I originally tried it with and without allowing random username generation. It made no difference.
Tonight I changed Username change period from 0 to 1 (i.e. now allowing username changes). It seems to work much better. Two things were different (unless I have not been paying attention):
- The screen above, asking for a username, appeared. Before, IT DID NOT APPEAR. That makes sense in a way – but this effect of the
Username change periodsetting should be mentioned in the instructions. - A screen (not mentioned in this topic) appeared before the username one, asking for Full name and custom fields to be entered. This is good. But this also DID NOT APPEAR before. The difference doesn’t make any sense.
The other change I would want to see before using this new feature relates to the login process (i.e. after the user has logged out and wants back in again).
- The “Email me a one-time login code” option should have the same prominence as the “Log In” button. At the minute it’s not really intuitive. I bet a lot of (non-technical) people would just think they’ve lost their password.
- Maybe keep one button, with a message: “If you do not enter a password we will email you a one-time login code.”
- Maybe “I have lost my password” could somehow include the idea that the same procedure will send a password creation link – “Reset or create password”?
- The ideas in this paragraph of the “Set password” email jump around too much: “Somebody asked to add a password to your account on XYZ. Alternatively, you can log in using any supported online service (Google, Facebook, etc) that is associated with this validated email address.” The second sentence will not apply to many forums anyway.
In its favour, I think one-time codes will work better than login links with the Discourse Hub app, as I think the old login links opened in the browser rather than the Hub app.