important points to consider. Suddenly it isn't quite so easy since it might involve other hacks. The logic appears sound but there are gotchas if it isn't thought out.

More than one space should be allowed if any are in the first place.

Quote:
The funny thing is, I haven't looked at the hack either, I just agree with it in spirit.



Quote:
I have a vanity plate. It reads "SENOJ". Someone already stole "JONES". Maybe I should have tried "J ONES".


I don't mind vanity plates in general, just some of them when too pretentious.

See, you didn't think about your decision well enough. You could have been even more clever (I think we can have spaces in vanity plates up here).

Now I am somewhat curious about the big public servers like Hotmail etc. Do they allow spaces in the login name? It won't make a diff to me but I wonder....
30
Brad
Re: Allow Spaces in Username Hack (easy!)

  • 2004/5/6 20:08

  • Brad

  • Not too shy to talk

  • Posts: 150

  • Since: 2003/12/4


Quote:
wtravel wrote:
Probably it is best to create several options regarding the webmaster's preferences on 'number of spaces allowed' so that he/she can choose between the different validation rules.

I disagree. There shouldn't be a limit to the number of spaces allowed as long as the rule re: name w/o spaces can't be the same as any other name w/o spaces is implemented. If someone thinks that they look better as "D o n X o o p" rather than "DonXoop" or "Don Xoop", let them have it their way (even though they're wrong ). Doing so doesn't limit people who have multiple spaces in their name.

Quote:
DonXoop wrote:
More than one space should be allowed if any are in the first place.

I agree, based on my response above.

Quote:
DonXoop wrote:
Hmm, we've found some important points to consider. Suddenly it isn't quite so easy since it might involve other hacks. The logic appears sound but there are gotchas if it isn't thought out.

That's exactly what we're doing here... thinking it out. I'm rather impressed that we're able to do so in a pretty close to mature way. That seems to be missing too much these days.

One way to see how spaces would impact the entire XOOPS system is to do a search within XOOPS for any occurence of uname and then evaluate the impact in each spot. If it's around 20 occurences or fewer, I may do this myself. If not, it'll have to wait until I finish my port of CPG for the upgrade to xcGallery.

Quote:
DonXoop wrote:
Now I am somewhat curious about the big public servers like Hotmail etc. Do they allow spaces in the login name? It won't make a diff to me but I wonder....

Yahoo doesn't allow spaces. However, their use of your user name is different. They create "username@yahoo.com" for your e-mail address and obviously your e-mail address can't have spaces. I assume that other web mail services are the same.
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