Title: [Plugin: Cimy User Extra Fields][Bug] Profileform loses input / validation error
Last modified: August 20, 2016
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# [Plugin: Cimy User Extra Fields][Bug] Profileform loses input / validation error
* [Juliette Reinders Folmer](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jrf/)
* (@jrf)
* [14 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-cimy-user-extra-fieldsbug-profileform-loses-input-validation-error/)
* Hi Marco,
* First, please accept my sincere thanks and congratulations on this plugin. Very
well done!
* I do however seem to run into some unexpected behavior while using it. I have
read the docs, the FAQ and even part of the code trying to figure out how to
solve it, but I’m not getting very far.
* I’m using Cimy EUF 2.1.1 and the problem occurs in various browsers.
* **Problem description:**
I’ve added a number of extra fields to be filled in
on the user profile, such as skype, twitter etc. For a number of those fields
I have added (correct) regular expressions in the “Should be equal TO:” field
and I have ticked the regex box.
* The validation works as expected and throws errors when the input in a field
doesn’t validate.
* However, what I didn’t expect to happen:
If one field throws a validation error,
none of the other (correctly) filled in fields are updated AND when (re-)showing
the user profile form with the validation error, all previously filled in information
is lost.
* I’m not sure whether this happens as well if you add fields to the registration
form as I don’t use that function, though I would expect so.
* **An example to make it clearer:**
Say I have added a regex for the Twitter
field. Now someone fills in an incorrect Twitter name, but also correctly fills
in the fields for LinkedIN and Skype and submits the form.
* The form will be reloaded, will show the validation error at the top and will
show the original (empty) values for the Twitter, LinkedIN and Skype fields.
Instead I would have expected the submitted form values to be shown.
* Now the user will have to re-fill in all the fields they previously filled in
and as I have added quite a number of extra fields, this is quite inconvenient
for the user.
* **Suggestion towards a possible solution:**
When deciding the values to be shown
in the user profile (and registration) form, check whether the $_POST variable
exists. If it exists, for each field check whether $_POST has a value for that
field, if so, use those values, if not, use the values available in the database,
if those don’t exist, use the default values if available.
* Please feel free to contact me if you would like me to provide more information,
test a new version or even would like me to contribute some code towards the
solution.
* Warm greetings,
Juliette
* [http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/cimy-user-extra-fields/](http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/cimy-user-extra-fields/)
Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
* Plugin Author [Marco Cimmino](https://wordpress.org/support/users/cimmo/)
* (@cimmo)
* [14 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-cimy-user-extra-fieldsbug-profileform-loses-input-validation-error/#post-2220432)
* Your behaviour happens correctly during registration, where user has no saved
data.
However this is not a real bug, most likely a design decision as I thought
that user if sees already filed fields with new data but there is also an error
will start to think: “Did it save the fields without errors or none of them are
saved?”
* Point is none of them are saved until no errors appear due to WordPress design.
So you really think your behaviour is easier to understand for the user?
* It is more likely a design decision. Convince me that your idea is better than
mine.
* Thread Starter [Juliette Reinders Folmer](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jrf/)
* (@jrf)
* [14 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-cimy-user-extra-fieldsbug-profileform-loses-input-validation-error/#post-2220499)
* Hi Marco,
* Thank you for your reply.
* To me it is a usability issue. Having the content of all updated fields ‘disappear’
when there is a mistake in one, discourages users from filling in their profile,
let alone trying it again.
* Also, as I stated before it is the expected behaviour when using forms (with
the exception of password fields). In general when something goes wrong with
forms, an error will be displayed at the top of the form, the error field will
be highlighted in some way and the user will be given the chance to correct the
error.
* The best solution to merge both your and my views would in my opinion be to save
the correct fields and highlight the (unsaved) incorrect fields, but you say
that is not possible due to WordPress design.
Would you please be so kind as
to explain that a bit further ? Do you use a specific WordPress function for
the saving which saves everything at once ? Is there a way to overwrite or bypass
that function or is there a specific reason that it is imperative to use that
function ?
* What about the following as an solution meeting halfway:
- Strengthen the error message at the top a bit – for instance add “NO INFORMATION
WAS UPDATED” as a first/last line if there are errors.
- Display the changed values, but add a yellow background to the ’s for
the correctly changed values and a red background to the
’s with incorrect
values.
That would require injecting ‘class=”notsaved/incorrect”‘ in the
and adding css rules for .form-table TR .notsaved and .form-table TR .
incorrect.
* This way, there can be no confusion on whether or not the values have been saved
while at the same time giving the user to opportunity to correct the errors without
having to fill in all fields again.
* Does this help ?
* Smile,
Juliette
* Plugin Author [Marco Cimmino](https://wordpress.org/support/users/cimmo/)
* (@cimmo)
* [14 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-cimy-user-extra-fieldsbug-profileform-loses-input-validation-error/#post-2220503)
* Hi Juliette,
I think your vision is not the right one until you propose a change
in WordPress itself.
* Why? Try this:
1. disable my plug-in 2. go to your own profile 3. change the
email address to something illegal like: ‘ciao@@@ciao.it$’ 4. change also some
other fields 5. hit update
* what happens? Exactly same behaviour as my plug-in.
So changing the way as you
want would be not consistent with WordPress behaviour that means confusion.
* So I would prefer you file a Feature Request against WordPress bug tracker instead
of my plug-in.
* Smile,
Marco
* Thread Starter [Juliette Reinders Folmer](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jrf/)
* (@jrf)
* [14 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-cimy-user-extra-fieldsbug-profileform-loses-input-validation-error/#post-2220572)
* Hi Marco,
* Thanks for your reply. I agree with your premise that the plugin should be in
line with the WordPress default behaviour and that this is therefore a bug in
WordPress.
* I didn’t realize that this was WordPress behaviour as there is very little validation
in the default WordPress fields and I had never mistyped my email 😉
* Thank you for explaining this. I will try and check if a WordPress bug report/
feature request on this issue has been made and if not, will submit one of my
own.
* Sunny greetings,
Juliette
Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
The topic ‘[Plugin: Cimy User Extra Fields][Bug] Profileform loses input / validation
error’ is closed to new replies.
* 
* [Cimy User Extra Fields](https://wordpress.org/plugins/cimy-user-extra-fields/)
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* 4 replies
* 2 participants
* Last reply from: [Juliette Reinders Folmer](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jrf/)
* Last activity: [14 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-cimy-user-extra-fieldsbug-profileform-loses-input-validation-error/#post-2220572)
* Status: not resolved