mailcheck.js

The Javascript library and jQuery plugin that suggests a right domain when your users misspell it in an email address.

mailcheck.js is part of the Mailcheck family, and we’re always on the lookout for more ports and adaptions. Get in touch!

What does it do?

When your user types in “user@gmil.con”, Mailcheck will suggest “user@gmail.com”.

Mailcheck will offer up suggestions for second and top level domains too. For example, when a user types in “user@hotmail.cmo”, “hotmail.com” will be suggested. Similarly, if only the second level domain is misspelled, it will be corrected independently of the top level domain.

diagram

See it live in action here.

Installation

For instant use, download the minified library mailcheck.min.js into your javascripts directory. mailcheck.js is also available unminimised if you want to hack on it, or have your own minimizer.

Bower

> bower install --save mailcheck

Node/Browserify

> npm install --save mailcheck

Usage with jQuery

First, include jQuery and Mailcheck into the page.

<script src="jquery.min.js"></script>
<script src="mailcheck.min.js"></script>

Have a text field.

<input id="email" name="email" type="email" />

Now, attach Mailcheck to the text field. You can declare an array of domains, second level domains and top level domains you want to check against.

<script>
var domains = ['gmail.com', 'aol.com'];
var secondLevelDomains = ['hotmail']
var topLevelDomains = ["com", "net", "org"];

var superStringDistance = function(string1, string2) {
  // a string distance algorithm of your choosing
}

$('#email').on('blur', function() {
  $(this).mailcheck({
    domains: domains,                       // optional
    secondLevelDomains: secondLevelDomains, // optional
    topLevelDomains: topLevelDomains,       // optional
    distanceFunction: superStringDistance,  // optional
    suggested: function(element, suggestion) {
      // callback code
    },
    empty: function(element) {
      // callback code
    }
  });
});
</script>

Mailcheck takes in two callbacks, suggested and empty. We recommend you supply both.

suggested is called when there’s a suggestion. Mailcheck passes in the target element and the suggestion. The suggestion is an object with the following members:

{
  address: 'test',          // the address; part before the @ sign
  domain: 'gmail.com',    // the suggested domain
  full: 'test@gmail.com'  // the full suggested email
}

Mailcheck does not want to get in the way of how you can show suggestions. Use the suggestion object to display suggestions in your preferred manner.

empty is called when there’s no suggestion. Mailcheck just passes in the target element. It is a good idea to use this callback to clear an existing suggestion.

Usage without jQuery

Mailcheck is decoupled from jQuery, so its usage without jQuery is almost identical.

Using the example from above, you would call Mailcheck.run instead.

<script>
Mailcheck.run({
  email: yourTextInput.value,
  domains: domains,                       // optional
  topLevelDomains: topLevelDomains,       // optional
  secondLevelDomains: secondLevelDomains, // optional
  distanceFunction: superStringDistance,  // optional
  suggested: function(suggestion) {
    // callback code
  },
  empty: function() {
    // callback code
  }
});
</script>

The rest works similarly. In fact, the Mailcheck jQuery plugin just wraps Mailcheck.run.

Usage on Node.js

If you’re running this on Node.js, you can just require('mailcheck') to get the mailcheck object, and call run on that:

var mailcheck = require('mailcheck');

mailcheck.run({
  // see 'usage without jQuery' above.
});

Domains

Mailcheck has inbuilt defaults if the domains, secondLevelDomains or topLevelDomains options aren’t provided. We still recommend supplying your own domains based on the distribution of your users.

Adding your own Domains

You can replace Mailcheck’s default domain/TLD suggestions by supplying replacements to mailcheck.run:

Mailcheck.run({
  domains: ['customdomain.com', 'anotherdomain.net'], // replaces existing domains
  secondLevelDomains: ['domain', 'yetanotherdomain'], // replaces existing SLDs
  topLevelDomains: ['com.au', 'ru'] // replaces existing TLDs
});

Alternatively, you can extend Mailcheck’s global set of default domains and TLDs by adding items to Mailcheck.defaultDomains and Mailcheck.defaultTopLevelDomains:

Mailcheck.defaultDomains.push('customdomain.com', 'anotherdomain.net') // extend existing domains
Mailcheck.defaultSecondLevelDomains.push('domain', 'yetanotherdomain') // extend existing SLDs
Mailcheck.defaultTopLevelDomains.push('com.au', 'ru') // extend existing TLDs

Customization

The Mailcheck jQuery plugin wraps Mailcheck. The prime candidates for customization are the methods Mailcheck.findClosestDomain and Mailcheck.stringDistance.

Mailcheck currently uses the sift3 string similarity algorithm by Siderite. You can modify the inbuilt string distance function, or pass in your own when calling Mailcheck.

Since Mailcheck runs client side, keep in mind file size, memory usage and performance.

Tests

Mailcheck is tested with Jasmine. Run npm test from the command line to run the test suite. Alternatively, you can Load spec/spec_runner.html in your browser.

Contributing

Let’s make Mailcheck awesome. We’re on the lookout for maintainers and contributors.

And do send in those pull requests! To get them accepted, please:

Test your code. Add test cases to spec/mailcheckSpec.js, and run it across browsers (yes, including IE).
Minify the plugin by running grunt in the Mailcheck directory (npm install should have installed a git pre-commit hook that takes care of this for you).

Upcoming features, bugs and feature requests are managed in Issues.

Who uses Mailcheck?

Do you use Mailcheck? Tweet me your link.

Core Team

Derrick Ko, @derrickko. Created Mailcheck.
Wei Lu, Hive, @luweidewei.

License

Released under the MIT License.