UCL-INGI
[frontend/account creation] Unable to use special characters in username during account creation
Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe. When attempting to create a new account, users are unable to use special characters such as "é" in their username. The error message displayed only states "Invalid username format," which is not a appopriate error message.
Describe the solution you'd like The best for the user is to be allowed to use such special characters but it can works too if a text tell us the rules before writing our username or during the writing.
Additional context The issue occurs on all platforms (web, mobile, etc.). The issue was tested using multiple browsers and devices.
The fact that we can't include special characters in username is deliberate. The main reason is to prevent character encoding issue when we write stuff in files. On the other hand this is a great idea to include text box with the rules, this will be added.
While a tooltip with authorised characters is a great idea, choosing an alternative error message if possible is also more inclusive and respectful of the user. Telling someone a character from their id (potentially their name) can hurt.
While a tooltip with authorised characters is a great idea, choosing an alternative error message if possible is also more inclusive and respectful of the user. Telling someone a character from their id (potentially their name) can hurt.
The restriction is only active for username. For real name all characters are available. I just made a PR, tell me if it's ok with you thoughts
As suggested, I would instead provide a tooltip on the inputfield with the rules. BTW rules should be the proper ones... In your PR, you don't say that case is ignored. Also, instead of "Invalid username format" you could use "The username is limited to this range of characters: ..."
This answer elaborates a bit more on the topic: https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/a/330518
