Better feedback for providing a too-long shortname

[decentral1se]

What's the problem you want solved?

earthstar identities generate foobar
ValidationError: name must be between 4 and 4 characters long, but is 6

My first choice was > 4 and I imagine most people will do that too...

Error is a somewhat confusing read also 😅

Is there a solution you'd like to recommend?

Length ~ 16 chars to avoid this?

[achou11]

yeah I've pointed out the unclear error message from the CLI before. Not sure it's documented as an issue in https://github.com/earthstar-project-earthstar-cli but probably should be if it's not.

there's some specific reasoning for the 4 char length for the short name but will let gwil answer that since I don't fully remember :)

[decentral1se]

Ah right, probably needs to be migrated to https://github.com/earthstar-project/earthstar-cli

[sgwilym]

Here's the full breakdown of why shortnames are a part of keypair addresses, and why they are four characters.

Shortnames need to be long enough that they can express a clear relationship to the real identity of the account.

They need to be short enough for users to intuitively understand that they are non-unique.

Users can change their display names freely but their shortnames are fixed. Modifying the shortname effectively creates a new identity and the user's followers will not automatically follow the new identity.

Humane software must allows users to change their names.

[decentral1se]

Ah ok. I'd suggest doing an interactive input which limits to 4 chars (don't take args?). And/or giving a one-liner of the why directly on the CLI (potentially linking to the docs?). It isn't a great first UI/UX moment with the CLI facing an unexplained limitation.

[sgwilym]

I'm 100% with you that a better explanation should be given by the CLI.

I'm also (maybe obviously) not experienced with CLI design. Why is an interactive input is better than args for this? Quicker feedback?

[decentral1se]

Well, idk if better. Interactive would ideally limit the input at 4 chars and have a chance to output explanation while asking for input. It could be better UI/UX but some folks don't like interactive inputs 🤷‍♀️ Simplest is just have a better error message 😄 But then you do risk someone typing in a BigLongCoolShortNameTheyWant and then boom, error message, bitta confusion, etc.