Handle both negative and positive values when creating ids for checkboxes/radios

[jf-x-dev]

We get HTML ids for elements from this method:

govuk-form-builder/lib/govuk_design_system_formbuilder/base.rb

Line 77 in 4df4225

def build_id(id_type, delimiter = '-', replace = '_', attribute_name: nil, include_value: true)

So when creating checkboxes with values 1, 2, 3, we get elements with ids my-checkbox-1-field, my-checkbox-2-field, my-checkbox-3-field etc.

If we instead want to create checkboxes with values -1, -2, -3, we still get elements with ids my-checkbox-1-field, my-checkbox-2-field, my-checkbox-3-field due to the parameterize call in the above method.

There are some use cases where we want checkboxes with values that are both positive and negative. For example, for school years, you may have checkboxes for Nursery, Reception, Year 1, Year 2, which correspond to values -1, 0, 1, 2 internally.

In this case, you end up with two elements with the same HTML id (my-checkbox-1-field) which is very bad for both accessibility and automated E2E testing.

I'd be interested in hearing:

1. if this is something that should be handled
2. if so, how we should implement this?

[peteryates]

Ah this is something I didn't foresee! I'll have a think about better ways of dealing with it.

[mikejamesthompson]

We've just come across this again in Mavis and it will present quite an annoying usability issue.

What about using a different value for the separator in the call to parameterize in build_id on line 88?