SnipSnap register without email

<a href="http://snipsnap.org/">
  <img class="right shadow" src="/space/snipsnap-logo.png" /></a>

_This
article is also [posted on
snipsnap.org](http://snipsnap.org/space/register+without+email)._

### I don't want your email address...

[SnipSnap](http://snipsnap.org/), which [powers this site](/space/snipsnap), lets
visitors [register](/exec/register.jsp) so that they can log in, comment on
existing pages, and create their own pages. The default registration page asks
you for a username, a a password, and optionally, an email address. It's not
obvious that the email is optional, though, and many people have learned not to
give their email address to random web sites.

[My site](/) is small and personal, so I don't need email addresses. On the
contrary, I don't want anything to discourage my friends from registering. So, I
decided to remove the email box on the registration page altogether.

### ...so don't give it to me!

I could do this by [editing the JSP
files](http://www.snipsnap.org/comments/CodingQuestions), but that was a little
too invasive for my tastes. (I really should do this eventually, though...anyone
want to post a tutorial on editing the SnipSnap JSPs?) Instead, I used CSS, and
simply added this to [misc.css](/theme/css/misc.css) in my [SnipSnap
theme](/space/snarfed.org):

    /* don't ask people for their email address */
    input#email { display: none; }

The CSS only explicitly targets the input field, but it hides both the input
field and the label. I believe that's because the label's _for_ attribute points
to the input field, like so:

    <label for="email">Email address:</label>

In any case, it works, so I won't argue!

### In the old days, we walked, uphill, both ways!

Earlier versions of SnipSnap didn't provide an id for the email input. So, I
originally did this with Javascript, DOM, and CSS. Here's how. Save this as
noemail.js in your application's directory:

    /* Hide the email address input box on
        /exec/register.jsp .
     */

    emailbox = document.getElementById('email');
    if (emailbox) {
      emailbox.style.display = 'none';
    }

    label = document.getElementsByTagName('label')[1];
    if (label &&
        label.innerHTML == 'Email address:') {
      label.style.display = 'none';
    }

Then, add a link to noemail.js:

    <script type="text/javascript" src="/snarfed.js" />

Again, you could edit the JSPs to put this in the <meta> section, but I'm intent
on avoiding the JSPs, so I just wrote a [macro](/space/snipsnap_macros) to
insert this tag.

Hope this helps!

See also:

  * [snipsnap comment without login patch](/space/snipsnap_comment_without_login_patch)
  * [snipsnap macros](/space/snipsnap_macros)
  * [snipsnap recent-changes snip name patch](/space/snipsnap_recent-changes_snip_name_patch)
  * [snipsnap script macro and python](/space/snipsnap_script_macro_and_python)
  * [servlets with snipsnap](/space/servlets_with_snipsnap)
  * [virtual host redirection](/space/virtual_host_redirection)
  * [snipsnap 1.0b1 virtual hostname patch](/space/snipsnap_1.0b1_virtual_hostname_patch)
  * [snipscrape](/space/snipscrape)