updating the email

[designtrooper]

Suppose that a user chooses to update his e-mail(he is already a registered user ).

He does that by clicking the edit button of a form where he can enter the new e-mail.

Suppose now, that he does NOT alter the e-mail after all, and it stays the same.

Would you print to the browser a message saying"There is the same e-mail in the db-please enter another one".

Is the above the logical way to go?

[ralph.m]

Would you print to the browser a message saying"There is the same e-mail in the db-please enter another one".

Or perhaps—"That's the email address we already have in our database. Do you want to change this, or would you like to stick with this one? If you'd like to change it, click this button. If you don't want to change anything, click this other button ..."

[designtrooper]

Or perhaps—"That's the email address we already have in our database. Do you want to change this, or would you like to stick with this one? If you'd like to change it, click this button. If you don't want to change anything, click this other button ..."

yes...what you are suggesting is very good.

Do you know any famous web app that implements the above scheme-so as to see it in practice?

And lastly...2 more very relevant questions:

You think I should the above only in js or in PHP also(server side)?

And do you think it is better to use a modal box for the message?

Thanks for listening.

[ralph.m]

You think I should the above only in js or in PHP also(server side)?

And do you think it is better to use a modal box for the message?

JS is very unreliable, in that users may have it turned off, or may not be able to access its messages. Modal boxes can also be very difficult in terms of accessibility. Imagine someone using a screen reader. While these do support JS, I'm not sure how well they understand messages appearing on screen—especially in a modal box that may be hard to navigate to. PHP is better in that you know it can't be turned off, and in that it requires a page reload, which makes it easier to convey messages to everyone.

[designtrooper]

JS is very unreliable, in that users may have it turned off, or may not be able to access its messages. Modal boxes can also be very difficult in terms of accessibility. Imagine someone using a screen reader. While these do support JS, I'm not sure how well they understand messages appearing on screen—especially in a modal box that may be hard to navigate to. PHP is better in that you know it can't be turned off, and in that it requires a page reload, which makes it easier to convey messages to everyone.

I am not going to use a modal box but I am going to use js(along with PHP)-to display simple messages aside the input boxes-like twitter does for example

[ralph.m]

I am going to use js(along with PHP)-to display simple messages aside the input boxes-like twitter does for example

Yep, pretty common, and it's nice for those with eyes. I can be hard to alert non-sighted users to the fact that something has changed on the page, which is still a bit of a challenge at the moment. I gather some screen readers are better at handling this than others. The lesser ones take a snapshot of the page as it loads, and thus are unaware of any changes that happen after that.