Account creation user experience/SignupAPI

Is there anything we can leverage from 2011's Extension:SignupAPI?

It does work. It changes the site such that the "Create account" link (with $wgUseCombinedLoginLink = false) goes to its new special page Special:UserSignup. This has a reasonable AJAX mode that gives feedback as you type. See screenshot on Extension:SignupAPI.

includes/verification.js
has jQuery (mostly) JS to:
 * passwordStrength to evaluate password
 * checkRetype for second password entry match,
 * checkUsername just complains if username not entered

It also makes an $.ajax post query to the SignupAPI's API to validate fields.
 * HTML5 has email fieldtype to do it for free on recent browsers.

ApiSignup.php
Given a lot of API signup parameters, calls its own addNewAccountInternal function.

It then runs some hooks for AddNewAccount, UserLoginComplete, and BeforeWelcomeCreation. These might generate some welcome HTML, not sure how this gets returned to the caller.

ApiValidateSignup.php
(Same comment as ApiSignup, "Unit to create accounts in the current wiki", which is wrong)

This validates a single field: username or email or passwordLength (sic), returning a result message (good or bad) and icon (Checkmark or no mark). It calls MW User class static functions like User::isValidUserName and User::isValidEmailAddr and checks password length against a global.

other
Adds some sourcetracking hooks in a SignupAPIHooks.

Trying out its Special:UserSignup page
This works but has bugs.

ISSUE: for ACUX, we don't want to add another special page. If so we want to hide it.

It has an Ajax mode that gives feedback on each field It triggers the same UserCreateForm hook as the current Special:UserLogin?type=signup

BUG: I created an account, it seemed to work, but got a reddish error box Login error The user account was not created, as we could not confirm its source. Ensure you have cookies enabled, reload this page and try again. However, upon this failure, all the form fields were empty except for user name. It seems the server error doesn't repopulate the form?

I re-entered form info for the same username and got a reddish error box Login error Username entered already in use. Please choose a different name. BUG: this message doesn't go away when you type a different message. The Ajax API and the static form aren't fully aware of each other.

BUG: the Ajax username validation got stuck in a failure mode "Username entered is invalid" no matter what I entered in username (and the reddish error box remained).

I submitted anyway and it reported my username was created with the regular
 * Welcome, Call me Doofus!! Your account has been created

BUG?: this welcome page also said
 * SPageWiki could not send your confirmation mail. Please check your e-mail address for invalid characters.

which is true, but
 * Mailer returned: Tried to send e-mail without an e-mail address.

It shouldn't have bothered trying to send e-mail.

BUG: I tried to login with my newly created username, and got a reddish box: Login error SPageWiki uses cookies to log in users. You have cookies disabled. Please enable them and try again. Not true I have them enabled.

BUG: other times I'd try to login and would be bounced back to the new Special:UserSignup form. I think this happens because Special:UserLogin remembers where it came from is the Speciaul:Usersignup, and upon success would redirect there. Look at the request: POST http://localhost/wiki/index.php?title=Special:UserLogin&action=submitlogin&type=login&returnto=Special:Usersignup [HTTP/1.1 302 Found 154ms]

Source tracking
if ( $wgSignupAPISourceTracking )
 * adds a sourcetracking table to the schema
 * adds a hook on 'Personal URLs' for source tracking

BUG: if wgSignupAPISourceTracking is false, this still attempts to insert into sourcetracking table in initUser.

Other

 * These seem like notes for for our 2012 effort


 * Q Works without cookies?
 * A: ?? TBD, testing won't follow through without cookies enabled. Unclear if the code checks for cookies disabled or just fails to set the userbucket.


 * Q Which browsers?
 * Firefox 12 Chrome 19 IE 8 Opera 11.64 Safari 534.47
 * Browsers that fail to meet the minimum requirements will probably be ineligible for the experiment (rather than letting them in possibly with degraded experience)