That is correct. We have pivoted to only marking fields that are optional as such, while all other fields can be considered required by default. The logic behind it is, most fields are required so it cuts down on noise.
There’s pro and cons and endless discussion online amongst the designer community, but that’s the approach we’re taking.
I think we decided to drop the other instructions, as they weren’t very useful.
The username instruction used to be:
I think everyone is by now aware a username is an unique identifier without spaces.
That’s a worse issue. I just tried though, and it seems to work as expected. A recording would be helpful to see the issue.
Thanks for clarifying re. the markings and instructions. I’d had some custom field instructions EDIT: customized instructions for fields that I miss a bit, but I’ll live.
As to the tab order, it seems my issue may be that the fields are out of order. Meta’s own signup form matches several other forums I frequent, but mine has Name appearing before Password. So tab skips from Username down to Password then back up to Name.
I can’t figure out what I might’ve done to achieve this, or how to un-achieve it…
Nope – instruction text only shows up for email, and it it’s there regardless of whether I customize it or leave it at default. Instructions for other fields don’t show no matter what I do.
Also nope – I’ve done nothing like that.
I’m on tests-passed 3.4.0.beta3-dev (20effebd51) as of 24 hours ago. I see there are, as always, more recent commits for me to pick up, but nothing looks like a tweak to the signup form…
Okay, I see this is our code, but it only applies to non full-page login forms, which is why there is a difference between your site (not full page) and meta (full page).
Not sure why that change is there, will check internally and get back to you.
@chapoi - I introduced some confusion by saying “custom field instructions” – I meant I had customized some default field instructions. I have no ‘user custom fields’.
@moin - I did have full name required enabled. Disabling this does change the field order back to match the tab order. I’m ambivalent about requiring the name, but either way the field order & tab order should match.
Now, the tab order should be correct regardless of whether the full name required site setting is enabled or not. I also ensured that field descriptions are always shown, not just when the input is focused.
Our aim with the recent changes was to simplify the login experience. We removed the field descriptions that we felt added little value, but we also understand that customers may want to customize this. We are planning to add an option for site owners to include custom descriptions if they choose.
Hi @ToddZ, sorry for the delay. I ended up adding the descriptions back, but they are hidden by default. You can toggle their visibility with these site settings:
Hi, it seems like it’s over a year now and we’re still bumping up against this for a client project; we want to give guidance as to what is an appropriate username.
What’s the current status of js.user.username.instructions please?
Thanks for adding these back. When I launched my site the other day, the first question from one of my transferring members was “we can’t use spaces in a username?”
The instructions are incredibly useful and they’ve been turned on for my site. This is feedback for the whole team that forum usernames, the way Discourse does them, are not necessarily intuitive to those used to older forums that can use spaces and special characters, etc. Instructions are critical to avoid losing new member interest.
Hi, it seems like it’s over a year now and we’re still bumping up against this for a client project; we want to give guidance as to what is an appropriate username.