How to provide user login with a username and NOT an email?

Question

I\'d like to use Firebase for my web app that is for people with dementia in a care home. They do not have email or social network accounts so will need a simple username /

Answer 1

Appending a dummy domain at end is a kind of a patch up and should be avoided. To enable username login just follow these simple steps.

Sign Up

During sign up take the userid , email and password . Register the user with normal email and password. On Success of it save the email against the user_id in a separate node(branch).

mButtonSignUp.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
        @Override
        public void onClick(View v) {
            if(isValid()){
                mProgressBar.setVisibility(View.VISIBLE);
                final String userId = mEditTextUserId.getText().toString();
                final String emailId = mEditTextEmail.getText().toString() ;
                String password = mEditTextPassword.getText().toString() ;
                firebaseRef.createUser(emailId, password, new Firebase.ResultHandler() {
                    @Override
                    public void onSuccess() {
                       firebaseRef.child("user_ids").child(userId).setValue(emailId);
                       Toast.makeText(getBaseContext(),"You are successfully registered ",Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
                       mProgressBar.setVisibility(View.GONE);
                    }

                    @Override
                    public void onError(FirebaseError firebaseError) {
                        mProgressBar.setVisibility(View.GONE);
                        Toast.makeText(getBaseContext(),firebaseError.toString(),Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
                    }
                });

            }
        }
    });

Database

Database structure will look like this

Login

Check if the user has entered an email or userId. If it is a email id then directly perform login with it otherwise fetch the email id associated with the username and perform login.

    Button buttonLogIn = (Button)findViewById(R.id.button_login);
    buttonLogIn.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
        @Override
        public void onClick(View v) {             

            mProgressBar.setVisibility(View.VISIBLE);
            String username = mEditTextEmail.getText().toString() ;
            final String password = mEditTextPassWord.getText().toString() ;

          //  Check if it is an email or not
             if(android.util.Patterns.EMAIL_ADDRESS.matcher(username).matches())                 {
                performLogin(username,password);
            }else{
              //get the emailId associated with the username      
        firebaseRef.child("user_ids").child(username)
              .addListenerForSingleValueEvent(new ValueEventListener() {
                    @Override
                    public void onDataChange(DataSnapshot dataSnapshot) {
                        if(dataSnapshot!=null){
                            String userEmail =  dataSnapshot.getValue(String.class);
                            performLogin(userEmail,password);
                        }
                    }

                    @Override
                    public void onCancelled(FirebaseError firebaseError) {
                        //Handle Error
                    }
                });
            }

        }
    });

---

private void performLogin(String emailId, String password) {
    firebaseRef.authWithPassword(emailId,password, new Firebase.AuthResultHandler() {
        @Override
        public void onAuthenticated(AuthData authData) {
            uid = authData.getUid() ;
            Toast.makeText(getBaseContext(), authData.toString(), Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
        }

        @Override
        public void onAuthenticationError(FirebaseError firebaseError) {
            Toast.makeText(getBaseContext(), firebaseError.toString(), Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
        }
    });
}