Greater field validation to simplify the work of indexers and approvers

[Simone Nardi]

Hello,

The other day, while editing the Color field of a series, I used square brackets `[]` instead of parentheses `()`, confusing them with array syntax.

The mistake was trivial, but I think it highlights a more general need: all fields should have validation checks at commit time (as already happens for some fields, for example with the current red error messages).

I've been pleased to see that much larger improvements are currently being developed than the one I'm suggesting. With that in mind, I was wondering whether it would be possible to extend this kind of validation to all fields, so that simple formatting and syntax errors can be caught before a commit, allowing approvers to focus on the correctness and semantics of the submitted data.

Thank you.
Simone Nardi

[Adam Hernandez]

For clarification, it sounds like you are looking for server side validation, not inline validation. Is that correct?

Adam

[Simone Nardi]

Yes, exactly. I mean server-side/back-end validation during the commit process, similar to the validation that already exists for some fields
  
Simone

[Jochen G.]

To clarify our used terminology, data entry validation tacks place in
the forms, when forms are saved.

Server side validation on commit (changeset is approved) would be too
late for this.

For colors, valid use cases exist for both [] and (), so just their
existence cannot be checked.

Jochen

Am 02.08.26 um 07:33 schrieb Simone Nardi:

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[Simone Nardi]

Hi Jochen,
Thanks for the clarification.

My color example was just one example. My point was more general: client-side validation can improve the user experience, but the authoritative validation should be on the Django side. Wherever a field has a well-defined syntax, additional validators (regex where appropriate, or custom validators) could catch malformed input before it is stored.

The goal is not to reject valid cases such as [] versus (), but to encode the existing syntax rules for fields where they are already defined, reducing common data-entry mistakes and making life easier for both indexers and approvers.

Would that be feasible?

  
Simone

[Jochen G.]

On very save of a form there are, for some forms quite extensive,
validations on the Django side (see any file in apps/oi/forms/). If one
cannot save a form and gets red errors, this comes from the server, not
the client.

There might be more checks possible, but for that concrete suggestions
are needed.

Jochen

Am 02.08.26 um 11:26 schrieb Simone Nardi:

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