CUNY Academic Commons

As I started digging into this, I had another thought... why not allow numeric domain names?

The current restriction (I believe) is most important in a subdirectory multisite configuration. (e.g. something like 2025 conflicting with a date-based archive on the main site). There shouldn't be any restriction in DNS or elsewhere in WordPress that prevents numeric domains.

So, question for the group: should we allow fully numeric subdomains?

(And whether or not we change that, there are also other "site name" error messages that we can adjust to reflect "domain")

If it's just an issue of lifting the numeric ban, and it doesn't take more resources, I don't see why we should prevent the numeric subdomains. It's an edge case for sure, though.

Jeremy, let me know if I can help adjust the other "site name" error messages that you mention. I'm not sure what all of the defaults are right now.

Here are instances where "site name" may be shown as part of the error. I think we can replace each with "subdomain".

• "Please enter a site name", when no subdomain has been entered
• "Site names can only contain lowercase letters (a-z) and numbers." when a subdomain has non-alphanumeric characters.
• "That name is not allowed." when a subdomain matches the list of "illegal" names.
• "Site name must be at least 4 characters." when a subdomain has fewer than 4 characters.
• "Sorry, site names must have letters too!" when the subdomain is numeric only.

And I think Boone has solved the other part of this ticket in the new batched cloning interface. The error now appears at the bottom and the entire form is not wiped out.

Thanks Jeremy, and that looks good to be about all of the "site name" for "subdomain" substitutions. Let's move ahead with that when you can.

I've updated the error messages that reference site name to use subdomain instead in https://github.com/cuny-academic-commons/cac/commit/82545f117a3559cbc569e17a7739b6849cd35112

I just checked on production, and I don't think this is deployed there yet. Can we add it to the next maintenance release?

Yes Boone, that's what I mean, thanks for clarifying. I tried to hit Create without putting anything in the subdomain field and saw what's in your second screenshot. I expected that message at the bottom to say, "Please enter a subdomain" as per the message list above. I think it would also be good if there was an upper message generated for this, like what happens in your second screenshot if you enter a "taken" subdomain, but maybe that isn't essential.

Thanks, Colin. But I'm afraid I still don't fully understand your report. I think the use of the word "bottom" is confused. Use "bottom" to refer to what you see next to the 'Create Site' button. Use "top" to refer to the message you see just under the subdomain field. I'm suggesting that the bottom message is correct, but not the top. Can you confirm this? Or is the bottom one sometimes incorrect too? If so, in exactly what case?

Sorry, Boone. Using your definitions, I am talking about what you get at the bottom if you don't enter anything in the "Site Domain:" field. It then says, "Step "create-site" failed: Please enter a site name." when it should say, "Step "create-site" failed: Please enter a site subdomain."

The site name and subdomain are two different things and two different fields, so it seems to me that the error message should be different and specify which is missing or incomplete.

I don't see any message at the top if I fill out all other fields except Site Domain: and hit Create. I was saying before that it might be good to have a message at the top, for Site Domain:, if you enter nothing and need to enter something. So this would be similar to the top message in your screenshot that appears when a chosen domain is already taken, but instead it could say, "Please enter a site subdomain." But I think we can skip this if others disagree or it's a hassle, as long as you get the same message at the bottom.

Thanks very much for these changes, Boone!