Suggestion: Better documentation on profile errors.

[BigMike]

Before I begin, Im using RC1. Im waiting for 1.0 to come out before I upgrade

I cant really generalize this suggestion without filling in the details, so here goes....

A really old member who hasnt been on my forum for over 2 years decides to come back on and start posting.
But he not only forgot his password, but his original email address used in his account is no longer valid, so he cant do any reminders or anything.
So he created a new account just to contact me via private message and I went ahead and updated his email address and gave him a new temporary password so he can get back on

So here's my suggestion. While I was updating his email address, SMF would bounce me back and highlight Email:
So Im looking around and the text below is written as:
Email:
This must be a valid email address.

Well to keep this story short, the problem was that this guys temporary account he set up to contact me was using his updated email address, and of course emails can only be used once per member. So I changed his temp. account and then updated his original account and it worked.

But here's what's up. I dont check the Account Related Settings page too often (who does ) and I didnt even realize that "This must be a valid email address." is just a standard warning that is always there no matter if your changing or just viewing. Of course this is nice, but when I was encountering the problem, all I could gather is that I entered his address wrong / or that his address really isnt valid.  so I spent a good 5 mins checking his email host name, visited his host's website, compared his address to other members within that domain, I even thought that when I originally copied the email to my computers clipboard that it had some strange ascii codes that SMF didnt like, so I opened up a blank notepad and printed it out and then recopied and pasted that and still, "This must be a valid email address."

So my suggestion is that since you guys have the nice code the print out red for those fields that are in error, why not also offer a small tip that is related to the problem?
I could have saved 5 mins or so if a message had come up that said:
Email:
This email address is used by a different user.

So I think that would have been greatly helpful to me, especially since I typically dont have users like this and Its not like im running into any errors at all with SMF.

So whatta ya think? Good Idea?

[Oldiesmann]

Good point.