Check Username availability while user types username on registration page

[ahmad]

Hi,
I am new to web development and I am using UserSpice to manage users on my website.
I want a little modification on registration page.
When a user enters a username then UserSpice checks that username already exits or not. If username already taken then it shows Error Message. But this whole process is done after the user press the Register button.
Can you please make it work live. I don't know how to do that I think its something AJAX or JQuery to work with but have no clear idea.
Please make it like as the password fields working,the user types password and UserSpice checks and turns the gray check to green. I want same function for Username field. On key up UserSpice should check for Username if the username exits in the database it should show the error directly on the same page without pressing the Register Button.
Thanks

[mudmin]

I think that's a great idea. I'm definitely not an ajax or jquery master, but we can give it a shot. If you get to it first, you can share your contribution with the community and we will put it out there for everyone!

[mudmin]

I will say that my main reason for not doing something like this is that if someone was trying to brute force attack your site they would go to the registration page and find out which usernames exist and then go to your login page and brute force the password of a known users. That's also why the login page does not tell you which piece of info you got wrong.

[karsen]

I don't mind this feature as long as some password strength enforcement is involved. If you base your password strength on how long it takes to crack instead of the typical required capitals, numbers, and special characters, even with a known username the password will still take a long time to brute force. Combine this with limited login attempts allowed within a set time period and the risk of brute force entry will be drastically diminished.

There are plenty of topics on these with a quick Google search, but here are a few links to get you started:
Brute Force Block class- very simple to implement
Password Entropy Check- much more secure than the Javascript alternative
jQuery + Ajax Tutorial- a long but easy to learn tutorial on jQuery+Ajax basics. There's so much more you can do but this should get you going, and you're always able to enhance your script once you've gained a bit more jQuery experience

[Brandin]

I would want us to include all of these in alpha.

We definitely need the block class at minimum imo.