Moodle documentation: "Allow extended characters in usernames" info

Moodle documentation: "Allow extended characters in usernames" info

by Elena Ivanova -
Number of replies: 4

After quite some time testing and research, I finally found MDL-16919, where it was stated that  uppercase letters are not allowed in the usernames, no matter what (so not a bug, but a feature ;))

Can we please modify the lang string for this info on Site Policies?

Current: Allow extended characters in usernames:  Enable this setting to allow students to use any characters in their usernames (note this does not affect their actual names). The default is "false" which restricts usernames to be alphanumeric lowercase characters, underscore (_), hyphen (-), period (.) or at symbol (@).

Based on whatver is written now, one can falsely assume that if the setting is enabled, then Uppercase letters will be allowed. Which is not the case. Users will be able to use any special characters #$%^, etc,  but still NOT the uppercase letters in the usernames. 

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In reply to Elena Ivanova

Re: Moodle documentation: "Allow extended characters in usernames" info

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
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Hi Elena and all

I think the problem is not of documentation but having a clear idea how the final system should be.

Historically user names in Moodle are not case sensitive. This is a big obstacle in moving to any standardized character set. One needs to discuss and define the future system before documenting and implementing!

See a related discussion, "(Moodle 2.1.2) Problem with Unziping zip files that contain special characters" http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=190958.
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In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera

Re: Moodle documentation: "Allow extended characters in usernames" info

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
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Hi all

I don't know how to interpret the silence.

Here's a second try, a POSIX like suggestion, in spite of the danger of being called a troll a second time http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=190958#p831105.

Allowed characters in usernames:
1. [a-z] (the 26 simple letters of the latin alphabet)
2. [A-Z] (the 26 capitol letters of the latin alphabet), case sensitive
3. [0-9] (the 10 digits)
4. - (hyphen)
5. _ (underline)
6. . (dot)
7. @ (commercial 'at' sign)
and nothing else!
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In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera

Re: Moodle documentation: "Allow extended characters in usernames" info

by G. M. -

Hi Visvanath,

Given my experience with users, I guess accepting upper case letters (making usernames case sensitive) would tend to complicate things a bit. Maybe they should be allowed at the entry box but then lower-cased before storing them.

About the allowed characters, I would add the plus sign, as it is an allowed email address character. In fact, I use quite a lot when registering at some sites.

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In reply to G. M.

Re: Moodle documentation: "Allow extended characters in usernames" info

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
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Hi Guillermo

> accepting upper case letters (making usernames case sensitive) would tend to complicate things a bit. Maybe they should be allowed at the entry box but then lower-cased before storing them.

This is the present logic, at least in Moodle 1. This has its own problems.
a) Can you extend that to utf-8?
b) There were people who expected the same logic for passwords, i.e. case insensitive!

> I would add the plus sign, as it is an allowed email address character. In fact, I use quite a lot when registering at some sites.

I have personally nothing against, if it works everywhere. For example all the authentication systems Moodle supports must understand the + and all third party modules, plug-ins, etc. too.
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