Drupal 6 - form submission data loss from empty required fields

Question

Scenario: Content profile node-type has new required fields added after many users have already filled out their profile info. (this scenario can work for any node-type). They go back to update their profile, and don't see the need to fill in the required fields, submit the forms, miss seeing the error message, and walk away, thinking that their updates have been submitted successfully.

I've had various versions of this same scenario play out across different websites and situations. And have tried out various home-made solutions where I have data collected at the validation stage in a nodeapi hook implementation. But those solutions are painful and flawed.

Anyone know of a simple solution to this pervasive problem?

Answer 1

This is the default behavior, but I agree that it would be a irritating issue.

Perhaps if you did something like a warning message at the top when the user loads a previously edited node that has empty fields that are now required? That would get them looking at it from the get go. form_alter could do this for you.

Adding some pretty CSS on the page to highlight the empty required fields would also help guide them to the fields where their input is required.