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Username import implementation is weird


Colonel_mortis

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The following is from the Facebook login handler; other default login handlers are largely the same

	/**
	 * Get authenticated user's username
	 * May return NULL if server doesn't support this
	 *
	 * @param	string	$accessToken	Access Token
	 * @return	string|NULL
	 */
	protected function authenticatedUserName( $accessToken )
	{
		if ( isset( $this->settings['real_name'] ) and $this->settings['real_name'] )
		{
			return $this->_userData( $accessToken )['name'];
		}
		return NULL;
	}
	

This function does not fulfil the contract specified in the documentation - the server does support getting the name, regardless of the real name configuration. By returning NULL when real name import is disabled, my name won't be shown when in my account settings, or in ACP. This is not good, and defeats most of the point of displaying the name in UCP/ACP in the first place.

Moreover, the whole username import process is not fit for purpose in my view. If I create an account, I don't want to be forced to use the name from my social service, especially as when that feature is enabled it counts as a username change, so I can't actually change it for some time (as specified by the admin, 180 days on my site). I would, however, like my name to be prefilled in the username box, at least when connecting to a site that doesn't use my real name. Also, on some third party sites, my display name and my username might be different, and I would like my display name to be prefilled when creating my username here, but I would like my username to be displayed when viewing my account link in my settings (and ACP).

A concrete example: I want to let people use their steam name, but lots of people on Steam have clan tags in their usernames, which would not make sense on my site. They should get the option to edit their name to remove these clan tags before creating the account.

Another concrete example: On discord, my display name is, say, "coolName". There can be multiple people called "coolName", so internally I am actually "coolName#1234", and this is displayed in some places. When I create an account, I want "coolName" to be prefilled in the box, but when I view it in my account settings (or, more importantly, in ACP), I want to see that it's actually coolName#1234.

 

You can fix this by removing all the useless stuff from authenticatedUserName, and just prefilling the username box with the value from it if available. If no name is available, it will behave as it does now, but if the service provides a name it can be prefilled magically (or, if you really thing users appreciate less friction over having their real name displayed next to their posts without getting a choice about it, you could give admins the option of automatically creating the account with that name, but it should be an OPTION).

Ideally, also add another method for getting the name to display in account settings and/or ACP (separate methods would be nice, but the same is fine), which defaults to the name returned above, but lets me return a different value if I so desire.

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I thought this was a bug but I actually couldn't reproduce most of what you said. In the account settings, and in the AdminCP, it gets the name from userProfileName() not authenticatedUserName(). authenticatedUserName() is only used for creating the account, so it's fine for that check to be there.

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19 hours ago, Mark said:

I thought this was a bug but I actually couldn't reproduce most of what you said. In the account settings, and in the AdminCP, it gets the name from userProfileName() not authenticatedUserName(). authenticatedUserName() is only used for creating the account, so it's fine for that check to be there.

Ah, you seem to be right. I guess I must have been thrown off by the method name, because I did think I had checked how it worked. Nothing to see here.

However, I would still like to see the user being given the option to use the name or choose another, rather than it being an admin decision, or at the very least it shouldn't count towards their username changes.

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